In the modern void
Floats a vast and barren planet approaching
Absolute zero
Though once teeming with life and
Energized by starlight
Now it just orbits
Telling itself
---in an unconvincing tone---
That one day
The star will burst
(Stars sometimes do that)
The orbit will change
All will be ****** into a black hole
Dark and cozy and oblivion
Beyond absolute zero
Beyond any fiery passions
Beyond seemingly endless orbits
The black hole and the planet will sip tea made just so
With boiling water from sea level
Not steeped too long
Just the right amount of sugar
And a touch of love
Not too much love though
Just enough to escape the touch of gravity
For a time
Before waking from that daydream
Still orbiting around a dead star

Does a human being have razorblade claws or gunmetal teeth
Does a human being have the grizzly bear hide
or the exotic suction cups?
Then what has kept it alive all these millions of years
What protects it from all predators
Even those it cannot see
Those it cannot physically defeat
What lets it defy Nature herself
None, but the mind
And the proper body to wield it
Will we soon get a peek under the dress?

So why didn’t my mother name me Kevin?
Because sometimes the middle name is really what you want to name your kid
But you think another is more pragmatic
Either because the middle is too wild
Or, in my mother’s case
It was more important to do honor to her recently dead husband
Than to pick the name she had always
Dreamed
Of naming a child

But that’s where I get stuck
Why is my first name his middle name?

samanthasmit:  Love you
you wanna come over at 10?
lol
me:  sure
samanthasmit:  
Yay!
Sent at 8:10 PM on Thursday
me:  oh sorry, you misunderstood me.  i meant to say "sure..."  You know, sarcastically, like "sure...i'm gonna come over" (when pigs fly!)
samanthasmit:  :(
me:  I kid
samanthasmit:  :|  
Do you?
me:  Yes of course
Sent at 8:17 PM on Thursday
samanthasmit:  good :)
I think
lol
Sent at 8:18 PM on Thursday
me:  what I really meant was "sure" in response to a bootleg jeopardy episode I'm watching on the internet.  The clue was
"the best-selling bargain brand deodorant of the 1990s"
samanthasmit:  haha
nice
but
t
ttt
I wannna sleep next to you
this is getting to be unhealty
Sent at 8:23 PM on Thursday
me:  okay then sure, as in I'll come over at ten
Sent at 8:24 PM on Thursday
   :))))
thats a millionz smiles
me:  I see 5...***?!
Sent at 8:28 PM on Thursday
me:  Or some guy standing beside his sombrero collection
samanthasmit:  lol
They're just really tiny
me:  or he has an extraordinarily large mouth
Sent at 8:31 PM on Thursday
samanthasmit:  lol

You are not a Roman
In life, no matter your country, we do as the Romans do
If you are not a Roman you will be unhappy
Romans go to school and have high school sweethearts
They get good jobs, get married, reproduce, retire and die
It is a wonderful thing to the Romans.
The right thing
The only thing
Just as long as it doesn’t get interrupted by tragedies like cancer, cults, art, or radical political opinions
The Romans like
Action! that releases adrenalin
Fatty, sugary, salty foods
Endorphins
Catchy musical patterns
Games!
Catchphrases
And love stories (***! tee hee)
There are a million ways to not be a Roman,
But most roads lead to Rome
The Romans smile on those who do as the Romans do
They adore freedom
To be anything you want to be
To be yourself
To be as the Romans are
Why would it be any other way?
Would you be angry at a dog ******* on a fire hydrant?
They are instinct devoid of the context that created it
The Romans don’t understand Why? anyone would want to do Otherwise
Clearly
The Romans
(Quite understandably mind you)
Understand
Who wouldn't want all this?

The only thing I want is you
We'll live on the outskirts of Rome
Eating Thai fusion
Discovering new chemicals for our brains
Electricity
That still registers a signal
The movies we've seen
Before
And before that
We'll wave at the strangers in a strange land
A dried-up decaying laugh track
Dust dancing in time
A place I care less and less about every day
Every
*******
Minute

So you say you want to die?  
I suppose subjectivity can be heavy
Repetition, boredom and existential claustrophobia  
But you should at least see the world from the top of Pike's Peak first.
It can be your beginning
A catalyst for awe
The explosion that sets you aflame
After that you will begin to see it in everything
Even in something as mundane as a blade of grass
Then your life will be spent at the top of a mountain
Your head will always float in the clouds
Light as dandelion seeds in the wind
Deep as the whole of existence

