People only mesh well with kerosene, each and every human so flammable,

It's a wonder we don't all set ourselves on fire...

But yours truly did it last night

Swallowed two liters of lighter fluid and chased it with jet fuel,

Ate the box of matches you keep in your purse

And burnt away the last good parts of my stomach.
///
I slept like a baby for two hours,

Not enough for lectures on the carbon cycle or dada mathematical deconstruction,

So I drifted off to more sleep, and slept to dream of the Six Gallery.

Wishing one or two poets would gain fame in an age of pineapple vodkas that no one is drinking for the taste,

But for gravity to pull through their very thin blood stream and feel at one with the party.

It's monotony—

I'll die and everyone will love me then, so where are they while I'm alive?

That's the joke of mourning,

It's the reason I resort to self-immolation,
It's the reason I dream everyday for fame and do nothing about it.

It's why Frank O'Hara got out while he could, dying with the true images of New York City

And not living to see it destroyed as I now have.

Emperors and Legionaries alike, take up your arms and help me overthrow anyone who dictates verse and meter.

I aspire to **** a fascist with my bare hands.

We sit behind dull lit screens,
Pixelated faces; pixelated dreams.
I wish you were here physically, my friend
To snuggle with, to hug, to laugh with, and to kiss...
"Fish lips!"
Until our paths cross again at your parents house in November.

I am thankful for technology.


© Jo Tomso

In this kingdom of dread, she straightened my hair and advanced my thoughts on my own insufficiency.
Never does it spawn out of the soil that you fit perfectly between her sheets and smell like peppermint,
The way we all sniff herbs in the garden,
How she now sits awake at night and will inevitably kick me out.

How much was I faking drunk to spur conversation

And how much is this...

Destiny, and all the pun that lies between here and idiosyncrasy.

I'm not whole, it's the way I always crack, thinking life has ran in circles and spit spheres into orbit.

Humor, humor, I wish I'd burn.

In today's society we do not get sad because we are sad, but because we were expected to be sad. It's ingrained in our minds. What's good and what's bad. Think about it, we get sad when we think we're on the bad part of the society ( normal people like me obviously, everyone better than me stay out of this please. Your superiority complex hasn't subdued yet or maybe it can't because it's genetic and in that case I am sorry. No Matter how insensitive I've appeared because I just don't care... And also it has a very rock-n-roll-hey-i'm-an-******* vibe to it) and get happy when it's vice-versa. So, is happiness and sadness a human creation ? I don't mean in a biological sense ( philosophy, bro ? ), I mean more as a modern day concept. Why are we sad ?, Relationships, cosmetic issues ?, Jobless, underpaid, couldn't get the new iPhone ( **** those seriously). Most of us are just being sad because everyone before us were sad, on things that don't matter, on things that makes no sense when you look at the stars at night and see how big the universe is, or unless someone points out its not realistic, we need to be realistic ? Realistic all the danm time ? That's not human, human is to dream and imagine and create. Sadness is beautiful too, that's why great poets were born. But the fact is, sadness today is sold and bought, given names and even made fun of.. today sadness is as superficial as happiness. It is, it really is. There's no worth to our sadness, it means nothing. It's in our head because someone put it there. It's not natural anymore that's all I'm saying and it kinda bugs me. Have a nice day. It's okay to be sad if you are a man. Yolo.

Two days into being back in Van Lear upon onset emergency,
I feel trapped in my childhood home and engulfed by jingo lobbyists who have posters of Ronald Reagan,
And I read about Pascal's Wager in an essay by William Buckley to realize how anyone, in annoyance, could fall into conservatism.

I come home and all the farmers are talking Communist uprising,
But back in the university the Mormon professors are talking up our structure and that we should roll with the punches.

Noting that everyone disagrees on something,
Everyone back home is too sessile to talk or debate the issues.

I must leave at once and argue with tact about the grander schemes of life and money,
I'm just getting started.

///

This is not a place where you can accumulate *** and alcohol,
And thus not a safe space for creative expression and thought...

In the dormitory halls I would put on my Aztec print sunglasses and parade the hallways declaring myself the most immortal of men from third to fourth floor.

And then you inevitably get trapped in a two story country house,

Cry for the fact that the sky is too calm.

Nothing happens here.
Nothing happens here...
It makes me uncomfortable.

Let me sit in the corner of room 403 and meditate with more excitement than a shouting match here,
Or how everything is so quiet and we're waiting for a phone call of awful news.

They all must think I eat nothing,
I subsist on nighttime ghost stories, or something,
I'm a creature of the night,

Then who are you,
Man of American with your European jaw,
Or King of all men who dare to call themselves free,
Why is it that in a decade of invention and creativity
That it's the appeal of brawn that wins out continually?

We are regressing.

Eastern Kentucky is the center of the wound,
The eye of barbarism and I am not welcome.

I will move west to spite my family and then become successful to spite society.

oh robin in the tree
one beady eye on me

the other
a bother

for the black bug
wings wrapped snug
on leaf of the Lilac tree
under which we drink our tea

to my eldest I turn
and a story is born

dear child keep strong
sing loud and long
yon robin has proud chest
for he sang without rest
to save a princess

'Dad!!!!!!!!'


It's true. for once the bird was dour
lived in Royal ground. Feathers brown
singing to please the princesses crowd
until. Horror. Illness. Proclaimed loud
'Princess was dying having lost
love for life broken hearts cost'

little bird he loved with all his heart
and by her window a song did start

inside in a week sickly state
to her beat did the tune relate
and morbid promise was made
that it was to be her final refrain.

the bird sang through the day
and through the night. stay
by her and steady stave
no food or drink did it crave.

