I could fall in love with her.

She promises
everything and anything.

No
She promises nothing
She merely alludes to every
intangible dream,
good or bad,
that I've ever had.

She demands commitment
She rewards dogged repetitive tenacity to
to the point of suffering.
Then again,
sometimes she gifts things for no reason.

It's odd but the harder I look at her,
the more I study her for understanding,
the more vague she becomes.

She threatens me sometimes,
maybe a lot,
and occasionally she springs
nasty surprises.

In spite of her meanness,
I imagine giving her some part of myself
but
she's fickle about gifts
and completely ungracious when she
refuses them.

Still,
you've always got a chance with her.
At least until you don't.

I would.
I would make her mine.

But Yesterday,
that ***** just won't leave me the **** alone.

"You've a large malignant mass," the Dr told her. She appeared gaunt in the feeble glow of x-rays despite being more than a little over-weight.

She was full of words, good words, too but she said nothing at the news biting ******* her lower lip.

She paid for the visit with a nearly maxed-out credit card. She had never been sick like this before but she had to admit, at least to herself, that she always seemed a little broke.

She lived well, she thought, at least relatively.

But she'd been increasingly more self-conflicted lately and the sensation was that of a gaping and festering wound.

A part of her seemed panicked and another part didn't care at all and, more strange, from the recesses of her bowls, inflamed and angry, came an obscene and lustfully sneering cheer.

Her stomach was queasy. She wanted Jesus Chicken anyway. She pulled into the drive-thru, not for convenience but for anonymity. She ordered the #1, add cheese, with waffle-fries. She also requested several packets of mayonnaise.

She ate greedily thru the traffic with her ******* ready.

She thought, thank God for speaker phone, and called a dude that tried to **** her at a party once because she knew he sold coke. She'd had gotten his number from one of the guys he'd been with that night.

She nearly screamed when he suggested that maybe they could work out a deal.

She heard herself say, "I'll be right over."

She pulled out a pack of unfiltered Pall Mall 100's, lit one, inhaling deeply, then choke-laughed unexpectedly when the DJ said, "this just in folks,

Democracy....,
she's dead."

Monsters, they're real but not what was expected.

You thought they'd be green instead of orange. You pictured fangs, not porcelain.

You expected a lot more blood and gore where there's this methodical, languishing torture.

It's eating babies right now and people call it politics.

It just doesn't work like that.  Like a big switch in my head,  (grubby and greasy with finger prints), buzzing and humming when turned on.  

Actually,  maybe it's just like that but...

the thing is,  if I were to ramble 'bout all the ways you are just so god ******....
well, that's the kind of **** that makes people want to throw up.

So if you could somehow just take my word for it that you are...

that poster that hung on my wall when I was twelve,

a wholesome dream as much as a pornographic one,

****** decadence all mixed up with kittens and puppy dogs,

well then

we could keep on loving and living well and forget about things as pretentious, narcissistic and nauseating as a poem.

I didn't have the right shirt on so she sent me home to change into something more appropriate because the people throwing the party were a little bit more than just well-to-do and I did because I generally don't like to argue but my second choice was no better than the first so I left again and then once more until she was exasperated enough to let my apparel go even though I was still less than presentable and I followed her through room after cavernous room adorned with Botticelli and Goncharova, way too expensive furniture, cutting edge electronics wired to speakers that screamed "nah nah na nah nah to ground trembling base until finally we emptied out  into acres and acres of back yard where there were scores of people milling about and a pet killer whale swimming around that would occasionally rise up out of the water to splash guests to their amusement, sometimes grabbing one of them by the leg or arm and gently pulling them down to the bottom before releasing them and back up they would come to break the water gasping and giggling which tickled those wandering about but I didn't get what was so funny at all so my face was that of consternation which in hindsight might have been that last straw because she was looking at me, not with the smile she once had of someone completely enamored and enthralled but instead, her countenance was that of someone entirely perturbed and she certainly was with my ****-poor etiquette, lack of insight and my rather limited wardrobe and it was just then that that whale rose up and crashed down again sending a massive wave that totally enveloped us making me realize in an instant that she might have been right about my shirt, for mine was made of silk and certainly it would have been better to be sporting nylon or rayon or,  at least,  something as wrinkle resistant as polyester for she still looked quite perfect smiling back plastic at the raucousness of those watching and I knew then that I wouldn't be seeing these people at the next big party which weighed on me more heavy than that wet shirt and the loss of her crushed me more than if that mighty mammal had landed on my chest but, oddly enough,  when I awoke from that dream, it was with a lightness of relief finding myself lucid again in a world for which I am far better suited.

