Sit right down let me tell you what we serve
You might think it quite absurd
But we only have just one dish
And it might even be what you wish

But apathy is our only course
I hope that is your choice
It's very easy to prepare
And everybody can have their share
If you don't like it we don't care

Empathy use to be our greatest cuisine
It really was quite supreme
But serving it was such a pain
And to admit it we are all just to vain
It took to much time
And it didn't pay a dime
We had to layer in the flavors
Of truly caring, love, patience, and of course life savers

Who has time for all of that, not us
We don't need all the fuss
For we only care about our own
To care about strangers we're not prone
Your tears we care nothing about
So just sit over there and pout

For we only serve one thing here.......apathy
We are to self-absorbed for.......empathy

my tears
remind me
I am real

my emotions
have frostbite
exposed to
such coldness
they shut off
so I feel nothing at all

then misery comes around
and warms them up
just enough
so I can
feel
the true pain I am in

how critical my state is

it's ironic
how major depression
can make me
oblivious
to how depressed
I really am

like floating inside
a storm cloud
living in gray
experiencing
nothing
but blandness

until I fall
just a small amount
and realize
I'm inside
a torrential downpour
big enough
to sink Noah and his ark
big enough
to swallow this planet whole

Remedy this.
Believe the wound will close.
Pray the blood will cease its flow.
And when the inevitable happens.
Pray that the shattered remains.
Will find its form one day.
These icy shards feign comfort and warmth.
Contort the mind to reach out.
And paint by numbers.
First encounter.
Second chances.
Third and so on.
Down the list.
Until hands have gone numb and colorless.
A life less than that of which what stood.
Shambles.
And somehow still in motion..
Just as any monument that commemorates the living long since past.

Your crooked smile flows upward
and I can see it from the ground.
Haunting myself with
a film teacher's creature feature
in black and white,
an old orchestra for sound.

You said you'd get nervous
when on our clunky telephone;
saying that customer service
could hear the fibers
in your voice
rustle like tall, dry grass,
with a wind whispering through
confirming, with every breath,
that you feel alone.

We'd recite fifties sitcoms:
Honey, do you --
do you have the keys?
Well, gee whillikers,
I could use someone to
open me, close me, and
dispose of me, please.

I write this for no one,
which is the category you fall in.

Sincerely,
signed Issues,
P.S. The television
is in color,
and I don't miss you.

- There ain't hope in the U,
the S is for Show me your soul,
the A is for Always forget:
the United States of
Killing it, Killing it -

in pealing season, she is a girl of lousy ingrowth
she is an unkempt corner; kitchen sink. legs pulled like knives. phone call her curled tendons; isolation in
grit and fibril      
she is women with wings. this is how we stymie the rapunzel. we carve the ugly into her. we teach her to wear skin like saran. skin like punishment
                        cut-coin the rumpelstiltskin. how she is  wound and string, paper-doll; bird-in-a-box
how we wring the juice of her on washcloth. hung upturned from the ceiling fang; plucked and feathered
like apology. cherry-picked; veins like mikado. how it is dark and she is blind-bat wind-warriors; waterboarded with no hands
upturning the paper boats of her in every follicle; how the flipswitch insecurity eats her like pickle. in a storm
she is neither nor tongue nor limb
just breast, bone, the weight of mirrors
how we jettison when the grief is heavy. abandon. thick, empty abandon.
alone in grit-cusps when the monsoon has eaten into the white, wispy mortuary. dark in hallways; yet pale and slender. she is beautiful.
we lift her ribbed corpse off the shoreline.
we unload the offering like red carpet;
this is how we wrap her in white and weary-eyed
translucent. how unavoidable we become when we are the last hope. crippled. when we look hope in the eye. askance. how she will beg you to look at her with the heart in the honey-jar; torso in tourniquet
how the walls are ripped in shades of askance. how we look away.

how us, walls, look away.
how, us, walls, askance.
how we drip of askance; how the pink flesh and cherry-limb slips like matchstick on brushfire
how there is purple and primrose and bruise
there are some spots on the floor where it still reeks purple and yellow and bruise
how we are
               lousy
                         ingrowth
here.  how we
                                                              ­   try
to
pluck
                             and *erase

I don't care.

It's that simple.

And as much as I try to,
Caring just isn't what I do.

So I don't.

I don't care.

When the rain drops into your eye,
and you just gaze longingly at the sky.
During a heated argument with your lover,
you simply stare blankly at one another.
Meaningless words trickle past your teeth,
and there's no way to shove them beneath.

It is that moment you realize...
The opposite of love is not hatred,
but apathy, and the lack of a hug.

So pick yourself up off your sorry fat ***,
before all happy opportunities come to pass!
Blink your eyes, hug your lover, hold your angry words.
For settling in apathy---I can't think of much worse!

As I'm sobering up
from your intoxicating hazel gaze,
realizing the spark I've been seen
is merely the reflection of my own,
I find myself no longer lost in your eyes,
but simply... lost.

Hypnosis*
     Comatose so close to death
   Another dose of coldness swept away all my regret
Some die by the sword of vengeance, others by respect
                I myself will die calm and ready, **steadying my breath