Lisa looks like she’s stood a little too close
To Dante’s Fireplace
A *** soaked ham left in the dirt
Small crust spots where the skin broke

She’s stopped wearing her dentures
Looks like her face is sinking inside of itself

I was napping
Dreaming about a rock on a hill
That overlooks my city
Was dreaming about what the gun said to the mouth
About how the bullet wanted a kiss

Found her lying in a window
Like a fish whose bowl has just shattered
A bowl that has been ***** for too long

It’s a mixed blessing
The glass bubble burst
The blood

I keep my window shut
The smell of the *** I dumped into the earth
Creeps in
Juicy apple pie smoke fingertips calling

Lisa’s kids
They don’t understand the anger
Don’t feel the neglect until it’s too late

I patch up her face
As she begs
Just don’t call the police
Don’t call anybody
I’m okay
She passes out
On a ***** couch
The kids crowd their mattresses
So they can sleep near her

I think about something I read once
About a company called LifeGem
And how for a small fee
They can turn your ashes into diamonds
Enough for a necklace
Or two bracelets
Several sets of earrings

Even when you’re worthless
You’re worth something

I buy dinner before work
Something fatty and saltier than their tears

She would always say things like
YOLO
You only live once
And then have a drink
Or hang up on a police officer
Or shut a door

YODO
You only die once too
I know how I want to be remembered

Before walking through the doorway
Made of trash bags
A woman checked our ID’s

We passed the booth with the feathers and the ball-gags
Passed the woman selling *** toys
Just a white awning with plastic chairs

We sat and watched a man dressed in leather
He was the kind of expert who understood his passion
But for him there was no teaching it

Beer saturated my white shirt
As I sweated it out
I could feel the alcohol in my lungs
I breathed slower as if it would hide the sensation

He explained to us puppy play
The dynamics

He had his own puppy with him
A man so good at making wet eyes
So good at seeming lost

He barked and wagged an invisible tail
Chewed on rope
Probably he thought about burying his bone
What his wife might be making for dinner
Wondered if I had recognized him as a regular
At my work

While taking questions the leather man said
It takes time to discover the puppy inside

It makes me think of how
In order to view ourselves as anything
We need a filter

I want you to **** me
With a ****** full of yes

I told them
If I were a puppy
I would be very stupid
But great to cuddle

We can admit these things about ourselves
While in character

If I tell you
I am pretending to be anything
I can still find ways to pretend to be me

It is like an electric chair
Disguised as a lazy boy
It will not hold you for long
Your skin does not fit proper

It makes me think of my father
The Clown
Who bent me into shape
With his balloon animal breath
Only he had asthma
The empty static

My inner puppy
Is a half deflated balloon poodle
Ends pulled tight like amputee sausage link limbs

Looking lost and lonely isn’t hard
What’s hard about it is
Looking like that was your intention

In character
Some invisible narrator
I can admit anything

Hand holding,
Cigarette smoking,
Spiced gin drinking,
And bare flesh touching...
Y o u  h a d  m e.
(Only for 24 hours,
But that’s more than most get)

24 hour boyfriend,
The perfect relationship.
One complete day of undivided lust and adoration.
It almost felt like I loved you.
Sharing souls and secrets and your king sized bed,
I  h a d  y o u.
That loving gaze, the sweet whispers;
It made me sick

In an early morning, half-drunk haze,
Your skin wouldn’t let go of mine,
Your smile asked me to stay,
And your sleepy eyes told me you wanted more…
You whispered you loved me,
I clenched my eyelids shut and pretended to sleep.
I could never love you.

I’m sorry,
But your 24 hours is up.

Where did the circus go?

Not like the Del Mar fair
Or the Barnum and Bailey skinny cow version

I want someplace nasty
A bit sticky
Someplace that picks up and leaves
before you have time to go get your watch back

All that’s left is a lot
Full of trash and ride screws
Because the rush to leave was more important
than safety

It’s a place most days now
I wish I could run away to

Slap on fake **** and be the bearded lady
Or warts and green paint and be frog man

Be something along the lines of
Homemade make believe

Be happy believing that
This other place doesn’t have things
Like rent
And car payments
And work that ***** you harder than your own girlfriend will

And don’t tell me cirque de solei is hiring
That’s not a circus
That’s people in costumes dancing and flying around on stages
They had to go to school to do that

You don’t need school to join the circus

You just need the desire to leave
Before anyone notices you’re gone
Maybe leave behind a sticky mess
And take with you something valuable
Like a watch
Or money from the purse on the counter
Or someone’s heart

Maybe I could be tattoo man
Or the ***** Mouthed Poet
And freestyle psalms that ache behind a glass window
That you have to pay a quarter to see through
And another quarter to listen
Or I could be a wax statue of Jesus
The one that if you stare at long enough
You see him breathing

Enough to restore faith in the make believe
That keeps us going

Let me be your side show
Let me be your fortune teller
Let me be the dark room in that back
Only the men are allowed into

Women and children this way

Let me be the ***** talk of town
And leave before the lynching

Let me leave in the night like a piper
With the promise
That I will give you the life you’ve always wanted
If you leave behind all you’ve ever been

Remember him?
He joined the circus?

Where’d the circus go?