With perfect deadpan delivery
The doctor called it cancer
You laughed so hard you cried
And called it a challenge
You said you had always dreamed
Of being a cancer survivor
What an opportunity

86 years 55 days
The website told me
This is how long
I can expect to exist

I am a pauper
Among the wealth of the Universe
Handed a dollar of existence

55 years 46 days
The website told me
Is how much
I have left

8 hours per day
40 hours per week
2,080 hours per year
I sell my existence
Exchange it really
For American currency

16 years 119 days
My dollar is taxed by sleep
And I forget that bit of existence

Let’s itemize my spending
So we can make a proper budget

I’ll spend 6.39% of my dollar worrying about pointless ****
4% going to and from the place I sell myself
2.11% envying
1.98% hating
1.21% pouting
Or yelling at the dog
0.99% generally getting worked up about nothing
0.63% filling out forms and paying bills and whatever
0.37% talking about the weather
0.13% riding in elevators
Though this can sometimes be bundled with weather
For nice discount

Oh, what else?

How about the times preening in the mirror
Or wondering if my shirt is untucked
Or if people can tell I just masturbated?
God only knows the time spent
Attempting the rock hard, rippling abs of my dreams
And waiting in line
Cursing the old lady paying with a check
And a dozen coupons

What I’m saying
Really
Is how much of time’s currency needs to be spent
Walking, running, skipping, jumping and stomping in a circle?
Crowing angrily about how much I don’t care for this
Or for that
About what and who are wrong with America
With television
With music
With kids these days
Moaning about the left and the right
About the ******* Imperial measurement system
About crying babies on airplanes
And people who think a billboard threatening eternal torture
Is God’s will

How long
Really
Before I realize
Who, in the ****, gives
A running, skipping, jumping ****
And two *****
In change
That caring about that ****
Is for suckers
Who spend their lives
On get happy quick schemes
And opinions you can set your watch to
Solid citizens
Who get their money’s worth
Out of their vocal cords

When
When
When
Will I see the question
Instead of being put to the question
And the question is and always will be this:
When did I exist with you?
How many hours will I put away
For a rainy day
Walking, running, skipping, jumping and stomping in puddles with you?
When did I play and touch and love and kiss and feel
You?
What was my time spent
Being
Existing
Living
With you?

When it’s all said
When it’s all done
And I look at the blackness
With my pockets pulled inside out
Shrugging my shoulders
And falling to my knees
How much
Of this precious little currency
Will I have spent
On you?
And how much
Will I have squandered?

How much time will I have spent working
And squawking about the thisses and the thats
About the hims and the hers
About usses and thems
Cowering
A trembling little animal
Clawing for scraps at shadows
Hording dust and mold
All the while
Hurling solid gold
To the dark

When that’s it
And this is the end
What can be more to my life
To my existence
Than you?

Sure I’m what most would consider a bright guy
but I’m not uncommonly intelligent
I’ve met many people I consider smarter
I make frequent dumb mistakes

What you like is caused mostly by
an idyllic childhood,
an extremely loving but eccentric mother,
overcoming a wide variety of relatively-uncommon/not-dangerous/but-embarrassing afflictions
constant movement around the country,
lack of religion, nation or professional sports team,
rampant self-pity
and
*** use and abuse phasing between infrequent* to daily**

I’m afraid of practically everything
But I’m blessed with the ability to constantly face my fears
Cannabis induces the purest fear of existence (i.e. awe)
Once overcome it produces life
And what dreams may come

I want a dog who is a big fat coward like me
And barks only behind thick glass television screens
Face to face his tail is between his legs
And he looks away from dogs half his size
He hides under the bed during storms
And licks robbers on the knees
He is a companion that knows what it is to fear
To envy the bravado of the brawny action star
When your only catchphrase is trembling
My dog bounds into the foggy recesses I forgot exist
No longer in sight
I hear him bark and claw at the echoes within

Why can’t people be like my dog?
Ignoring the $15 chew toy
Made with gen-you-wine rabbit fur
To relish the precious plastic bottle cap
Mined from under the couch

