I used to lie down in my bed
Count kernels in the popcorn sky, overhead
I used to use the daytime for nothing much at all
Was I prepped for death?

I once liked the ones I called friends
Draped myself in colors I could defend
I once misused my empathy, passion, and my wit
Only to have you seize it in the end.

Since I'm there, written on your list,
please, cross off my name.

If I show my amateur face on your stage,
just write me off.

Play me off with the music of your choice
until I'm gone.

There was a time you'd find
its untidy nest at the top of the lot
in the front room of apartment zero nine

Then, miles down time's treadmill
the creature first took notice, took a look
at its surroundings said,

"My world's color could be described as, and called, shame."

It split itself in half
The legs grew a head
The torso grew wings

While the grounded body kept vigil,
kept the common company
of rapists, liars, and thieves,
the winged being pushed off the Earth,
never to return to shame
as an ape with one short face,
but as a thing with a thousand names.

Toothless
Lying on the ground
Rain falls
Washing waste from purple skies
Sun sets
The dead man's skin is wet and orange
He melts
A Creamsicle in holy Summer's mouth, and the

Holler sits still
The silent home of broken will
The corpse misses mourning
While, all around, the residents eat
and sleep and lie

I need rent, but how am I supposed to get it paid
with a grand total of eight people in town?
I need space to celebrate my first taste of a private place,
but even as I dance for quarters - dollar bills at best -
I hear Mr. Delaney's footsteps, feel his molester's breath
dancing like a hot hand with its fingers to piano keys
from my shoulders to where my skull sits
on my neck!

His hands on my neck -
I hate this hole, this holler, Cacophony
I'm seeing dreams smash, firsthand,
seeing me swinging hammer
His hands on my neck -
I hate this hole, this holler, Cacophony,

but not like the life I left behind!
what I left behind, what I left behind
grows colds, grows overhead,
grows on me, grows close,
so close to the light that I lose the light
and grow cold, no friends,
no room for remorse, just
four walls, hole of black creeping mold,
a fine home to settle in, to
hate what I left behind,
love I left behind, whole worlds away.

I'm home in this cacophony.

I see a fat kid, twenty eight and aging
A welfare old kid, casting sideways eyes
At store front windows to make sure
S/he's getting smaller, to take up less space

This is a small place, we cook in snake oil
A young, self-assured place, still fitting graves
Even the sun shines on this necrotic fixation
Everyone lives in maudlin infatuation

I am neither, born of the expanse in-between

Shrink,
Tiny aspirations, that's us!
Shrink,
Shrink with me into the night in the land of rolling holes

Six feet, at least, sweet destiny sweeps sooner, so soon

Shrink,
Tiny aspirations, that's us!

Shrink,
Shrink with me into the night behind the day,
in the land of thick lipstick over genocide