A heaving dog struggles to its feet.
Streaks of
the sun,
egg yolk,
lemonade,
coalesce in foam.
I look it in the eye
as it limps away.

Write a lament on the fake bathroom tile,
where you waste your father's hard earned money.

As you throw it up in disgrace of your body
and throw your hunger right back in his face,
tell him he's not done enough for his family.

Watch where the truth gets you when you're not allowed to lie.

~ A.M, F.H.

demon in the bathroom mirror
last rock of crystal went missing
bulging eyes in my reflection
I didn’t like that
i couldn’t find crystal but i don’t ask
those guys actually saved my life.
two hours to billings, montana and the
prairie grass glistened in the
last minute Sunday morning sunlight
thanksgiving day drive.

designer machete and the wineberries
broken shabbat demarcation line
and i tried yet again to perform a task
to completion without getting distracted
screaming from the bathroom

‘i can’t hit a vein! I can’t hit a vein!’
water in the rig
miss crystal swimming in mine
Christ in the Cosmos
two plantains on the kitchen island in
a town house on west orange.
no man is an island
but I pretended that i was so
i could finally climb the double helix home.

i  can’t be creative if i’m always in
a mad rush.
‘Prove to me your value! Justify your being here,
can you see me? Why can’t anyone see me?
how about now?’
tongue caught in a snare
pestilence in the mason jar
smoked paprika in the finish
water in the rig
‘Jordan? Was there even anything in here?’

i used to lay prostrate on the
couch
ad infinitum.
one thing they don’t tell you is that when
you’re dope sick you have to take
a giant **** about every five minutes.
the free cable in the apartment complex
actually saved my life.
furniture - mid century modern -
had to let it go.
hadn’t really listened to music in 18 months
besides pop country radio stations
‘i got that summertime, summertime sadness’
ad infinitum.
somehow I had decent pair of headphones and
a small, black verizon smartphone circa July 2013.
‘do what you want, what you want with my body…’
Lady Gaga actually saved my life that day.

demon in the ikea medicine cabinet mirror
giant rock of crystal
missing
water in the rig
‘was there even anything in there?!?!?!’
the mirror reflected back to me a stranger’s eyes
mirror is another name for a stranger's eyes.
i tabernacled in the high desert plains,
Sheridan, Wyoming - powder river country.

i felt the God-force emerge yesterday
up and outward from deep within my belly.
but today i’m fussing over straw-men
in plaster-of-paris suits
and i ate tortured beef at a
diner in Leesport, PA
and I can’t turn back into the man I was
no matter how hard I try.

so now I sit before
the most holy apostle St. Jude
located at Our Lady of Fatima Grotto
across the street from Kings College, Wilkes-Barre, PA.
‘The quickest way to Hell are the temptations of the flesh, exclamation point.’
i came here to reclaim my value but
i can’t seem to find it anywhere.

i keep getting flashbacks of the water in the rig
and the screaming from the bathroom and
if i didn’t tell somebody about this i was probably
going to *****.

3 cheers for the Black Madonna and
the big surrender.
i’ve swallowed so many shadows by now
that i don’t recognize myself in the mirror
or in your eyes.
but my body is a christmas tree and
from the branches i hang
plastic tinsel and
crystals and
broken timing chains
and a cedar wood mala.

I see that Christ is always pointing to
his sacred heart
but no one ever told me that
the anahata chakra had a back door.
no wonder sometimes I feel like i’m a
hydrogen bomb welded inside a lead casket.
someone open the ******* door and
let some light in.

the sun doesn’t rise from the west
and there is no rest for the weary and
to this day I act like that wasn’t only
water in the rig.

***** and sweat,
Hunched and broken,
By the toilet bowl
I will flush you out
Until the only thing left of you
Of us
Is the tears in my eyes
And the acid in my throat

digesting food has never been harder