On a cold night
I drive around
With my windows cracked
Smoking cigarettes
And tossing keystones
Out the window.
I drive around
The dead end neighborhoods
Tossing keystones
Out the window
Wondering why there’s nothing
Better to do.
Sure I could get laid
Cause a girl asked me over.
Sure I could go see a friend
And talk about how little
I want,
Or I could
try to laugh a little.
But tonight there’s no point
To any of that.
Driving around
In the cold
Getting drunk
Is the only thing
That makes any sense.
Soon I’ll head home
And go to sleep.
Tomorrow might be different
Like tonight might have been
If I cared about all those things
That seem to keep
Everyone else going.

People always seem so stable
When you drive by
And don’t know their names.
They are just people
With their eyes forward on the road.
I wonder how many of them
Are drunk as I am
On this 230 pm road
Thinking about why she left
And why she came back,
Knowing it will happen again
Because neither of us care enough.
Some of these people must be dealing
With madness.
Some of them must have life in them.
Some so much so that they are driving home,
Or somewhere far away,
Right now
To put a bullet in their brains.

A few years ago I loved a woman so helplessly
That I probably still do.
I’ve never known a woman with such a hard life,
But she tried to make the most of it
So the bugs wouldn’t crawl
Under her skin again.

Her first daughter was eight
And would talk to people
We couldn’t see.
She was awkward but intelligent
And would read science books for fun.
In her early years she’d cry in the cold
Held by her mother
Who held a cardboard sign
That asked for money.
Her second daughter was four
And was the most lovable child
Despite her manic energy
And endless tantrums.
She had a rosey smile
That wanted to love everyone
And be loved by everyone
And I imagine she will be betrayed
Quite a lot in her life.

Because of these two,
And because of herself,
Her small apartment was always *****.
Dishes piling out of the sink onto the counter,
Toys, dolls, markers, drawings, books, blankets, crumbs
All over the place surrounded by at least a hundred articles of clothing
On any given day.
Small flies would gather around the center of the room
And fly in a tight circle.
Everyday she would be cleaning
And it never looked much different.
Most of the time I spent with her
Was spent cleaning up the apartment.
The rest of the time was spent in bed.
Those were some of the best times of my life.

She was the most critical person
I have ever met
But never believed she was asking for much.
She expected people to always treat each other well
And would go broken hearted mad when they inevitably didn’t.

She felt the same way about me
As I did about myself at the time:
She loved me completely
But couldn’t appreciate any of it
For very long
Because it didn’t make sense
Why I’d destroyed myself.

I don’t know how’s she’s doing now,
But I’m sure she’s still fighting
The good fight
And losing horribly.

The saints spend everyday cleaning.
It never looks much different,
But they spend everyday cleaning.

When her kid was eight months old
She put her in a baby swing and hid her in a closet
Down the hall at her parents place.
Then she went to the barn out back,
Which had a chain locked door that slid ten feet across,
And in there he was in the throes of a manic fit,
Walking in and out through the cold October night,
Eyes all pupil and mind untraceable.
He kept saying “I’ll **** you! I’ll ******* **** all of you!”
And eventually she realized she couldn’t calm him down
So she hid in a locked room inside the house
And waited for the cops to come.
When I asked her why she didn’t charge him
For attempted ****** and only gave him three months for domestic dispute
She said, so drunk it came out in a rage,
“Because I’m stupid and I’m loyal!
It’s one of those things where, after, you don’t know why you did it,
But had to at the time.
Soon I’ll be somewhere where the weathers always nice.
I can’t tell you where.
Witness protection and all that.
But now I’ve got a life ahead of me looking over my shoulder.”
“Well as long as he doesn’t know where you went he won’t be able to find you.”
She didn’t seem to hear me and continued on.
“I wrote him a letter.
I want him to sit with it.
Our daughters autistic cause of what he did
When I was eight months pregnant.
I have the diagnostics from three doctors.
I didn’t want to believe it.
His dad won’t tell him,
But I want him to see it.
I want him to see with it.
He deserves to sit with it.
That’s why I’m so ****** up right now.
I’m leaving Tuesday.
Jocelyn won’t be Jocelyn anymore.
We have to change our names.
Nothing will be the same anymore.”

For a long time I’ve had no women to love.
Now I have two
And they hate each other
Without knowing each other.
I go back and forth between the two.
It is how nearly all my time has been spent lately.
There’s not even as much *** as you might imagine.
It starts off with something like, “Where are you coming from?”
Or, “How has your night been?”
those types of questions loaded with assumptions.
I’m not a liar.
I always tell them.
Then I spend a few hours soothing their insecurities,
Letting them know how much they mean to me
And assuring them that this other thing
Doesn’t change that.
Then we get to the *******
Assuming I’m not drunk past the point of staying hard,
Which, by that time, I usually am.
It’s a pain in the ***.
Even when it’s just one girl
Love is a pain in the ***.
But like this, with all the jealousy,
It is much more complicated;
There is much less ***
And far more quelling.
It’s funny,
I go years without it without a problem,
Then I get it so much that I hardly have it at all.
Life’s full of little ironies like that.
I imagine they get the most difficult to deal with when you can’t laugh about them.
And I am laughing,
Manically.

I am sick today,
So sick that I feel I haven’t been right in the head
For a long time.
All I had to eat yesterday was oatmeal
That made me want to *****.
Then I drank malt liquor.
I still had some of my 40oz
When I left my friends apartment
But I didn’t even want to finish it.
I took one last drink
And threw the bottle out my window
As I drove out the parking lot.
This morning I took my dog to the vet;
He’s just had surgery and needed a check up.
Shortly after I started driving
He fell awkwardly against the side of the car,
******* himself,
Rubbing it into himself and the car
In the process,
So I pulled over,
Lifted him out of it,
And laid him down on the opposite side of the car.
He looked at me the whole time,
Seeming confused,
Asking about his agony.
At the vet he needed to be carried in.
Inside, I laid him on the floor in front of me
Where he trembled in pain.
The news played
And the women laughed with each other
Like it was scripted
And like they didn’t
Know how to act.
Something was asking to leave my gut,
Either out of my *** or mouth
It didn’t care,
But there were no bathrooms
So I sat on the wood bench
Listening to small dogs yapping down the hallway
And the receptionist returning missed calls
With a rehearsed cadence, lilt, and message,
And started sweating.
I called in sick to work.
The wound reopened
And now he needs another surgery.
As the veterinarian explains this to me
He seems dejected
But still recommends further surgery.
I hope my mom will have heart enough to **** him
And not keep the kind of hope
That merely prolongs suffering.
I don’t want to hear more
Of anything in the world right now.
I want to sit on my couch
And wait out my sickness.
On the way home,
While stopped at a red light,
An old women rear ended me slightly,
Although enough to make the old boy
Try to stand up in a fright.
I look in the rear view mirror and she seems not to notice
So I pretend I didn’t either
And drive home
To clean up the ****
In my backseat.

Alright, you're white, throw a pawn on down the field.
Let our motionless armies slowly rage forward upon each other.
Let the weight of their steps bruise our minds.
Let the clash of sword and shield pierce our ears with their incessant harangue.
Let a hundred pieces fall and let half haunt as phantom death upon what still lives.
Let the ****** cries come from the depths we toss them in vie without rout, in our loveless relationship!
Every move is certain disaster!
Let the hours drag for years without rest. Let our perineal battle wear us down until we have lost **** near all.
Then I will let you toss the last spear, rip the last vessel from my heart, exultant,
with that awful face of yours.