I’ve been in every angle of love.

Love is not good.
It doesn’t matter which viewer you are,
It’s just not good.
I’ve been the one who gives,
I’ve been the one who receives,
I’ve been the the one who gives and receives,
I’ve even been the outsider.
And none of them feel good.

Now I’m with someone that,
For the first time,
Embraces more than I do.
And it’s funny, because I don’t love him.
I like him,
But I don’t love him.
And I don’t know why.

Whenever he searches for my hand to hold,
I smirk,
Or when looks at me, asking for a kiss with his eyes,
I melt.
And when we sleep together
It’s never for ***,
It’ll never be for ***,
We only go to bed when we want to go to sleep.
And when he puts his arms around me,
And lies his head on the back of my neck,
I grab his hand, and fall asleep.
Now I’m a huge snorter,
I snore in my sleep,
Pretty badly by the way.
But I never snorted when I slept with him.
And it’s funny how my soul doesn’t burn when he comes to my mind,
Instead it reboots and buffers around,
searching for something that’s missing.

The love and passion that I have for another man.

dad is in the garage.
days into spark-light and piles of polyethylene
etched.
soon, he says.
as grandaddy laughs,
rattling the icebox for more beer.

dad’s homemade android:
  the thing.
like a doll polished
& grinning, it
dances for us in the kitchen.

the dog barks, chained in the backyard.

the thing,
do-si-dos for a laugh, catches a glimpse
of the trees beyond the yard,
overheats,
circuits popping into a limp heap of pieces.
  dead.
left to mold-over in the garage.

the days.
the rain.
the cats tiptoeing along the edge of fences
across the street.
the dog barking, chained, &
snapped.
  dead
beneath a truck.

dad is in hysterics.
dad is in the garage,
weeks in and his soaked red knuckles.
mom is drinking with grandaddy.
they rattle the icebox.
  the dog.

the dog dances for us in the kitchen,
reboots and sits.
it digs a pit all night and buries three cats there.
it sleeps on the mound.
it never barks.
it waits there in the backyard, still
& staring into the trees.
  the trees.

From love I love a thousand things
but only two or three,
make my heart skip a beat,
melt and drain to feet.
The things in love we overrate
confuse and startle me.
Making out is great and all
but truly you believe?
That touching lips is better than,
holding hands and cheeky grins.
I believe love's greatest things
are silent, private, natural, free.
You know they know you missed a beat
and they know you know they did too.
In that brief and perfect moment,
brain shuts down; instincts cue.

Losing track,
left foot next,
right foot
left foot
stop, and - back.
Brain loads up,
lungs take air,
right foot
left foot
stop - relax.

In those brief and perfect moments,
when your heart drains to your foot,
you know love's worth the tricky
bits before and after put.
The moment after brain reboots
and lungs take air and feet compute.
Just before your head is clear,
you're sober and your thoughts adhere.
You're dizzy, almost, not severe,
in a word, your world - ideal.

For me, maybe, love is near?

You are the grains against roots
You are the pictures to the poems
You are the music to the seasons
Utterly mistaken for one, two years

Shifting your moves
Reconstructing images from the page
Searching new views
Resting your chin knowing
The crickets will never rest
The oceans will never forever forget you
The forest will be burnt

A paradox will be solved
For you, crashes require reboots
Setting leap year back once more

The flowers will forever
Bring you a demesne

You are a pastiche
Your voice is mellifluous
A formal fallacy resents
The starting line logically
Helping you recognize the beginning

"You are not special!"
People stood and shouted around me
As I sat and listened to other words of encouragement

"You are not special!"
People shouted trying to break free
As I sat and pondered my bodies torment

"The world around you is a lie!"
People clapped others cried
Not with sorrow but the joy of absolution

"The world around you is a lie!"
The man at the top of the room proclaimed
I listen and my duty as a being seemed to longer remain

There's nothing new out there
It's just TV reruns, reboots and reimagings, reborns and rewinds
There is no future just the past again
And again and again

Electronic *******
Like glitter stained blood
Bodies probed with bones
Yes bones filled with ***
You do not misunderstand
Those white strands
Burn the eyes and softens the skin
Underneath the crust it leaves
And I do believe tears do the same

Electronic stigmata
Like holy reboots
  Eve probed with hangers
Yes eve filled with empty masculegacy
Do you understand?
Those red stains
Filled with the unborn
The exalted it leaves
And I do believe Jesus did the same

Robot boys,
metal jammed
god dammed
hot gears burning,
synthetic sounds
static blaring,
nobody caring.

Chrome gleaming
engine screaming
in lust
ready rust or bust
a robust nut.

Don’t startle them
or they will bolt.

Pre-programed
young to old man
machines made
to work
drink
and act like jerks
while they are
****** around.

Till they
finally shutdown,
no reboots or sequels
just scrap
for the junkyard.

the theme of this person-to-be is footprint.  for years I hated my figure and for years I went undetected.  I had female heroes both sad and sad reboots.  for a fee one told me I was fleeting.  the fee included the thumbtack moon my heel had liberated from a schoolchild’s diorama.  we come as babies so none can ask us what we remember.  the theme of this person-as-is

is mouthpiece.  her red phone has been tapped by those my blood is filming.

Two second-hands living in the same Big Ben
counter and clockwise beat together in a similar rhythm on opposing schedules of the day
she breaks her fast at around 8am, syncing with his injestion of supper and she collapses at midnight just as he reboots for the night shift
though they spend most of the ticks and tocks in varying angles
It was agreed upon that they meet on the sixth –
Definitely on the sixth of the week
to reconcile and kindle… caressing those can’t-be-helped blank spaces where fragments should have been