It was the December of '91,
and Larry asked me to come with
him and some ladies he knew
from Cameron Christian to
some **** yogurt shop on
Dead Dog Ave.

Three brunettes and a blonde;
at the time
I didn't care much for brunettes,
but god, god, god,
the blonde
with the crystal grey eyes,
the wrinkled floral print dress,
an optimistic ***,
and shaky feet
every single time
I made the eyes.

Sarah and Jennifer (two of the brunettes)
smelled of Glade-Feces-Blanket-Spray,
the third was far too young
to undress,
and I nearly strangled my beautiful blonde
when she mouthed, "Eliza."

I kept talking up the
fact my dad had just kicked me out.
I told Eliza I had the most magnificent
apartment
a bachelor could buy,
she kept averting her eyes,
shifting subjects like
playing cards,
my hands kept clinching,
clasping,
aching,
"Be right back, purty ladies."
I headed for the bathroom
leaving Larry to ******
Jennifer Glade.

I looked in the mirror,
I remember giving myself
a pep talk,
but I can't for the life of me
remember anything I said.

I remember pulling a dwindling
bottle of Black Label from my jacket.
I had taken it from my ******* dad,
the night he yelled, yelled, yelled,
until I was in some low-income complex
with a bunch of lowlife, ******
fuckups.

I ****** off the remnants.
Combed, recombed my greasy hair,
went back in,
just in time to hear
Jennifer Glade spout her stupid mouth,
"Larry, I told you I have a boyfriend."
"He's a ******* idiot."
She started to whimper,
said something like he was a regular sweetheart.
The regulars are so boring.

Larry stood up,
accused her of leading him on,
the acne cashier asked us to "pipe down",
I directed my stare into his acne-framed
irises.

I walked quietly toward him,
I could feel Larry and the girls
tracing my every feature.
"Just leave him alone,"
said my blonde little sweetie,
I turned back to her briefly.
Her skin looked like milk,
I wondered if it tasted like milk,
I kept my feet on track,
redirected the gaze,
back to my heavy-breathing cashier.

I got eight inches away from his face,
he fumbled some words,
that left a bad taste.
I could see my reflection in his retinas.
I looked clumsy and circular.
My milky, blonde Eliza would
never go for a circular **** like me.
This conclusion
coursed through my veins with
irrational speed.

I shot the acne cashier.
Right in his stupid, acne-framed iris.
The gun had been my grandfather's.
He had killed a black boy in the '30s with it.
Got to love legacies.

The brunettes were screaming.
I think Larry was trying to reason with me,
or maybe he was throwing up-
somebody threw up,
anyways,
I shot the young one first.
She had annoyed me most.

Then Sarah Glade.
Then Jennifer Glade.
Eliza began to run.

I jogged after her,
she frantically searched for a phone,
and my milky blonde
found one.

I stopped at the doorway,
rested my head on the frame,
listened to her cry into the handset,
begging for the police.
I opened my lids,
silently strolled up behind her,
with my left hand
I grabbed her optimistic ***,
with my right hand
I pulled the trigger.
She splattered onto me.
I felt successful.

I walked outside.
A silent,
still Austin night,
not even a dog on the street.
Larry was crying.
I told him to shut up.
They were *******.
Asked him for his lighter.
He opened his car door,
dug in his center console,
buried under 6-feet of cigarettes
was a lighter,
he popped the trunk,
I grabbed the gas can.

I erased Friday's mistakes,
and found Larry had driven off without me.
I walked to my low-income home.
I had a lazy Saturday.
Read an interesting story in the Guardian on Sunday.
By noon on Monday,
they were pointing cameras at me.

So your motorbike gets you from A to B
With no hiccups or fuckups or stops in between,

No ponderous walking just to **** time
Or impromptu chats with a friendly old guy,

An excuse just ramble and gather your thoughts
Explore a some places or visit old haunts

If you find something new in an old part of town,
You find that there's worse things than sometimes breakingdown.

