I say swear words,
  smell sweet girl hair
  I never knew before.
  Susan Tucker was my
  first confusing kiss
  loved forever more.

First love hasn't felt jealously or
shouting or anger or possessive rage.
It's in a vacuum, alone, rare, yet to be
buffeted by rough seas and bruised
lovers with attitude. It's naive and a
thing of true beauty.
It belongs in a museum, unsoiled,
protected in a glass case.

First love hasn't felt jealously or
shouting or anger or possessive rage.
It's in a vacuum, alone, rare, yet to be
buffeted by rough seas and bruised
lovers with attitude. It's naive and a
thing of true beauty.
It belongs in a museum, unsoiled,
protected in a glass case.

In summer's tall green grass
  we planned our picnic hidden
  from God's all seeing eye
  to hide our secret forbidden
  we gave our virginity away
  as one at the altar of blood
  radio troubadour serenaded
  our marriage baptized flood.

Every poet has written a first
poem they'd rather never mind.
No one springs from mother's
womb Yeats or Eliot or Frost in
full bloom. Broke hearts come
before broke dreams come
before broke psyche. Write
my first birthday card again.

Inside my frailty
I felt your cruelty.
I found my *****
in your claws
endless lies
in your eyes
made you blind
could not find
kindness but I
learned to fly.

Inside my frailty
I took your cruelty
I found my *****
in your claws
endless lies
in your eyes
made you blind
could not find
kindness but I
learned to fly.

I will write my first song
play guitar chords along
sing it to myself with beer
in fogged bathroom mirror.

I found a magazine
left lonely in a field.
I was 13, what I'd seen
set me free. I was healed.

I write poems like I fish.
Wrap words around hooks
and drop them in waters
hoping for hungry looks
from bug eyed poets
willing to strike
for a chance to eat
they give me a like.

I finally forgot how to breathe
I've lived in a vacuum so long.
I drown in an ocean full of life,
surface days later in this song.
We confess our serial betrayals
acting like lovers forgiving
turn our black souls outward
continue to act out our living.

My world is on fire.
I can't quench my desire.
Vows burn down
scarecrows frown
fields in flames
each side blames
the other one
for what is done
spring we till earth
fields born a rebirth.

We have a type. We are mad as hatters
but crazy in love. Yin yang.
We burst into flames at happy hour
screaming about nothing anyway.
We swallow the fire and break the bed
and wake entwined in noon's mad sun.

I've lived rough and troubled
with flask and pen in hands
writing songs for the rest of us
dancing to rowdy bar bands.
Fall in love on Monday night.
Tuesday in our broken bed
Wednesday buy a ring for you
Thursday by George we are wed.

Scammed as I could be
you picked my pocket
while you set me free
exploded my rocket.

Whenever you think of me
I'm just lost flawed beauty.
We were always meant to be
madness always set me free.

Written by Phoebe Waller

    I would say ****** into liquidation.
    and I ****** up my family
    and I ****** my friend
    by ******* her boyfriend
    and sometimes I wish I didn't
    even know that ******* existed
    and that I know that my body
    as it is now really is the only
    thing I have left, and when that
    gets old and unfuckable,
    I may as well just **** it.
    And somehow there isn't
    anything worse than someone
    who doesn't want to **** me.
    I **** everything. Except for
    when I was in your office.
    I really wasn't trying to have ***.
    Either everyone feels like this
    a little bit, and they're just not
    talking about it, or I'm completely
    ******* alone. Which isn't ******* funny.

I've been drinking
since the river took
her from my arms.
I hold despair as
my lover now.

The devil checks hell's manifest
every day looking for my name.
The mortal sins never confessed,
unrepentant sins of my shame.

God keeps me unto Himself.
He knows my romantic heart,
My ideals are always top shelf.
Put the horse before the cart.

Spin the wheel and make a bet
where do you land on roulette?
On top you eat Filet Mignon
bottom maggots feast at dawn.

Footnote:
an ancillary piece of information
printed at the bottom of a page.

I've always been a footnote. Never
a title or chapter or paragraph.
I'm diminished and dispelled, an
afterthought after all. Forgotten.
Dead my whole life. Invisible.
Ghost among the living after all.
I'm the one dressed in black with
weapons so you see me and forget.

I'll be a footnote in macabre history
the school shooter at Columbine.
Still never remembered because
footnotes are never really seen.

Always the sweetest taste of all.
First French kiss and touch a bra.
You tamed my snake with your kiss.
I tasted your secret garden's bliss.

Betrayed by our evil lords
invaded by foreign hordes
in Cady Lake neighborhood.
We did best that we could.
The gun safes all unlocked.
Shotgun and whiskey cocked.
Armed to the teeth we wait
to finally learn our fate.

Gone like death's shadow
  she disappeared in the night
  stole my heart when I went
  for a ****. Love's in flight.
  I don't care. She was plain
  like a corn stalk. It's late.
  I'll stop by the **** store,
  foreplay, home, *******.

I love Love's Flame. I don't understand
where the fierce heat of her beginning
goes over time. I do my best to love
in Love's ashes. I dig for our lust.
I find spent love and empty hearts
yearning for another forest fire.