They recall far too well

They keep count
of the exact amount of
milk and sugar
in her Earl Grey tea.

They take note of
how she won’t allow
bar fruit
to swim in her drink.

They catalog the precise shades of
white, pink and red.

They never forget a body
or face.

They were unobservable last night
at dinner
with so much light mirroring
the windows

Completely unnoticed
while we staggered
between the bums and youth
of downtown.

When we danced,
when she laughed,
with her cool fingers
slick on my skull,

when the downstairs neighbors
banged on the ceiling

when she said that I was…,

I was alone with her.

But this morning,
too many hours after cocktails,
with her skin fuzzy bright
all the sun leaking in,

I could feel the metallic glint
of their stares.

Close but not too close.
not close enough to hold on to but
close.

When they took the air,
I could feel black feathers
beating my ribs.

The crows,
they know and always remember.

We eat breakfast at the diner
two blocks up the street
I shew shewed them away
while she was distracted reading the menu

but I saved the crust of my toast
to feed them later.

Dolly Madison kisses me back sweet-like
outside of Ruby’s
where we sip elixirs and giggle
at the sidewalk staggers
of late night downtown.

“I don’t want someone directing me,”
She says, unexpectedly
(and it comes out like a question),
“but I don’t want to tell someone else
what to do, either.”

“Oh oh,” I say
“Like two mustangs.”

And she says, “what?”

“Two mustangs,” I reiterate.
Not a rider and a horse
or a horse and a rider,
with the digging of spurs and
the crack of crops,
but two steeds, side by side,
running for all they’re worth.

Dolly’s eyes stare
before they
roll up and to her left.
I make my hands move forward
up and down and
side to side,
together.

She lights with a slow smile and says, “yeah”
and kisses me harder.

In my mind the mustangs
sweat.

Karma was a dancer
at the Déjà Vu,
trading fantasies a few days a week
for *****, crumpled bills and
then living the dream on her days off.
That was before I knew her.
Before she faded just a little.

Which is not to say
that she was no longer beautiful
with her mermaid hair,
the color somewhere between
phosphorescent amber and
burning chestnut brown,
down to her *** and falling all around
her painfully sensuous curves.

The faint pucker lines 'round her mouth,
that liver spot,
a slight, barely discernable paunch,
I could see such things, too but
they only endeared me to
the façade of some silly notion
a kin to forever.

We would stay up late,
even on the weeknights,  
wine silly and
**** chatty.
She would dance
and I would tell her
****** poems in exchange.
It seemed like a good trade
to me but the truth is,
she was being shorted in the deal.

We said,
I love you
but I’m not sure we knew
that we didn’t really have that
to offer one another.
Both of us had sold more
than we had ever bargained for
long before we met.

When money ran thin and
times grew hard
she split.

Hope still stops by on occasion.
(She was a dancer, too).
But it seems a bit easier to distinguish
differences between the faux
and the genuine these days.
She doesn’t stay long.

I like to blame it all on Karma
despite knowing that I was just never
quite frugal or savvy enough to afford more than a few perfume-drenched moments at the foot of the stage.