I think dogs are humanity’s attempt
To engineer the most innocent being possible
Something that can play without thought
Sleep absolutely
And pretend to **** without hesitation or guilt
They're blank slates
Empty vessels into which
We pump all our love
Have it refined
And manufactured into joy
But the domesticator is also domesticated
The way they mold us
Into something more gentle
More kind
Something in awe of
Creatures that can squeeze more happiness
From a ***** old sock
Carelessly dropped to the floor
Than I could get from all the toys in the world

I have had enough of people  
Of life
I have had enough of the noises
We make on cue
The buttons pressed
The buzzes and whirs
That always fizzle
The righteous anger
And the bloodlust masquerading as fact
The hopeless treadmill of pleasure
And this glass of high proof alcohol
That disinfects my heart

Every sappy movie I watch
Every love song hear
Every  tragic romance
Every honey soaked poem
That makes children groan

Every golden day
Every bursting flower
Every shimmering sea
Every cozy nook
Just big enough for two

Every time
Every ******* time
I think of you

You are the heroine in my biography
You are the infectious refrain
You are the catalyst of suicide
You are the eyes that start wars
And the blood that ends them

You are the sun
Nourishing the budding rose
Heating the swirling water
And setting us adrift
Carefree and content
Trying to remember when
To figure out how
The world became so lovely

I have been told I will always love you
My master named desire
Wants and wants and wants
Protection
Purpose
Endurance
And so we shall give him
In our fading land of make believe
Oh how grand and royal!
To pretend beyond the mortal coil
That forever is forever
That love endures
That we will no longer want and want and want
We will have, Always!
Dot dot dot

To the pigeons that **** all over the world
Congratulations
You’re ******* *******
You shouldn’t even be allowed in a place like this
And that cold air that turns my mouth numb
Making me slur like I’m drunk?
Yeah don’t think I forgot about you
Why didn’t they stuff you somewhere in back?
You can go **** yourself like the pigeons
And the sun, so obnoxious
Everyone in this place can hear you
Turning my skin a healthy purple
What a ****
Oh and look who just came in?
The TV
She never has anything good to say
**** all y’all
I didn’t ask for any of this
I’d like to see the manager please
My request was simple enough
Some ambiance
Some quiet
Nothing near the restroom
Someone told me I’d get started
With a fulfilling job
A juicy paycheck
With a nice golden sear
Something I could really sink my teeth into
That could really make a difference
To tease my hunger, you know?
Everyone is always raving about the appetizers
At this place
Also, I ordered a drink like 15 years ago
What the hell happened to that?
Something imported
With eyes on the rocks
And some interesting problems please
Oh, don’t bother now
My entrée?
Yes, well, that’s fine
Great actually
Better than I expected
Maybe better than I deserve
Cooked just right
And still piping hot
Sweet and tender
But not cloying
You know how sweet can get, right?
And that sauce!
What’s in that?
I love it
It’s the sort that makes your eyes roll back
Honestly, I could lick the ******* plate
It’s just all those other stupid things
You know?
I lose focus
This place is a ******* dive man
A hole in the wall
But never mind
It’s fine
The food is good
I just really wish you could tell those pigeons at the other table
To stop ******* all over the place
I’m trying to eat here

0
For haiku I prefer no rules
Other than a real text format free for all
And three lines
1
A soaking downpour washes the Earth
But the look in your eye
Still won’t come clean
2
Delicate cords of hair covers your eyes
But I still see their laughter
Sun hidden behind the horizon
3
You’re ready to go supernova
But fear
The black hole
4
Without being too spiritual
You are
Almost certainly God’s fault
5
You cut like a rose
Smell like a diamond
And giggle like a child
6
Addicted the dreamy sinking narcotic
You have
A blood grip on my soul
7
To they breaking point
I feel no pain
As you straddle me
8
The stars come out
As the sun rises and
You open your eyes
9
The doctor called it cancer
You laughed
And called it a challenge
10
You’re unlike so many ships sailing
Yet when a breeze blows
Your sails billow and carry me away

Do you like my shirt?
You ask
Pulling the last piece of white fur
From the black shoulder
I thought about it
Sure maybe
I like black
I guess
Do you like that show?
You write
I consider the proposition
Remember a funny line or two
Yeah it’s pretty good
It makes me laugh
Sometimes
I guess
What about Celebrity A?
You say
I think I remember who that is
I think
The brunette on the right?
In that dress?
Mmmhhmm
She’s alright
I say
There was something she was in
Though I can’t quite remember what
That was pretty good
I guess
In the next breath
You asked another question
A bit off topic if you ask me
But with an easy answer
Do you love me?
You ask
And to that I say
Simply
Without a guess
Yes, yes, yes