Round here we bark like lions
fix ourselves when we're broken.
I need a kind touch and calm voice
and laughter and throw ***** and
a treat and let me stick my head
out the car window on our way
to the dog park. I will be your
forever best friend forever!

I am your creator. Forgive me.
  I grew you from a ***** and egg
  and delivered you into a place
  you never know and always fear
  unhappy with your reflected face
  I'm sorry for creating a mirror.
  I'm sorry for your doubt
  prayers of hope for favors
  unsure what that's about
  I never made you any saviors.

I fear me more than all the evil in the world.
   Maybe it's time to let the old times die.
   The poets can't make anything rhyme tonight.
   It seems futile for my old soul to even try.
   Was I forged in Hell's furnace? Am I Satan's
   spawn? Am I just sick to death of being Catholic?

My compass has no true north.
I try to find my way back home.
I end in places without the pain.
I keep trying so don't blame me.
I call once a year and send cards on
holidays so you know that I care.

I offer my feeding tube,
unintelligable prophet
welcome the **** ****
better than just the spit.

I broke the fragile promises
that you could never keep.

Give me our broke vets
under bridges in tents.
I give them all money
for a cheap pint of honey.
Thanks for your service.
July 4th makes you nervous
1812 Overture torn apart
from bottom of your heart.

My lover's letters yellow
from decades gone by.
I read them and stain
sacred words with tears.
Tonight I sleep alone
with your ghost near me.

Not a ******* thing matters.
We're molecules and atoms and
puppets of some god or other.
I feel the strings on my body
pulling me this way and that.
I'm a chemical monster and
biological Frankenstein who
wants love but loses it through
fingers like mercury as you
burn us in funeral pyres.

We  poets die over and over
each night as our words are
lost in waves of box wine.
We finally surrender to night's
promise of resurrection.

Bring me bent widgets,
midgets with no place.
Round in square holes
never fit in disgrace.
We're among you always.
We are broken freaks.
Our god will bless you.
Listen while It speaks.
I lied of my pedigree.
I'm not from royalty.
I hope you'll agree
let well enough be.

I dreamed I was a lesbian
  trapped inside a manly man
  infinity inside a clock
  broken heart inside a lock
  blindfold at a firing squad
  playing racquetball with god
  Einstein teaching ABC's
  an atheist on his knees
  drunk poet feeling free
  a monkey typing poetry.

I dreamed I was a lesbian
  stage frightened thespian
  infinity inside a clock
  broken heart inside a rock
  blindfold at a firing squad
  playing racquetball with god
  Einstein teaching ABC's
  an atheist on his knees
  drunk poet spying in  trees
  a monkey typing poetry.

Freak Show

  I dreamed I was a lesbian
  trapped inside a manly man
  infinity inside a clock
  broken heart inside a lock
  blindfold at a firing squad
  playing 3D chess with god
  Einstein teaching ABC's
  an atheist on his knees
  drunk poet spying in a tree
  a monkey typing poetry.

They gave me a prison suit to wear outside.
   They gave me cab fare. I was free at last.
   The only bars keeping me prisoner were my
   appetites of my own creation. I fear freedom.
   Choices are heavy with unseen consequences.
   I love chemicals that stir my blood into a boil
   that take me part way to heaven. Just enough
   to see God on stage raging at the crowd. "What
   is wrong with mankind? Why do you keep ashes
   in your hearts from fires dead so long ago?"
   I wonder at that and wake in my walk up and
   remember her touch and taste from long ago.

Party keeps raging on fire
I leave out the front door
like a ghost without desire
float into a bed of a *****
donate my seed to the choir
I hear my Symphony's score.

There's a graveyard beneath my bed
at 3AM filled with my dear dead
or maybe it's just inside my head.
We left without saying goodbye.
What a horrible way for us to die
slit a wrist drunk, laugh not cry.

Such lovely thighs
the wonder whys
I hear your cries
we say goodbyes
time always flies
your beauty dies.

There's a graveyard under my bed
at 3AM filled with my dear dead
or maybe it's just inside my head.
You left without saying goodbye.
What a horrible way you die.
**** your liver, laugh don't cry.

There's a graveyard beneath my bed
at 3AM filled with my dear dead
or maybe it's just inside my head.
We left without saying goodbye.
What a horrible way for me to die
slit my wrist drunk laugh not cry.

Such lovely thighs
the wonder whys
I hear your cries
we say goodbyes
time always flies
your beauty dies.

Bewildering array of possibility
  you were born you and me born me
  God died in the Time's Headlines
  life is accidents of French Mimes.

My frightened little boy
  still lives inside my head
  always in background noise
  'til I'm drunk and go to bed.
  I take a pill to keep him
  from screaming when I wake
  so I can drink my coffee and
  his fragile hands won't shake.
  Every lover wants to save him
  suckle from her ****** breast
  but he drinks her dry and none
  is ever left for the needy rest.

I want to
and have
apply you
magic salve.
Stop the clocks.
Turn off time
no more tocks
froze in rhyme.
Famous painting
hangs in France
with crooked smile
and one more dance.

We never have enough to eat.
Winter is brutal up north and
we can't pay for heat huddled
around Dollar Store candles.
My Goldy is dead in morning.
Daddy can't keep a job anymore.