There is this girl
cat lanky long
hair geometric and black
love right angular

There is this girl
moonlight faint
baby talking the plants
and they die

There is this girl
a burning in the throat
the sensation of something coming up
Acid reflux

There is this girl
who came back
and then left

There is this girl
twitching wet and frayed on the sheets
smoldering electric breaker trip
Coughing

There is this girl
licentiously staring at me
over the steering wheel
through the windshield
across the hood
racing the engine
black, black tire smoke
smiling

There is this girl
here on a holliday
a week long, all inclusive
get away

There is this ******* girl
wavy and swirling through the tears, still

There is this dog
two cats
no three
a lot of **** cats
there are these other dogs

There is this house
that felt like home
just once

There was this lady
who forgot her name
and got lost in the bathroom

I’m the man
not enough

You watch a ****** movie
and it rates 1.3 stars higher
because you watched it with her.

She carried them about,
stones in her pockets.
Each one a little secret.

The weight of them
distracting her in conversations.
The bulk of them
effecting her posture.
They would knock
when she would walk.

While she could manage
the slight though ever present
force they exerted
she was perpetually terrified
that one day,
in the midst of some random encounter,
a small hole would
open up
allowing them to tumble out.

They did eventually become too heavy
and the pressure of them
made a space
where
sickness poured in
taking their place.

Stones in the pockets
was not the official diagnosis.
But that's what killed her.
I know
because I watched it.

And I miss her.  
That one woman who loved me
unconditionally.
I need her at times
like now.

I carry no stones of my own
and I am not afraid of holes
but
sometimes
we need the kind of love
that has no strings
like when the other kinds
wish to bury us.

I could see it on her face
Religion carved into the half moon
of her profile
All of gods
judgment  
in the hollows of her eyes
Cruel sadomasochistic saints
painted on her pursed lips

Neither her graceful ***
nor those unearthly ****
could ever persuade me to
relinquish my oh so mortal self
again

So I ran away
really ******* fast

The rope,
it might be pulling a bit too tight,
red braided and cutting
into the white.
She is squirming and writhing
as I wish her to.
Want and scared are
deliciously dancing
in her eyes.

It's misleading.
Very!

I am the one bound and tied,
I am the one held captive.
It's her flesh welted and swollen but
the beating is mine.

I am the prisoner.

How ever convincing
that whimper may sound,
I am the ******* victim, here.

When I was in the darkest place
she showed up with a flashlight

And when I was so, so cold
she built a small fire

I know
if I were dangling from a tiny branch
poking out of a tall cliff
she would be there with rope
setting up nets underneath
I know this
because she did

Some days I am terribly sure
that not a soul gets me
There she is, though
with pom poms
(one that says *****,
the other vanilla)
cheering

The world
just doesn’t  know what compassion is
She defines it

And I love her
I owe her
And I got rope, a flashlight and some matches
so that one day
I can return the favor

And girl,
no number of wrinkles
could make you less beautiful

I don’t want to be Bukowski
anymore
Filling women with my emptiness
Dowsing ***** with gasoline
Fondling the
icky, sticky
gritty sweet with my
fat-fingered, ***** nailed
slur


I want to be  J. D Salinger
Just one something
so significant,
(even if it outlines the disturbing),
and then
a permanent exit

But here I am
Just like chuck  
looking for a flamethrower
to eradicate that ******* bluebird

The words
spewed with all the sincerity
and eloquence I can muster
always lewd

I may have enticed a bit a love
via thin pen
to come knocking once or twice
but the sentiments
they contain no glue

And so when I tumble
back into
the hopeless spaces between
the dust and ***
there is no you.
or us

There is just
this interminably
ugly
I
believing Bukowski was right

And of course I deserve this ****
but
It would be better
to disappear
to never share
to take my ball and go home
forever
home
Yeah,

I want to be Salinger

I don’t want to be
the fat kid on the seesaw
anymore

The let down
the crash into
the dirt

I want to build castles
in the sandbox

Maybe  
hang precariously
inverted

Or perhaps slide
perpetually

Or swing so high
I might go upside down

then just
let go into a freefall
jump

Hey, kid I really like your work.  You could win a hundred bucks.

