"You speak to me of narcissism but I reply that it is
a matter of my life" - Artaud

"At this time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers
to my daughters and their daughters" - Anonymous

Better,
despite the worms talking to
the mare's hoof in the field;
better,
despite the season of young girls
dropping their blood;
better somehow
to drop myself quickly
into an old room.
Better (someone said)
not to be born
and far better
not to be born twice
at thirteen
where the boardinghouse,
each year a bedroom,
caught fire.

Dear friend,
I will have to sink with hundreds of others
on a dumbwaiter into hell.
I will be a light thing.
I will enter death
like someone's lost optical lens.
Life is half enlarged.
The fish and owls are fierce today.
Life tilts backward and forward.
Even the wasps cannot find my eyes.

Yes,
eyes that were immediate once.
Eyes that have been truly awake,
eyes that told the whole story-
poor dumb animals.
Eyes that were pierced,
little nail heads,
light blue gunshots.

And once with
a mouth like a cup,
clay colored or blood colored,
open like the breakwater
for the lost ocean
and open like the noose
for the first head.

Once upon a time
my hunger was for Jesus.
O my hunger! My hunger!
Before he grew old
he rode calmly into Jerusalem
in search of death.

This time
I certainly
do not ask for understanding
and yet I hope everyone else
will turn their heads when an unrehearsed fish jumps
on the surface of Echo Lake;
when moonlight,
its bass note turned up loud,
hurts some building in Boston,
when the truly beautiful lie together.
I think of this, surely,
and would think of it far longer
if I were not... if I were not
at that old fire.

I could admit
that I am only a coward
crying me me me
and not mention the little gnats, the moths,
forced by circumstance
to **** on the electric bulb.
But surely you know that everyone has a death,
his own death,
waiting for him.
So I will go now
without old age or disease,
wildly but accurately,
knowing my best route,
carried by that toy donkey I rode all these years,
never asking, "Where are we going?"
We were riding (if I'd only known)
to this.

Dear friend,
please do not think
that I visualize guitars playing
or my father arching his bone.
I do not even expect my mother's mouth.
I know that I have died before-
once in November, once in June.
How strange to choose June again,
so concrete with its green ******* and bellies.
Of course guitars will not play!
The snakes will certainly not notice.
New York City will not mind.
At night the bats will beat on the trees,
knowing it all,
seeing what they sensed all day.

I watched you write me love notes,
Appreciating the way you loop your y's
And the cursive that looks like graphite smoke
On an untouched canvas

The way you hold your hand is elegant,
Every movement fine, performed with grace
And you mutter what you're writing
Just to make sure it sounds perfect.

Sometimes, you scribe little poems outside the margin
Sweetness dripping like honey off tongues,
Enraptured by your words, spellbound
I'll fall into you

Is there tear gas in this room?
Because I can't stop crying
The gas crawls down my esophagus
And crushes my wounded heart.

“God this hurts”

I keep typing,
Praying to computer screen
That I'll forget the smell of your hair
I type till my fingers bleed
So I can forget what your touch feels like
How our lips fit perfectly together.

“God I hate myself”

The only phrase I think of
When I'm pleading for things to back to normal
Back to the days
Where you didn't want to to crack open my skull
And see all of the ugly things
That drift around my cranium

“Baby please I'm sorry. I’m a mess,
A klutz, who waltzes around with stupidity
Baby I get this feeling in my head
When you are not around
I want to keep writing you these love letters
By sliding them under your doors called your eyelids”
But I can’t

I sit alone in the bus called life
Looking across my seat
I see you, my love
Holding onto the bar
Your pretty Blue headlights
That make me drawn to you
Your pretty Blue headlights
Covered with the rain I caused
I'm a rain man,
you see, when people get close to me
I get scared
And force the skies rain to tears with pain.


The only thing that floats in my mind
Is that I hope the man of you life
Buys you flowers
Sunflowers especially
And shows up to your work unexpectedly.
I hope you can travel to Paris
and keep a long list of all of the countries
you've cuddled in.
With him.
I hope you he can handle seeing the stars
From your eyes every time you guys cuddle
Under the moon light.
I hope he can teach you how to slow dance
And I hope that he can teach me
On how to be a better man.

I don’t think my mom remembers the way she held my face in her hands, my eyes watching tears race down her cheeks. She pressed her lips on my forehead and I could smell the whiskey she had downed, already knowing the different “medicine” (that’s what she called it) that made Mommy forget how Daddy left us and avoid staring at the kitchen knife, to attempt suicide again. She became angry and slapped me across the face with her hand, and I swear I heard the same sound you made when you slammed the door in my ******* face, making my whole house shake.
I remember later on walking into my parent’s closet, a 40 in my hand and a bit of blood dropping to the floor. Every time I thought about you I would etch a line into my skin and taste the alcohol that burned the back of my throat, to remember the way you tasted when you kissed me. The paramedics told my parents that it was a miracle that they could find my pulse that morning.
I can’t write without seeing your name in every poem, making me rip it to shreds, screaming, “I need you.”
I tried finding you in other people, no matter how pathetic and naïve I am, I kissed their lips but all I could think about was how your body felt against mine. I searched for you in the back of my car, where we would spend rainy days with your hands skimming my bare skin and your lips in my ears whispering, “Babe, I’m forever.” Now all that’s left in the back of my car is your shirt and empty antidepressant bottles.
I searched for your blue shade of eyes that always made my lungs stop breathing, I didn’t even realize I was suffocating, and we both knew that was my biggest fear.
I accidentally phoned you, anxiety erupting inside me. Sad and ******, I stared at your ******* name and wondered why the **** wasn’t I good enough for an apology after you destroyed the person I was and left me in pieces. You didn’t even ******* care enough to revisit the person you “wasted 9 months on.”
I always believed that I would become as transparent as you made me feel, I was beginning to believe I would disappear without you.
Sometimes I hear your empty promises echo off my walls while I try to forget the way you held me, like I would once again fade into nothing if you weren’t touching me. But that didn’t ******* stop you from leaving.
And now I am as empty as the bottles I drink because the universe has been screaming at me that she isn’t the one.