Only **** the ones
you love
and only love the ones
who never ****
you over
That's our way, baby
the way of the world
the way of life

We are the hunted
the hated
who run in packs
separate but equal
rarely together
but with similar purpose
a singular goal
to make it
through life

We are despised
for our existence
Some are fat, yet starved
Others are slutty and ravenous
Every day is a struggle
We **** and feast
fight and pray
and too often
we lose

Love is fleeting
never predictable
It's the knowledge, you see
We are but temporary
lovers, workers, friends
That truth brings about
the sadness
the madness
the end

Go to sleep
Dream the dreams
only you can dream
alone
We will meet again
when our world faces
the other side
of the Milky Way

As the **** of a 12-dollar cigar
touches the tip of the tongue,
the nervous system shoots a signal to the brain,
to process the sweet tinge
of delicious poison
that hits the back of the throat.
Slow suicide, baby,
really doesn't get any smoother.

Human bodies may desire health,
but it’s the mind that struggles
and tests mortality
as the heart races
for the best ****.

Hipsters and their vapor pipes,
their overpriced organic groceries,
coke binges and ****** addictions,
gym memberships and spinning classes,
they’re socialized to believe life
goes on forever.
They behave as if death
is a kind of curse.

We can run from sins,
wash our souls in the rain
of fresh lovers in new cities.
Sins, however, collect.
They grow in strength.
All we have in the end,
is the sweet tinge of satisfaction
that comes from killing oneself
in style.

From an early age before preschool,
there was one Pittsburgh man inside a box
who showed us how to find one’s bliss,
he set the tone to lead a happy life.
While I sat on the sofa, pillow hugged tight,
the Pittsburgh man in a box taught me
the virtue of kindness and curiosity.
He taught me make believe.

When I grew up, life’s temptations
pushed aside his lessons.
I traded the Pittsburgh man in a box
for the gluttonous abuses
of flesh and *****, soul-murdering hatred,
and the pursuit of greed.

One early morning, around 8am
I crawled out of bed,
careful not to disturb the woman
whose name had been lost in a fog of whiskey.
I walked into the living room,
switched on the TV, and there he stood,
the Pittsburgh man inside a box.
His gentle manner, his big imagination
revealed a simple truth:
I’d chosen the wrong path.

One day at the job, the sad news came.
The Pittsburgh man in a box had died.
He contracted stomach cancer.
That night the TV played his old shows.
I sat on the sofa, pillow hugged tight,
and said goodbye.

Saturday sidewalks are filled by the youthful,
the boys with young muscles and hard heads,
the girls with soft skin under short skirts.
They wander sidewalks in search of escape.
Each of them dance with lust,
drink hard,
and inject madness
into their veins.

On Sunday mornings,
after the splendor of uninhibited release,
the young weep in regret of poor choices,
their air saturated in reality.

Sidewalks then belong to the wise
who wake from a good rest.
These men and women drink roasted coffee,
reflect on a transcendent spirituality,
read great poetry,
and meet friends to discuss
the roots of democracy.

Every year, the unchanging concrete slabs
of sidewalks appear slightly different.
They reflect our perspectives.
Sidewalks that once led to freedom,
now lead to enlightenment.
In future years,
these same sidewalks
will lead to rest.

You don't know me.
I’m warning you now,
don't even consider knowing me
or pretend to know me.
I've beaten lesser men
and poisoned the hearts
of lesser women
for trying to know me.

I am aggressively alone in distant observation,
away from unpredictable friends
who often transform
into entirely predictable enemies.

Alone is my simple form of silent tranquility
with my thoughts and my words
and my unfulfilled dreams.
The silhouette of a single Canadian goose
stands majestically on the shore
of the summer river
below the orange city skyline at dusk,
or the smell
of your old leather jacket
and a soft kiss
that partially wakes me
before you leave in the early morning
to never return.

I’m the degenerate you love to hate,
the unclean sinner who won’t tow the line.
You ridicule my independence at dinner parties,
among similarly dressed cronies,
the institutionalized prisoners
of prestige.

Hate us all, the degenerates.
Scorn the indie musician on the sidewalk.
He colors the dull march of the khakis.
Despise the painter in welfare housing.
She strokes thick lines of anguish
upon uncomfortable canvases.
Taunt the quiet poet at the end of the bar.
He writes raw truth on napkins gone ignored.

Loathe the degenerates you secretly *****
when fashionable friends aren’t looking.
Eyes fixed upon your contemptuous smirk,
I am unable to cast judgment upon you.
Another degenerate spreads her tattooed thighs
without any hope of acceptance.
She only wishes to feel for a moment
the intoxicating sensation of
temporary love.

The degenerate’s ****** is the richest syrup
that briefly covers your vanilla routines.
Debauchery provides you a moment
to feel freedom within slums,
the pleasures of darkness,
the uninhibited passions of a life
without approval.

A young man with tattoos
walked in to the café.
He examined two chairs
at the empty table
in front of me.
He cupped his chin with one hand.
He silently compared the older chair
with the torn, dilapidated seat cushion
to the newer chair that still had a black metallic shine.
He picked up the beaten chair
and carried it to the table behind me
to join his friends.

That’s how we define ourselves,
our class, our place in the world.
Some people believe they deserve
the best seat in the house.
Others believe themselves second class,
commoners whose insecurities run rampant.
We do it to ourselves.

No matter which seat we take,
every one of us
knows love and hate.
We all fight and struggle.
We are all unique.
We are all the same.

In the mid-1990s I worked as a bartender
on the second floor of a local hotdog joint
near the University of Pittsburgh.
I poured beers and mixed simple drinks
for working class drunks.
The felons always had a game or a magic trick
they’d use to milk rubes for a free gin and tonic.
College students mostly stayed away,
but the ones who stumbled in ordered drafts,
paid for by daddy’s allowance
or the petty drug rackets they ran on campus.
In the summer, the best ***** came around,
**** pushed out of their tops,
*** cheeks crept below their skirts.
They knew how to find action
every single night.

Except one overweight girl named Susie
from the all girl’s school down the road.
She’d come to the bar alone,
her lips caked with dark red lipstick.
Like many students, Susie wanted to be older.
She’d order ***** martinis,
drink quietly, and she’d patiently wait
for one of the older drunks to make a move.
It never happened.

Sometimes Susie complained to me
about other girls at her college,
that they were aggressive lesbians.
All of them wanted to eat her ******.
‘Those ******* are as bad as the men,’ she’d say.
But then she’d laugh it off.
‘I really love ****,’ she told me.
‘I think about **** and *** all the time.’

One night Susie owed the bar $27.50.
She always tried to flirt her way past the tab.
I never let her get away with it.
‘Do you like me?’ she said.
I laid down my trademark response,
‘You’re the best.’
‘No, do you really like me?’
I figured she deserved a real compliment.
‘You have the sexiest lips here.’

She climbed off the barstool
and walked to the backdoor, the fire escape.
She then curled her finger at me to join her.
Outside on the small rusted iron landing,
above the roach-filled dumpster,
Susie crouched between my legs.
Both of us worked to unbuckle my belt.
A swarm of hands pulled down my jeans.
I looked up at the few stars between buildings
as those red lips and soft tongue became my drug,
a back alley escape from a ******* life.
When I unloaded, she refused to let go.
She swallowed it all. $27.50 paid in full,
plus tip.

That’s how we went for a while.
I gave Susie small escapes from lesbians.
Susie gave me small escapes from life.
Eventually, she stopped coming around.
I figured she graduated.
Perhaps her classmates finally got their wish.
Either way, I never saw her again.