Oh, Andrea Button!  How sweet of you to notice.  
What do I do what do I do
what do I have to do.

Create an account, handsome.  Accept the terms, ****.  Post your best work, lover.  

So you’ll give me one hundred dollars for my soul, Miss Button?

"And you license to Tallmadge all patent, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights and proprietary rights in and to such Content for publication on the Service pursuant to these Terms of Service."

I said a chance to win, sucker.

Oh Andrea!  You devil.
I am a sucker...,
for fine print.

I was in love
with Denise,
(She sat behind me in the third grade and
moved away in the first few weeks of the fourth),
but it was Tasha,
(who sat next to me and was the
best friend of Denise),
that I would fantasize about.
I would wait in some bush
for her to pass by and then
leap out
wearing a black ski mask and
armed with a rag drenched in chloroform.

The part of the fantasy that would
constantly change was
the way I would drag her back to my trailer.
Sometimes
I would have a Tasha-size duffle bag and
other times
I just dragged her by her feet
or grabbed her by her arm pits.
I often thought it would be smart
to bring my little red wagon.
except that I didn’t have one

In my fantasy it was always late morning
because that’s when my mom wasn’t home.

Once I had Tasha naked in my room
I would tie her hands with a rope secured
to the ceiling
I would pinch and poke and rub Tasha’s body
everywhere.
And stare
She would be blindfolded but
I would leave my ski-mask on
just to be safe,
in case Tasha’s blindfold fell off,
you know?

it’s hard to find chloroform when you’re
only eight.  

Anyway,
she would squirm and writhe and
wiggle
but soon she would change a little
and she would start to moan
she would gasp
and eventually
she would beg for more.

And then more Chloroform
I would drag her back
so that when she woke up
she would maybe think it was
just some fantasy SHE had.

But Denise,
when I dreamed of her
we just rode bikes and stuff.

I was in love with her.

Sometimes I think myself clever,
a genius in horticulture,
harvesting perpetual fleeting moments.
A muted gardener.
Watering without promise or
sentiment.

When the air grows stale
I can disappear
(I always have),
like so many ghosts
or smoke
A nomadic farmer.

But today
I want to be
old and knotted roots.
stationary and permanent,
nourishing and timeless,
impervious to elements
so that she
might flourish.
I want to lean hard into the wind,
sway with it and
bend
while holding my
only purchase.

And when she opens up
it will be enough
and maybe for the first time
neither of us
will be
murderers of perennials.

Mary,

don’t leave me.  
The things we’ve seen,
the perfectly serene
tranquil hours,
thick, sweating, hazy bliss.  
No.  
Stay with me.  
One more day of
nakedness in the park.  
One more night of you
late and deep and
infinite in the dark.  
One more breath of you.  

You *****!

I should have tossed you out
with the cigarette butts and
the empty bottles of *****.
I should have buried you
in the back yard where
no one
would ever find you.
I should have
handed you over to
those shady *******
who moved in down the block.
I should have sold you.

Oh, my love!  

These cloudy afternoons are
cloudy for us, tangled
in each other.  
Lost!  
Maybe I could live with
never seeing you again if
I could just always taste you.  
I understand you  
so perfectly.  
The lovely flower,
Delicate,
an intoxicating
fragility,
I will hold you
so delicately.

You *****!
  
I will eat you.  
I will take you down
in restrooms;
on the beach;
on the side of the road;
on the steps of the church
with the clergy staring
upon us,
possessed and hell-promised,
in the middle of
room full of people.  
I would burn the
******* house down,
Mary,
just to elicit
the tiniest bit of
glow from you.

My everything!

I plead.  
I entreat.  
I command, beg and weep and
I find a little more of you
absent each and every day.
Like you have dried up and
withered as
the direct result of
me loving you too much.  
Words and want and sentiment
do nothing
to keep you here and
so what do I do?