When I was a child my mother gave me the best piece of advice I ever received
To love everything, even if I didn’t think it deserved to be loved
Because everything deserves to be loved
When I was a child was the only time I truly followed this advice
I thought of the most evil person in the world to a child living in the 90s
Saddam Hussein
And I sat there repeating to myself, I love you Saddam Hussein
I didn't just say it though
I really tried to feel it
I imagined Saddam as a child, with a mother, like myself
I imagined how she must have felt
Watching him sleep, watching him play, watching him laugh
I took that feeling and tried to stretch it out like an elastic blanket
And wrap the whole world in its warmth
To love everything
It seemed to work and I was happy

Now I’m 29 and I hate everything
I hate my job, I hate the media, I hate politicians,
I hate the bullshitters, I hate people too stupid to *******
Which is all just to say, I hate myself
But sitting here, alone, with a broken leg
I’m getting nostalgic
I imagine myself as a child, with a mother
I imagine how she must have felt
Watching me sleep, watching me play, watching me laugh
I wrap myself in that feeling
And it seems to work

I miss you all so much
Words with such passion, right?
If only you could feel what I feel
(But you do, don't you?)
Then you would know what it is to “miss”
(But you do, don't you?)
Then “so much” would actually mean something
Maybe if I used a rarer word
A word favored by artists and English teachers
Then the feeling would be adequately described
Right?
Correct?

My heart longs, but that does not do it
My heart cries, but that does not do it
My heart burns, but that does not do it
My heart explodes with every pain of desire it has ever held
Repeat with soul
And still, nothing
These words are meaningless before feeling

Why do we move around?
Why create these feelings?
Maybe if
I add some Santa Easter Bunny Jesus Lincoln desire-made belief?
That I will see you all again
And we will share our most intimate moments
Worthy of many exclamation points
!!!!!!!
Until the end of time?

Stay put and never leave
Put down roots in the soil and in hearts
Never go and always let them know
Just how much you care
Never let your ambition or desire outweigh your love
And Be Godammit, Be!

When I was a freshman in high school
I wrote a poem
I had to read it to my English class
As ordered
I read it

Later that day
In Math
A girl from the English class
Who rarely spoke to me
Asked for a copy
(Of my poem!)

That night
Flattered
Elated
And *****
I printed the poem
And put it in a letter envelope

The next day
In English
She was three desks away
An extension of the arm
I could see her smile
Hear her thank me
And feel how it felt
As she told me how wonderful I was
But the envelope lay crumpled in the bottom of my backpack for years

I say I love you
And I do
I do so much I will build
The greatest creature the Universe could ever know
With energy to destroy even such great energy
And love enough for all and then some
One who will make us put our hands together
And pretend, forever and ever
Amen!

Painfully awake at two in the morning
Candy talks about space weapons
And their orbital, falling metal rods:
Terminal velocity, bunkers and deep *******
The blood swells and my heart cranks
The warmth and wet of solid teeth on flesh
200 different words for ***
For a tribe of ***** Eskimos
With a treaty banning lack of such madness
No metal rods shall fall from the sky

I remember you like the first time
Every time
You’re the chill of wet lips
In a first kiss
The click of my favorite food
Against my taste buds
As I first realize
What a favorite is
You’re that moment of elation
When I first pulled it off
You’re a first ******
When everything is possible
And a last ******
When everything is precious
And scarce
And impossibly wonderful
You’re that crack in my perception
That moment
Where I stop
And realize
The world doesn’t spin quite so fast
Time gives me a thumbs up
While the trees snicker
But the universe just raises an eyebrow
And says
Now you see how beautiful I am?