I admit it's frustrating to get to work late,
Or have your dinner plans foiled whilst out on a date.

But When friends say "just get a bike that works'
I reply "one that doesn't sometimes has its perks."

I’m  at work
Buzzing to get out of there
Out of the fluorescence
And the din of screaming children
As it downplays the howling heads
Of their mothers who
Dream of their children’s exposed
Necks and getting out of the grocery store
Before it starts to rain.

I am Bobcat Goldthwait
underneath
The large hanging lamps,
pale green as barge lights
I make little sounds with my lips
And tongue, little incoherent sounds
To push the time forward .

A man comes through
My line holding a beige patch
Of cloth
Over his exposed trachea beneath,

with a voice like he crushes cement
puts it in his coffee
and ***** it up through a fiberglass straw.,
He drops some
Toothpaste and a brush on the counter
And says to me with that mutilated
Voice:
“there are only two types of *****,
Big old *****,
And old big *****.”

His skin is blotchy in the cheeks
like the husks of craters seen from the sky,
and the corners of his mouth
are dry and cracked
snaking and splitting outward like dry riverbeds.

For a second I want to laugh so hard,
That people will think I’m crazy, and
Maybe one of the twitchy managers will have
Me committed.

If he says any more, it’s this:
“You’re young, enjoy it,
if you worry
About the fuckups now,
you’ll Be worrying
until you’re an old ******
and that doesn’t do you any good,
***** hates the old **** ups.”

where did i lose my warmth?
at which place had i turned my switch?

in starbucks? secondhand bookstores?
was it in the local bar or the liquor store?
in houses i crashed, couches i spent the night on
or of dorm rooms i slept at and sheets i found comfortable?

to what girl had i offered it in lieu of the rush?

had i made the trade with the girl
who dragged me through unlit streetlights
as she had her lips perched on mine,
opened my heart with intensity that made her tremble
and eventually turned me into a massive mess.
was it her? i was always too drunk to recall.

or perhaps i gave it away, little by little
to the bartender in a black shirt
with a walrus at the back,
and his sadness was seen in his eyes every night.
we never really spoke.
i ask for shots, he gives them to me.
but he understood. i know he always did.
he looks at me in a way.
all fuckups know why we do the things we do
was it with him?

or was it the cigarette lady
from where i lit my first menthol stick
and swallowed the cough
that i really wanted to release?

maybe it goes farther back

had i lost my warmth in words?
in unsent text messages?
literature? poetry? essays? prose?
metaphors – not at all.

i lost it when i was eight
when i knew about my father's infidelity
when i felt my first rejection
when i felt so unwanted
when my heart broke for my mom
there, in that very dark room had i lost it all.

but the better question should be:
was it ever there?

Grand finale of days Opera,
nocturnal protagonist's fulfillment,
the reason mornings ****,
why all night we wanna ****,
why sleeping alone means bad luck,
I must not be alone here,
atmosphere of this thought,
gladly knows mere,
yet no more than mere facade of fuckups

This is one for all those sad girls
Who just can't seem to understand
How beautiful they are, how perfect
The girl of somebodies dreams

This is one for all the fuckups
The one's who mean well
And try to be good
But always go down in flames

This one is for all the rejects
Sitting alone on the stairs
Life get's better son, I swear it
Someday this place will be yours

This is one for all the people
Who couldn't find a way to deal
So they checked out
Forever

This is one for you
And here's another for me
Raise your glass to the outcasts
Pray for them to be happy

I really can imagine-
what it would be like
to live in a home
where there is no love warmth compassion affection
rights equality truth love sympathy freedom believing and dreaming
because the truth is my dear
Its a life ive been blessed with-- from an optomists perspective.
Life.
It wont get the best of me.
Ill learn from there fuckups and toxic wrong doings.
If I should make it to produce offspring of some sort--
I know I will shower them in More love than I have ever felt in 21 years
They will be able to confide, love, dream, speak, be honest, respect and talk to me
face to face.