I ensconce you
in plastic to
preserve you.  
I roll you up carefully
expelling all the air and
secure you
with a cord.  
I make room for you in
the freezer
so that you will never change,
so that I might take you out for
a few moments
at the end
of seemingly endless days and
finger you
on the kitchen table.  
So that I might breathe you
in moments
when another heartbeat
seems too painful.  
You help me like that.  

You are looking quite
green but
that red hair, oh!  
So carefully I keep you
these days
not sharing you with
anyone, ever…,
well
almost never.  
I mean if the right girl
were to come along and
if she was of the mind
to understand,
open enough to
mentally grasp
the sort of relationship
that we have then
maybe we could
allow her just a bit
of the madness we share.
Or maybe if I had a really,
really good best friend
I might allow him a
taste of you
now and again.
Friends share until it
hurts to give,
don’t they?

All we have been through,
so many close calls like
that time in that
dank little apartment
downtown
when the authorities were
mistakenly busting down
the door next door.  
It was a terrifying experience but
I giggle a little now
at how
when things quieted back down and
darkness fell
I scooped you up and
shoved you
in the trunk of my car and
we drove and drove
and drove.  
It was summer and
hot as hell and
the next day you
started to smell a little,
reek actually and
your odor saturated the
interior of my Chevelle and so
I made sure we
traveled at speed no more than
ten miles per hour
under the posted limit,
totally paranoid with
the situation and
still as happy and rich as
I have ever been with
so much of you
bound and tied and
packaged for
no one
other than myself.  

And still,
look at you.  
Everyday diminishing,
dwindling,
evaporating into
nothing and
enough is never
enough.  
Every time I resolve myself to
quitting you,
to leaving you behind and
moving forth
I pace the floor
sleepless,
my mind traversing a
monotonous loop that
circles every reason that I should
cast you out but
religiously returns
to the need that is you.

Mary, don’t!
Don’t leave me,
Don’t.

The thing 'bout Haikus
when you are on the verge of
something that's deep and

What was her name?
****, I can’t remember.

It was a boy’s name
made feminine
with a little “i” at the end
like maybe hearing it would
make you think of
some fat guy making pizzas
until you see it
spelled out or
until it becomes attached
to her lips and hair and
skin.
The “i” was not dotted
with a little heart,
(not her style at all) but
I should have a picture
in a box some where with more pictures.
I don’t.

I’ve got little notes,
tiny thoughts scribbled
on empty match book covers,
on the backs of
pretentious
business cards,
in the borders of
the mutilated,
amputated flesh
of decrepit
used up yellow pages,  
ripped from a dead and
disjointed phone book.

I woke up from this dream
and groped for something
to scrawl on,
anything,
because it seemed significant
at 2:38 am.

In the desert somewhere,
(I’ve never even been)
you were
looking out the window
and the way the parched
dry light crackled
around you
you might have been an angel
or a sign
partially occluded by glass
advertising something
I could never afford
like family or god
when suddenly you were not
a silhouette,
not back lit,
but glowing.

You were so in love, with
who I don’t know, and you
went into free fall
back
onto the bed
pulled your knees up
to your chest and
kicked your legs giggling.
I was part dead, half ghost
and still happy that you
were so happy.
I said, “you’re pregnant?”
knowing the way you
know things without
really having a way
of knowing
in a dream.

You laughed again
grabbed your little dog up
in your arms,
(I’ve no idea where the pup
came from), and baby-whispered,
“You’re going to cut
the umbilical,
aren’t you?”

and I woke with
the image of that mongrel
chewing through
the cord.

I am
waiting at the pharmacy
and the…
technician,
is reading the
cryptic symbols
penned in
indiscernible Latin,
my prescription.
She is not beautiful
but very fuckable
And in my mind
I am constructing an
image of her ******,
likening  
the shape,
size, color, etc.,
to her mouth,
when I see
my own writing on
the back
through her precise
fingers.

The tech,  
she is holding a
snapshot of her.
It might as well be
a picture of me
vomiting or
******* or
defecating.
This
is what I have left,
my version of a photo,
my dream,
scrawled on the back
of my medicine.

