Read this to yourself. Read it silently.
Don't move your lips. Don't make a sound.
Listen to yourself. Listen without hearing anything.
What a wonderfully weird thing, huh?

NOW MAKE THIS PART LOUD!
SCREAM IT IN YOUR MIND!
DROWN EVERYTHING OUT.
Now, hear a whisper. A tiny whisper.

Now, read this next line with your best crochety- old-man voice:
"Hello there, sonny. Does your town have a post office?"
Awesome! Who was that? Whose voice was that?
It sure wasn't yours!

How do you do that?
How?!
Must be magic.

Sluts! Sluts! I fuck sluts!
Sluts get fucked when I fuck sluts!
No ifs, ands, and/or buts!
I fuck sluts! I fuck sluts!

Nice girls are nice, but no good for nut-sucking.
They'll need a serene night to green-light a butt-fucking,
but that'll be easy with sleazy ol' slut-fucking!
Boo to the nice girls! Praise be to slut-fucking!

I have a list. A list? Yes, a list of all the sluts I've missed.
I've never fucked or sucked these sluts and thus my nuts are fucking pissed.
So when I fuck the lucky slut, my nut removes her from the list---
another dumb cumbucket struck from my nut-sucking,
"suck it, slut!" slut-fucking bucket list.

Sluts can be white, brown, pink, or almond.
They can be skinny with big tits or skinny with small ones.
Sluts can be perky, preppy, or posh,
with their brains and their clothes all shrunk from the wash.

But other sluts are pretty and funny and smart.
They can lift your thoughts from your dick to your heart.
They can talk about science, music, or art.
They can put you together or pull you apart.

But don't trust these sluts! Don't! Don't you dare!
They'll force you to trust them and love them and care.
And then they'll be gone and then you'll be aware
of that hole in your heart that that dumb slut left there.

I wear a scarf
                  to keep my words warm.
So you will smile when
                     they smack you in the face.

The Squares lived happily,
in their square houses,
in their square yards,
in their square town.

One day, a family of Circles
moved in from the west.

"Get out of here, roundies!" shouted one of the Squares.
"Why?" asked one of the Circles.
"Because this is a metaphor for racism!"

I want to kiss you all day.
I want to start at dawn.
I want our mouths to dry out by breakfast.
I want our jaws to start cramping by noon.
I want us to question our decision to kiss all day by hour five.
I want to have sex really quickly then seriously stop all this kissing bullshit because you need your personal space, apparently.

"No one understands me."

         it slipped out in
         a timid whisper
          
                             as she combed her beard.

Why do poets always talk about the ocean's waves,
about their single file march to shore,
and yet never talk about my grandmother's farts,
which arrive in time, one after the other, with equal
     regularity?

Are these poets too holy to comment on anything
less than nature's flashiest gestures?
Are we going to spend another millenia searching
for meaning in sunsets and waterfalls?

Or will we finally turn our ear to Grammy's rump
and away from all that pretty stuff,
and hear that foul, muted trumpet sing,
marking the end of an era?

I want to beat you to death with a blunt object.

I want to grab one of those high-end fashion mannequins by the ankles and bash your ribcage in.

I want to sharpen fifty pencils, bind them with a rubber band, stick the lead ends in your mouth, and punch the erasers.

I want to strap you to a bed of nails and then strap that bed of nails to the hood of my car so I can watch you suffer as we drive over speed bumps in a mall parking lot during an earthquake.

I want to burn your dog in front of you, mix his ashes with gunpowder, melt his bone-shaped name tag into a small metal ball, load it all into a musket, and shoot you in the face with him.

I want you to somehow survive a terrible car crash and then somehow not survive a small fender bender on the way back from the hospital.

You think I'm crazy?
HA! That's real funny.

If I were crazy, would I have written a twelve-hundred-page novel without using a single vowel?
No. 'Cause I did. And I'm not crazy.

If I were crazy, would I be able to predict the future by dropping empty tuna cans into an open drain in my backyard?
No. 'Cause I can. And I'm not crazy.

If I were crazy, would I love to slit your fucking throat just to watch the color drain from from your face and onto that cleanly pressed collared shirt of yours?
Yes. I would love that if I were crazy.

But I'm not crazy.

Old people's skin sags
Because it is being pulled
To the Underworld.

I'll have a cheeseburger.
Hold the cheese.

Hold it in your hand until it melts---
until it bears the shape of that voluptuous palm of yours.

Then put it on my burger.