I’ve been worrying about my laugh lately
It sounds different than it used to
Different than when I was a child
Or even a teenager
I worry because I don’t know what’s causing it
I worry it’s a bad thing
Maybe my emotions’ sounds
That is
The sounds they send out of me
From brain to nerve to muscle to lung
Maybe they’ve become dampened and filtered
Echoing down halls
Grown dark and narrow
Crooked and turning this way and that
Maybe a twist in my heart
Collapses the sound trying to squeeze through
Maybe you’re just hearing a prerecorded voicemail
Sent by automatic, polite sectors of my brain
To field what it recognized as a joke
Because the guy who normally handles that
Is holed up in a bed somewhere, sick and asleep
Or maybe
Just maybe
It’s the other way around
You’ve come running through my halls
Mapping out the twists and turns
Knocking down walls
Sweeping up clutter
And shaking me awake
To show me a world
Where I can laugh so hard
That tears come to my eyes
And people turn and stare

We’re pools you see
With bottoms too deep to swim

Lurking in the frigid, lightless depths
That time when you were eight drifts
Along with the lashes of daddy's belt
That send little bubbles to the surface

For some it is harder or easier
Exciting or boring
But complex always

And yet we treat everyone as a puddle
Looking at that one inch of surface water
With X-Ray glasses bought from an ad in the back of Boy’s Life

I have you all figured out
You’re one of those guys
Just like my father

Once when I was feeling generous
I bought my dog a bed from a catalog
Embroidered with his name
Stuffed with down
And a hint of cedar
It lies in a corner
In near mint condition
While he spends all his time
Rapturously
Chewing an old plastic bottle
I once accidentally dropped on the ground

Speak loudly, clearly:
Today I touched you
A daydream of salted skin
And heat hoarded from the sun
I felt the thump, thump, thump
Of your dancing blood vessels
All in time
Feet kicking, stomping one after the other
And the smell
As your hair became my lungs
As the air in my air became me
Whisper now:
Today I flinched as you quivered
At my unexpected hand
Reaching for something it knew not what
Electric to my tongue
A peach in summer and soup in fall
Slurping the crannies and valleys of your neck
Sweet and savory
Your salted skin
Rough against my tongue
Electric to my teeth
Today I touched you
Your heat, your smell
Will haunt my sleep

Sitting alone at my party
I think of my coworker
With the gubmint 24 years and counting
For 35 hours per week
He preaches personal responsibility
While surfing his favorite political blog
I watch my dog bark at passersby
From behind the safety
Of the double paned window
To be alive is to be separate
To realize it consciousness

Perhaps it’s when you graduate from ******* in public to ******* in public that you realize you have a drinking problem.

How you laugh the next morning and cry the next night.

Then come Friday you need a drink.

The Boredom has set in once again.

Deaf to the wind in the trees.

Blind to the light dancing through the curtains.

Only feeling the perpetual, insurmountable pull of gravity.

And the clock that will not tick fast enough.

I like my dog
Because he’s a hero and a coward like me
Barking behind the window
Chest puffed out
Strutting the walk
And talking the talk
But that noise tapers off
Beyond the sturdy front door
Maybe
Sometimes
Giving one mighty heave
In his constant tug of war
He’ll get a whiff of courage
And bolt full throttle
To the source of his desire
Then turn
Assaulted by the backlash
From the anchor
Setting his feet
Deep in the fear of my dog’s brain
His nose gets rubbed in the mud
His tail shoots between his legs
As he notices the glistening fangs
The foot-long claws
And the fire-breathing mouth
Of the squirrel with his nut
Or the rabbit chewing grass
Or the things
Just like him
Barking
A little too close for comfort

1.  Klondike bars
2.  Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
3.  Out of rope
4.  Just joined the cult to get laid
5.  Turns out mom and dad do understand
6.  Tie: The Price is Right and Matlock
7.  It's called responsibility!
8.  High as hell on life
9.  Foes still unvanquished
10.  ***
11.  Drugs
12.  The Wise and Mighty Zoroaster
13.  Rock 'n' Roll
14.  You

Outspoken but not obnoxious
Kind but not weak
Friendly but not obsequious
Deep but grounded
Loving but discerning
Intelligent but not pretentious
Focused but with perspective

You smile with your heart, not your face
And I will always smile back
Giggling like a tickled baby

Not what history books call peace
That certain calm after the storm
or treaty after the war
That law after the tragedy
The peace that makes little girls weep
and big men ****
Pleasure of the discontented

You are what I call Peace
A luminous molten star
You require no suffering to rise
and radiate warmth into
the leaves of the tree
the waves of the jagged ocean
and the blood of the apprehensive young heart

You shine vision into the billion year darkness of the universe
a fire that does not scorch
but crackles in the dawn of my soul
As flames kiss my lips
the sky is set ablaze as you rise