My spine is crooked.
I take off my shirt
and it looks like my
body is swollen on
one side.

There's a hole on
my chest; some
insect insertion,
living between
strands of hair.

A scab is on the
back of my head
and it hasn't healed
in years. I'm afraid
to fix it because I
may make it worse.
I'm terrified of what
wounds may breed.

Surgery is probably
the answer or something
like it. I hope they don't
miss and cut something
on my spine. God forbid,
I become as paralyzed as
I feel.

I dislike my body, much
like how a mother disapproves
of her son's girlfriend.

I'm half-naked in a bed
that isn't mine -- but I'm
used to being adopted by
beds; fostered by
temporary situations.

The sun passed, long ago,
and I know that tomorrow
might vanish, emulating
melting moments aboard
brittle rib cages, slack jaws.

Nothing days like the
yesterday and the one
before that; fragments
not meant to be placed
back together, only to
be cut on, leaving wounds
to be wished upon.

I know, one day, I'll be
as tattered as this flag
I call my master. I will
die, for the thousandth
time, as I talk to an idea
about how I was in love;
how she believed in me;
how my brother was a
man I wish I could have
back; how my littlest
brother was always in
trouble and how I didn't
help enough. I was a
writer, I'll say; I was a
son, I'll whisper that
they were imperfect but
their wish, that's what I was;
their hope, that's what I was.
I was their's.  

I'll be sunken into a seat,
staring out a window,
during a night like this.
Hiccuping thoughts
that should be tossed.

I can tell that
you can't tell
that you aren't
going to be famous.

You helped **** a kid
by selling him laced candy
because you were trying
to buy an acting career.

Your suicide threats
and cries for help
turn me on.
Because.
I would love
for you to die.

And if you were dead --
as dead as the dirt on
the graves you've helped fill --
I wouldn't sleep better or worse;
I guess I would just be happy
knowing that someone would
be able to sleep and wake up.

They put you on the evening news
and you laughed about it on twitter.
Because you are a river
teaching drowning lessons
but not taking responsibility
for the cornflower blue corpses
that haunt your dangerous brain
and contaminate nearby life.

You are a degenerate --
but not one with potential
or hope. You are not what
is beautiful about struggle;
you are not interesting.

You are written about
much like how cancer
is written about in journals.

I'm underneath an amber twilight
(and tasteful landscaping)
flirting with nostalgic anticipation
in room 1034
yet alone and content
I should photograph my life events
or the morning dew, still wet
with evaporating trepidation
which breaks into a cold sweat
when soothed by the resolution
of the seventh, to the third, to the root of the polyphony, harmonizing to the tune
of a Scantron being scribbled on,
or my choice
to ignore
everyone
(at least until finals are over)

Sludge black driveways
holding hazardous mindsets.

Back of his head is made of
white canvas; red strap; yum-yum.

You can see body in the window.
Cut like a Valley Girl diamond.

Brown ***** hair, faint.
Narrow shoulders, pointed.

Brows arch like arrowhead;  
floating above callous constellations.

Snarls of smoke from his cig;
dragging filter like a conscience.

He studies her while she studies
how life looks around her neck.

Closer to midnight, says Darling.
Gotta let her live in a dream-mo.

Inside the piggy bank, gold looks
like memories 'round her nape.

Peeking into the mirror's reflect,
mouthing her name, twirling hips.

What a time to be a star; stable
inside the crown of debris.

Completely secure in nakedness,
a streak of light swims closer.

Black bear fur, harboring glittery
fleas; her eyes look out and up.

It is as close as anyone ever tried.
Non-stop destruction, seductive.

Darling says, look at her look.
He takes a picture with his phone.

**** beauty, ******* to
the assertiveness of annihilation.

Looking at the picture, he curses
himself for not upgrading.

A fire overflows, as she has
one hand on her stomach and
another on her purse.

They said they had to **** my dreams
because I didn't have enough zeroes.
In other words, Mr. Doe, you were
                     lied to by your heroes;
money isn't everything,
but not having it is being invisible.
You can work sixty hour weeks,
but only earn ways to be miserable.