**** getting better.  
I ****** it from her hand.

I leave fast.  I will
never go back.
This is no chemical imbalance.
This is not my inheritance.
The loss and pain, sometimes,
that's the pill we need to swallow.

Her long brown hair hung
occluding forty-seven percent of her face
and her one eye
looked a little manic.

It was slow and sweet
for a while
but she had been
gradually gaining momentum.

I am watching her
carefully and
waiting, really
for that moment.

Suddenly she stops.

She raises her hands up
clenched.
It looks like she is going to
pull her own hair
and then her right fist
slams into my ribs
followed by a left
and a right and a left.
A barrage of little hurts
pouring out
machine gun frenzied.

She digs her nails into my chest,
her mouth is twisted,
her teeth clenched,
I can see muscles
in one jaw line twitch.
More hair falls over her
Countenance.
Her hips move furious  

and then
Sensuous wails of red light,
screams of sumptuous green,
bright yellow trembling,
and electric blue rippling
like bright neon

She cools and dims
she collapses
into me
sobbing
and I can feel
salty wet
itchy dripping down my skin

I cry too
never having seen someone
this...



Michael L Sutter

If only


we could start off with

some horrific argument,

the emotion subsiding.

We would curse less and less.

Words would fall back into our mouths.



Nothing to be forgiven or

forgotten

because it never quite happen.

We would hold each other

comforting hurts that

would always undo themselves.



Each kiss would make us

a little more giddy and

every day

you really would look

a little more pretty.



The way we touch

would be a sort of

un-touching

that would redefine anticipation

Every ****** intensifying,

escalating into that first feel,

first taste,

first breath of breathing



and then

finally

we would

walk backwards,

away from us,

it would feel

like we were

approaching something though,

like we might

care for one another

one day.

We would go away dreaming

the parts

we hadn’t quite discovered

before losing sight of one another

without any of the hurt or

remorse.



We would still be perfect somehow.

Loving in reverse
instead of backwards.


Michael L Sutter

Nobody likes vultures.
Oh, but the eagle…
People ******* love eagles.

The vultures,
they tidy things up for us.
The stench of all that rotting,
decaying road-dead flesh,
all the life crushed beneath our wheels
when we were not paying attention,
when we were moving too fast,
they take care of that.
They clean up a mess.
How nice.

The eagle…
it kills ****.  
And in that we see such nobility and
Regalness.

I propose we change
the symbol
on all our currency,
in our courthouses,
on the t-shirts of so many
Wal-mart shoppers,
to the vulture

and then maybe
act the part

and when someone mentions the eagle…
we can turn our nose up at the thought.

Michael L Sutter

There is never nothing new
Just rearrange things

I don’t write poems
I just remove the extra words that are in the way

Hold on to the words like whispers and shadows and wings
Recklessly insert adjectives
Tie it all to your delusions of profundity

Dig down deep for pain
no matter how senseless
Pick at your emotional scabs
Bleed

No one likes poetry
Constantly remind people of that
Tell them that you make it sound good to you and **** them
(Even though their ovation means everything)

Slip, dip and weave
With ambiguous wet dreams
Full lips and thick tongue
Mouthing…
Come
to an understanding
***** is much better than clean
Make it filthy
Soil it

Make it nostalgic
People need to be reassured that you were really ******* up as a kid
and that this poetry **** doesn’t just happen to people overnight

Make it esoteric
That way, when no one knows what the hell you are talking about,
you will have a good word to explain why

Say things that are so ill mannered that they are weighty
I will give you an example
“I’m not looking for a girl that is beautiful
I'm looking for one just barely ugly enough to **** me”

Incite large groups of people to *****

Get so personal that it gives people headaches

Expose yourself until everyone is embarrassed for you

Spew it all over the bar
In a drunken stupor
flaunt it lasciviously with your genitals
Pour yourself into reckless collisions
Drink from your soul until it rots your liver

Write until you want to **** yourself
then write about that

Make it as bitter as a Wal-mart associate
Make it so sweet she will swallow it all
before looking up at you with eyes like tiny puddles
To say, “that was beautiful”
(even though it was disgusting)

It should be raw
It should make you itch
It should be like rubbing up against it spreads it
It should be like VD

Make really long
Like it’s your *****
No,
Make it really, really long
Like its my *****

Make it rhyme
I mean don’t
Don’t

Don’t ever write another ******* poem
because I assure you
if I did not write it
than it must ****

and that is how poetry works

Michael L Sutter

I wanted to stop someone

on the street

and ask them.