Sometimes I ******* hate you.

The feeling lasts longer and longer each time you snap.

I’m bigger, stronger than you now, but I still can’t stop you.

After all, you are the monster under my bed. The claw round the door, the matted fur and blood in the sink.

You are the bad man.

And that is how it will always be.

You are illogical, unreasonable. You defy rules you impose unto others.

I’ve endured a lifetime of this abuse, And you don’t even apologise the next day anymore.

Because you’ve found a hook, something to blame for your fuckups.

That hook is me.

And so, as you spit in my face, with beer in your blood, you are blameless in your mind.

Hate pushes the shame away.

It just saddens me that I’ve done nothing but forgive you all this time, and all you can do is hate me.

Have I ****** up? Yes.
Have I wanted to **** myself over a mound of thousands of fuckups? Yes.
Have I hurt myself over **** ups? Yes.
Have I drank a lot because I ****** up. Of course.
How hard have I tried my absolute hardest to specifically not **** up? Oh yea. I've ****** up a lot. I fight and claw my way out of this mound of corpses that haunt me. These corpses are my own, The corpses of myself every time I died a little when I saw people who knew who I was and who I thought liked me look at me with an expression of horror. To those people I say, think of what you felt like when you messed up, when you did or said something that you would take back any way you could. Cut them some slack or there will be another corpse on the mound.

I fall to my knees as you run that mouth
We will always crash and burn
When it's the truth we need to learn
Over and over the darkness spins endlessly
Taking a hold of the tension screaming in every nerve
Crushing it till you get what you deserve

I save myself from sacrifice
The blood that rains down won't be mine
I'll save myself from sacrifice
The more you cut the less I mind
You cry, you beg, it's you that bleeds
The husk of your soul that was never meant to be
Crumbles in the aftermath of all the ****** debris

Pointless dramas in a wasted life
Full of scars and memories stuck on constant repeat
These technicolour fuckups have never set you free
Tripping on your fear and hate in a sick twisted sea

I save myself from sacrifice
The blood that rains down won't be mine
I'll save myself from sacrifice
The more you cut the less I mind
You cry, you beg, it's you that bleeds
The husk of your soul that was never meant to be
Crumbles in the aftermath of all the ****** debris

So take these words and choke them down
The lump of your truth will be painful to drown
Your mind is now open to realities lies
It's you that is broken now open your eyes
I want you to watch as...

I save myself from sacrifice
The blood that rains down won't be mine
I'll save myself from sacrifice
The more you cut the less I mind
You cry, you beg, it's you that bleeds
The husk of your soul that was never meant to be
Crumbles in the aftermath of all the ****** debris

life isn't what you make of it.
its what you've made.
life is constantly living with the aftermath
of the mistakes you've made
if you're prone to making them
it's a recurring past tense result
check-sum of your most fantastical fuckups

9/2/2017

Sure, i was young and stupid
Its a good excuse its not nice to think you would make the same mistake twice
Im older now, more wise
At least, thats the narrative i live by
I wont be stupid again like that time
I wont misjudge a snake for a vine
I wont get bit, i wont cry
My boundaries stand high
Noone unworthy gets by
So dont even try

I will find good people, make good love
No more stupid mistakes, no more fuckups
My old self was sweet but messed up
Im stronger now, better at coping with stress
Less *******, more truth

But is that really how you wanna feel about the younger you?
The one that made it through?
The little kid that stood up time and again
When depression exacerbated everything she felt?
Who made it through her own hell?
Well, maybe its healthier to belittle her than to feel helpless
But know that she was glorious herself and
She was wise and well equipped
To cope with reality's *******
She survived the hellish
Stayed vulnerable, wasnt selfish
Hell, if thats what you wanna trivialize, be my guest
But just remember to say thank you
Because if you are better, its because she was the best