My parents paying four-fifty, monthly
-- which is not a lot of money; we had
to eat out of cans and delude ourselves
into thinking it was funny. Sorry, Does;
                              sorry for your woes --
but America is the big hunter, and your
                            death is how it grows.

We were not equal; no account because
                   we had no account. Asked by
our family members if we bought junk
                      in a large amount. I'm sorry
to disappoint myself -- but I
                                         cannot afford
                                                   to lose.
I am the result of a flawed America
                                     that has learned
                                                to abuse.

They tell me to lay down
and to please look at the fish.
Notice how they glide
in-and-out of the cool-blue
water; how they don't have
a care in the world -- they're
fish: one out of millions;
mindless; alone in packed
tanks; alone, jammed in
metal cans full of corpses
and low-quality mustard.

Putting the mask over my
perfect nostrils, my straight
teeth, they say Don't be afraid;
listen to my humming; how it
will blend with the high-pitch
screech you hear, now; becoming
an equilibrium of torture and
fantastical strangeness, unbound
by Gods, by Persons, by Loves.

Inside this perfect dark,
you cannot think beyond
the giant broad strokes that
is the world sweeping by --
and it is marvelous, the
buoyant miseries floating
above your head; my head
of ambivalent visions;
the Earth's core, a furiously
violent brilliance, ablaze
beneath my feet, under
layers of confounded
deathly masquerade; a
mask much like mine:
an egotistical reflection
brought out by one's
feeling of gigantic import-
-ance, despite hanging
from the vastest of ceilings;
a wannabe church in the sway
of jungle mind; primitive instinct.


***

You know you can wake up
  at this point, or so they say.
What does it all mean, to which
I murmur, I don't know. It's
hard to say what I know; if
anything, all I have is doubts.
All I can muster are regrets;
I wish I could return to that
perfect dark, confused and
semi-philosophical; all-
pretentious: a feeling of
being bound by brokenness.

They tell me to chill out;
you use semi-colons like
they're heartbeats. Focus
on whether your chest
holds validity.

I approach most desires
like a competition; can I
**** better than him;
can I be famous at twenty-
-three since he was famous at
twenty-four -- I must be able
to sink better than him.

God, it is exhausting. I
feel like I'm dancing with
a machine; a phantom that
I can never catch, for it runs
on my blood; my insecurities;
my passion -- and, boy, oh boy,
can I attest to having plenty of
  that stuff, ladies and germs.

I think, truly, that I am
encompassing the American Dream
I think is utterly flawed; that I think
is futile in nature; that I am sure of
is the closest thing to Hell, in this
Godless, spiritually motherless
dark shoebox of sudden collisions;
this space of useful and useless
results, splayed onto and into
our hearts, asking for reverence.

There is nothing  I want more
than to be sure that my importance
is not illusory. I am not sure if
I am real.

The window is up;
sounds of rain crinkle in,
like the static in the voice
of a faraway caller.

My cats are perched,
one grey, one tabby,
listening with me, as
we stare at miniature
mudslides glaze gener-
-ations of ants, probably
clinging onto strands of
grass; waiting to become
the past.

I think of success and
what it means to me.
I look in my wallet and
count one-two-three;
one reason to like the rain;
two reasons to embrace strife;
three reasons to consume pain;
enough zeroes to choose a life
not smothered in mud, not one
where I cling onto the grass.

I dream of a dream where
my dollar bills can last.

Solo, like Star Wars or women's soccer
I sit on a ***** chair with pure liquor
sealed from the rest of the world

Numb, like Linkin Park or lithium
they hold my wallet like it's a gun;
want to use it to gauge my meaning.

If you want a dollar, babe, then
you gotta work to separate
yourself from everything sane
or how else can you gain

the feelings you see on t.v.,
what E! says is reality--
because you're told that's
what matters, entirely.

Identity; conform to be something
marketable -- or, at the very least,
conventional. I want my insides
to be considered pretty, but
I'd have to hope someone
would give the effort to
cut me open and ignore the joy
that my bleeding out would bring.