what else are you supposed to do in the suburbs?
find everything abandoned and go there at night?
thrift shop?
idle around the same mall and buy candles, journals, CDs (for your lack of cd player, except in your mom's car)?
see the same movie twice (the fire alarm goes off both times)?
throw wine bottles at pavement and watch the glass splinter?
run around empty ovals?
break into baseball fields?
go to the same public pool and open your eyes underwater?
burn lacy lingerie that you stole from the mall and watch as your femininity sticks, shrivelled, to the pavement?
go to school and get the bus home?
go to work and come home covered in pizza sauce?
hate it till you leave?
what else even is there?

i’d describe the way the sun feels on my face if i knew i could do it justice. its late autumn and the bus came directly on the minute. i hate orange but i couldn’t look at the sun and then tell you that. bless the city and bless the trees but bless suburbia most of all. suburbia is like a teenage boy who doesn’t try, is effortless in hs perfect face (perfect teeth, perfect soul, perfect mouth). he’s my favourite and he smiles when i walk into class. his hair is orange this time of year. i’ve never told him i hate orange because i don’t hate it on him. autumn peels the hot wax of summer off and my skin sings with the fresh air.

spring in suburbia comes reeling around
with the circuit of movies I watch in my head
sun means 'stand by me'
sun means I feel alive again
spring slips its wings down my throat
and I'm outside and it's not raining
I want to go to parties
And I'm graduating sooner than I thought
I hope the younger years find the crawlspace
above the stage in the hall
I hope they find my graffiti
I hope they feel spring too
and all their favourite movies come circling back
something like new beginnings
yeah something like that

Two neighbors from Naseby compete
Whenever they pour some wet concrete
Whose sidewalk will dry
First, or is it a tie?  
Luxuriant lawns are also a feat.

Retreating from
  weighty day of toil
I settle my slack
  on tailored sprawl of lawn
Compressed soil radiating ;
  tapped battery
  of a day's warmth
Life is raised through my cartridge
  I stretch out
  receiving reptile charge

Aimed shyly
   at the expansive dark bedding of night sky
     speckled
         pierced
     pecked at with pinholes...
each emitting brilliance
firing out fuel
  exhaust from further worlds
                less adulterated than our own

There is a correspondence
  amongst the insects in the grass
  ticking, clicks and tats
  like static amongst laundry
There's a great correspondence out there
  in the night sky

here am
   invulnerable human
    suburban and secure
   belly...

a cross draft
   from the open basement window
              invades me
eggy sulphur burping from the drains
an organic degassing from below my house

: Betrayed ! 

my feeling passes
the stars behave stagnant
       and dismissive of me
; withholding glove oblivion ;
the clouds step in
  like a quick curtain
  over some 'lewd private show'
(must I pay more
                  to see more ?)
My world is kept restrictive
; a muzzling

I bare the weight still
      of the days wetter ill
Better off indoors
        filtered
            of my own dander
and projected upon
        by a feeding screen

We were bred in nuclear captivity
Raised behind the safety of stained glass.

We learned to follow the leaders,
memorize the Billboard Top 30,
sleep on apparently royal mattresses,
make love in forest green colored cages,
make money by counting other people's money,
track the number of times our feet hit the pavement,
and then die on a 700 dollar couch.

Still unable to believe in a god other than this one.

my love is gone...
my love has gone next door
my love popped round
to perform frottage with the hedgerow
and lust after the new lawnmower


whilst i built 'The Good Life'
my heart got distracted
it grew a cavernous attraction to the neighbours
and their immaculate lawn

my love is licking their heavy curtains
chasing their well groomed dog
watching their home entertainment centre
and kipping on their sofa
(made comfortable with extra science)
my love has repelled from me
to ****** toward another life
a life neatly removed from a catalogue
and free of creative revolution