For on that wooden sill
a ***** splinter a thorn ill
pressed ever closer into chest
of that songbird that took no rest.

slowly the blood began to seep
and single flow set to creep
along the ledge up to edge
of drop onto sickly hair
shocking the poorly girl sitting there

her eyes filled with pity for another
that song of love from red chest cover
over fidelity, hope, courage and caring
that lifted her to desire life sharing.

A rush of her own blood carried her
to pull that splinter from the feather
stained forever red
for a life, by love, led.


'Load a Bllx Dad'

Busy was the street and the day was bright,
With her little brother she went to buy a kite,
Her brother got hit and she got stripped,
Dragged by them and She got *****,
screaming, crying,asking for help,but the world was deaf,
man had no mercy no regret but a smiling face
people heard and it became a news,
And question arose, mistake was whose
Conclusion came,  this should not be the case that the skirt is  short and dress is tight,
but who are we to decide,
for her what is wrong and what is right,
in this hue and cry , mother was broke and the girl dies
asking themselves did they invite or commit  this crime
and for god's sake she is not even nine..

this modern nation is a quick read,
a stolen glance at a cue card -
a political pitch to the preoccupied
and a script for the social-scene-complacent -
cues are confused for cures
but you can't fix what's damaging itself
with every mindless media post;
sound the laugh track
and drown the issues.
criticize the bare human face,
watch, revere the irreverent -
celebrities paint a new mask,
become a vaudevillian magazine ad
and we can't stand ourselves as we are;
copy plastic faces, calm the nerves.
maybe it's vanity
or maybe it's a way to ignore
the person wearing the mask
because the blank face underneath
the oil-paint faux beauty
reminds us too much of what we've become;
only the faceless need to paint one on.
spin the truth so it tastes sweet
and acquiesce, swallow it down,
take it with a dose of the relatable
and some self-medicated doubt
while the paper we crave digs our graves.
it's all fake but it's safe
so we accept our reality,
overjoyed that we hide so well together.
but the youth thrives on boundaries
like they're fences that need jumping
and they get caught up in this world
that doesn't hesitate
to spit hatred at the innocent
and dismantle plans for peace.
too young, they're painting new faces,
facing the famed like they're gods,
shaping themselves in the image they see.
classic literature is laid to rot
in the corner of a room
lit only by a computer screen
and all we do is watch,
watch the flies collect,
follow the moths and maggots,
drawn to light and the smell of decay.

Imagine a world of flawless symmetry.
A world where every person was identical.
At 7:30 sharp 7 billion alarm clocks go off,
All playing a single monotonous tone.
7 billion people all dress the same,
Walk out of the one house design used worldwide,
Drive to work in the one car that fills the highways,
Work from 9 to 5,
Go home to their family of 4,
Discuss the day around the dinner table for 45 minutes exactly
Then watch the TV until 10
And go to sleep.
And then the next morning, repeat.
The next week, repeat.
The next month, repeat.
The next year, the next decade, repeat.
Imagine a world of no differences.
It would be boring.
It’s no way to live when everyone’s the same.
When everyone thinks alike,
You lose the uniqueness that makes all of us human.
So somebody explain to me,
Why there are some people that cannot stand differences.
People that are driven to **** because they don’t agree with the lives of other people,
As if they had place to judge anyone but themselves, because they don’t.
These people hate the differences that define us as a species.
They stereotype, they profile, they speak hate,
They protest, they offend, they discriminate
Against lifestyles choices and the things we are born with,
So much that our own people are torn with
The decision to live as who they are or be accepted in society,
Because they’re so scared to be labeled as variety,
Because some people want them to die, you see.
So why can’t we all embrace our differences,
Open up our eyes and see,
We have to recognize that there is no disguise for individuality.
We have to realize,
That once terror makes it’s way into our lives,
We are losing.
Losing the fight for freedom.
Losing the chances we have at acceptance,
Losing the opportunity to recover as a nation,
And show the world that support isn’t just donations.
And people say I’m just a kid,
And that when I’m older I’ll realize that the world is a bad place,
And that people will never change, and that atrocities will happen,
Blood will be spilled, lives will be taken, hearts will be broken.
And maybe they’re right, maybe I just don’t understand.
But I understand that people died because one person couldn’t accept their differences.
I understand that this has happened before, and I’m not going to bother giving a statisistic because I know it’ll go up.
I understand that there are far more mass killings in the United States of America than any other country in the world.
And I think I understand that the best support is ending this upwards trend.
And to do that the world needs to learn to love.
The world needs to set aside all differences,
And learn that between killer and the victims the only difference is,
One knew how to love and one knew *******.
We can’t ignore there’s a problem still,
So regardless of your thoughts on race or religion,
I guarantee you peace will be fiction,
If we can’t teach the world to love each other.
Despite our choices of lovers.
So one last time I urge you,
To teach the world to love each other.

Drove her car into a river just to spite me,

Saw Christmas ornaments among the garbage and proclaimed that signified her life,

Who with no immune system at all contracted every disease around her,

But upon my asking if she was sick announced, "Actually, I'm Alex."

Told me I was less than gallons and was not wrong at all,

But I'm pumping about ten pints of blood in hopes that you'll continue to do the same.