I wanted to stop the next random person

and say, hey

can I ask you a question.

They would think

I wanted some change

to buy a little more alcohol

but I don’t really drink

and they would say sure you don’t, buddy

and maybe hand me some coins anyway

or just walk on

without another word or turn of their head

convincing themselves that my homeless state

is my own fault

and it is

but I am not even homeless

Not the way they think.



I want to ask them,

the ones reverently typing into their phones,

excuse me but what exactly does LOL mean

because I don’t hear anything.



I wanted to ask someone

but everyone seems in such a hurry

procuring caffeine infused drinks

with names that are so long

that you couldn’t fit them on billboards

but they rattle them off

with a fine, practiced precision of the tongue

to Baristas in green aprons

wearing Verona smiles,

their eyes glinting from farther away than

the place which the precious coffee whence came

and I want to ask

if this is maybe their own illusion,

one that mimics conversation,

making the five-something they pay

so ******* worth it.



I wanted to ask someone

sitting at their desk

incessantly checking their on-line profiles

and commenting on comments

made in response to the comment

they left on the post of a picture

that has captured a small snapshot

of some life

while they pretend to be working on something else

so that they can pay the ever increasing price of access

because its important to stay connected

and I bet if I asked them to list

six things they could never live without

surely Facebook is what they would list

right after water, food and God

but they just seem too busy which

I think is their intent.



I wanted to ask someone

but everyone seemed so focused

on getting home

so they could embrace their loved ones

on the sofa

and hold each other close

while they memorize the reruns of

some reality TV show,

while they don’t talk to each other,

being so engrossed, and

I would ask them

if I were in their living rooms

while they strain to hold their heavy lidded eyes

high

shooting their television with their ray guns

chanelling their TV gods,

chanting,

there’s nothing on,
there’s nothing on,
there’s nothing on.



I wanted to ask someone,

anyone,

if that girl was right

when she told me that

I speak too passionately when expressing a point

and if it really is good

to nod in agreement

with the things people say

like a parrot

as opposed to posing an argument

because she professes to know that

beneath my façade of not caring

that I do care if they accept me or not and

I really do want to know

if she is right and

I wanted to ask someone

but instead I decided to just keep it to myself

because deep down I do know

she was as wrong as

I always was

and if there is one thing that I did learn from her

it is that

if you cant fit it

in the one-hundred and sixty character space

of a text message

no one really wants to hear it anyway



so instead of starting a random conversation

with a stranger

I spent the morning memorizing acronyms

so that I might communicate more effectively

with people farther away than my voice.


Michael L Sutter

I try to imagine you with a few more wrinkles.
More pucker lines around your mouth
and fatter
Liver spots indicative of aging,
a few of your teeth gone brown or missing,
and maybe some sort of growth upon your nose.
I wish your beauty bad

I imagine,
in your desperation for
a little bit of the attention
you once had,
you would come back for me.

You would leap out from behind a tree
like on our first date.
You would shout boo
and we would laugh
like the way I can’t forget.

I would take you in my arms
and kiss your crinkled lips.  
We would walk again on a city street
so that I can watch you digest
     the art of the sidewalk,
          the music of dive bars,
               the difference between two woven fabrics
that look quite the same to me.

And I would
help you back up to your pedestal.
I would stand close to keep you safe.

I would love you.
Forever.
No matter.

I wish you were ugly like me.


Michael L Sutter