everyone
is a ******* poet
and that's why
nobody
is a ******* poet
sit behind LCD safety
lie to me
pretend you're deeper than
your god meant for you to be
subsequently innocuous
puttin the ob in obnoxious
i sick, you sick, we sick of us
of this
shed a tear and gut ya wrist

ive been starin a long time at this body mine
ragged, alien, hollow, watch me give a ****
shattered frames leanin walls, been and gone
talkin times too long
before my shoulder glance got permanent
he says that now i cant quit
starin up from in his pit
i done been done writhing with
but hes right aint he
dont like bein told
where to be

aint heard him since, aint no one
aint none my goals done
hesitate and die, son
it aint about you
bout the goods
lemme getcha eyes pretty blue

got a whole stash upstairs
sleepin with the *****, nightstand
ima take advantage of all this rain
playing the game
and ill see you shakin, chained
to ya fear, past choice, belated invoice
shoulda kept ya ride clean

I was wading through the dust which slept in my room as I have done for too long,
And finding its sullen grey between shelves, atop books, across screens and sometimes on my sheets.
Many articles of interest in this room, certainly, but mostly?
Dust.
And I plunged into a drawer with curious hands like a child in a sandbox,
And I found that letter you wrote me last December.
Or was it the December before?
The one where your heart bled from your chest, ran down your arms and saturated the page.

You know the one.

Anyway, I read it. Every word.
And then I folded it up, neatly, and placed it back in the drawer from which I had found it,
Much to the dust's pleasure.

I'm moving out now. The way I had always talked about.
Getting a place with some close friends.
(Who will probably become dire enemies.)
It's why I've been rummaging through all of my old ****.
Grandma wants this to be a sewing room. I've got a lot of cleaning out to do, you know.
I'm becoming a man now. An impervious, veteran adult.
But sometimes, amidst the dust - maybe it's ash - I feel a pair of hands
Wrenching apart my insides while I recall the words in that letter.
And I remember how your heart sang to me, and I remember every note.
Every coda; its pianos and its fortes.
Your heart has written other songs now,
With warmer tambre and vivid trebles.
And this 'adult' wonders, amidst dust and ash, why he deafened himself.

Two Decembers ago.
Or was it one?

I am not wanted here.

The music I've made sounds much better with the volume at zero.

and roused from the back of my mind was
a warm breath of childlike wonder, present
in the twinkling of my eyes
that he called "unmissable," like it was the reason he drew toward me

with a blade called fate to my neck
and promised me escape, finally, since nobody else would.
but he spoke in shimmering riddles, tongue dipped in a persuasive agent.
he did not miss his clarity. he did not miss much anymore.
by his hand, and with God as his witness, he would keep any of that nonsense
far from the equation. he would **** that which once made him feel alive.
walled away somewhere deep inside of him, behind visible ribs and invisible slate
i observed a faraway macabre, and it did not deter me, and it did not want to.
i took his hand, which was good, since mine still trembled.
i let him pull me into the same rank pit
he had occupied for some time now. drawn, quartered.
the skin around his eyes crusting, blackening, oculars submerged in pale.
through needles were salvation; he fully intended to alter pace
and allow himself, for once, something of his doing.
solace, if not brief solace, from wretchedness.
a scarce commodity.
nothing can shine down here.
and i'm surviving on what kills me.

How I write something with the thought that somebody out there
On that there Internet thing
Will read through some ******, four-line stanza and into the complex puzzle
I've pieced together, jamming cornered ends into rounded holes
And botching the image I would like to create with all the wrong pieces.
Sometimes I think,
How many people have read this ****,
Laughed,
And clicked onward?
It's kinda scary. It's kinda funny.

I work as a bagboy at a local grocery, and today, a woman
Mid-sixties
Stained white blouse
Offered to pray for me as thanks for my service.
I,
Godless, simply replied,
No thank you,
I can handle that myself.

Later I was marching around the parking lot, hunting for carts
Like a mother for missing children when I spotted
An elderly couple. Their hands joined
As they shuffled into the mouth of the store. I was still outside when
They left, and noticed then that they held hands only at the palm, fingers
Resting clumsily upon each other. The both of them, I now noticed,
Smiling.
Suddenly I wished I could
Will myself back an hour
And tell the lady with the stained white blouse,
Pray that arthritis is cured.