I.

If you don’t leave my house
I’ll ******* **** you.

II.

I’ll ******* **** you
if you don’t leave my house.

III.

I’ll bash your skull in
with this baseball bat
if you don’t leave now.

IV.

No, you don’t live here; please leave.
Don’t make me **** you.

V.

No, you don’t have ***.
Call the cops, Andrew.
You have until the count of ten
to leave, or else I’m going to use this
bat.

VI.

You don’t legally live here; you don’t
pay rent, nor is your name on the lease.
Quit telling me you’re ready to die.

VII.

Quit closing the door.
Get off of me! I want to **** you.

IX.

Quit screaming that I kidnapped you.
I found you here, hunched over
naked
in my closet. Stay right there,
put your clothes on.

X.

If you don’t stop struggling,
they’re going to **** you.

XI.

They’re going to **** you
if you don’t stop struggling.

if i
      write
this poem in a
n

u n c o n v e n t i o n a l manner.
(if said poem is self- referential)

if i
      put
to thought i
n

t o  i t  w h a t s o e v e r,

if i
     try
to be as shallow a
s

p o s s i b l e.

You'll relate.
And that's why you'll like the poem.

*******, READER.

I gave him eighteen years, thousands in gas money, and more music than he deserved, and all I got in return was a subscription to Fox News– which, by the way, is a complete ******* “thank you” gift because you can fool yourself into believing anything.

        "You know what's going to happen tomorrow? Rain!" when in fact I'm certain its going to be a scorcher.

He sits bedside, making horrible jokes and bringing up remember-that-times. When will he ever pay the rent? Even though he doesn’t sleep here– he never sleeps– he should at least pay me in something other than beheading-dreams. And in the shower we review ****** flaws, and in the mirror we recount all the mean things I ever said or did to him for being such an insufferable *******.

“Stop it.”

He looks uncomfortable, not as sure of himself. He ponders what I meant for a while, opens his mouth to rebut and gets another stop it.

“Stop it. Get a job.” Because he contributes nothing.

“But you should…”

“Stop it. Get a job, because all I’m gaining from us right now is a bunch of lies. Quit watching Fox News.”

“Listen here, ******–“

“Stop it. Get a job. Quit watching Fox News.” And he leaves for a couple hours.





He knocks.

“Stop it.”

The knocking stops.

I remembered how the doors in my apartment are very tall,
how my belt is short,
and how I begin all my relations with goodbye

I tonicize you.
Though you are sol and I am do,
I've modified my tonal path
to add weight to your presence:
I've written you this leading tone
in hope of upward resolution
and to avoid frustration.

Tonicize me,
for you are sol and lead to do.
Let us modulate through mutual friends;
let us flaunt our perfect consonance!
Let us cadence together
when the music finally ends.

1– Most people try to avoid eye contact at all costs.
2– Most people either do not say "thank you" or mumble it as if it doesn't mean anything.
3– Most people act out of either self-interest or custom.
4– In most people, the maternal instinct is dead or at least deadened.
5– Most people don’t know how to control their child without using impact to the head or behind.
6– Children outnumber adults, and 20+ year-old children exist.
7– Most people will look for a scapegoat in even a mildly adverse situation, even if one doesn’t exist.
8– Most people have no sense of respect and are therefore not deserving of respect.
9– Most people do not recognize the humanity of others. (See Nos. 1-5, 8)
10– Most people have lost their humanity, also known as their soul.

I dread 2nd and King to this day.

I was born into a poor family:
dad the drunkard,
mom the **** addict,
brother abusive,
and sister wrist slitter,
in '84.

Mealtime portions measly.
The house's fragmented windows,
chipping paint
and carpet, ash stained beyond cleaning,
forced me to attempt an escape
several times.
Its a wonder we had a house at all!
I was the only one who worked.

From 10:00 until 7:00
in the dead of winter I used to stand
in clothes so thin
I was better off not even wearing them.
In '97 I was too young to work
legally.
But I wasn't too young for the men-
and I admit, some attractive-
who would pull up to
2nd and King.
I just crawled in the backseat,
assumed the position,
and took my beating
for not being born to the right family,
class,
city,
house...
...... corner...
..................men...
...........................­..­....

I can't look at that sign
marking the corner
without thinking of
crotch after crotch
until it was etched in my brain
that the male genitalia
was the epiphany of evil.
I have to turn my head.

I dread 2nd and King to this day.

I ask for nothing much.
Stay beautiful-
no difficult task:

Talk to me.
Listen to me.
Understand me.

If something is wrong,
tell me.
Trust me.
Confide in me.

Think about me.
Be faithful to me.
Love me?

Show me.
Want me.

Show me.
Hug me.
Kiss me.
Touch me.

Kiss me more.
Please please me.

Then hopefully I can change your mind,
so you will
eventually
want to
marry me.

in the land of white pickup trucks,
     the patriarchy
          really does exist
because the ladies want it to.




I revisited that place,
and only God knows why.

I will not go get baptized
for I fear the judgment
day.

To live in sin and
descend to the six-foot pit
sits better.

An empty label lingers
until you’re deemed clean
for further consumption.

Our filled label flies
off the tongue like
sour milk.

So come, fellow MSM–
let’s go down to the river
to pray.

To my kind and loving mother:
I never sought to be the other.
Fighting for an explanation,
consolation, you postulated traumas
caused a misfire
in the wires of me–
but the truth, chromatically,
static factors (masked by
willful ignorance and bliss)
wrought the otherness you see.

1. Elementary

Back as a child of nine,
fine and dapper in khakis and
a tucked-in button-up,
with parted hair and running shoes,
I began to fantasize
guys
and atonement girls.
Attempts to hide this from the world
were all in vain
yet vicious, as children are.

2. Middle School

***




******

gay-***

Did you hear that Brokeback Mountain is Victor’s favorite movie Victor is gay Have you been crying Where’s your boyfriend Victor has *** with children You’re going to hell ****** Do you know what packing fudge is Gay Do you like what you see Your garden is cute Quit looking at me *** Change in the stall we don't have to watch you ******* I brought you some glitter *** Gay **** ****** ****** *** Gay-*** **** Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay That’s gay Gay


I’d skip lunch to lock myself in a closet and cry.
Oh, my kind and loving mother,
I never sought to be the other.
I didn’t even know I was.

3. High School (Part 1)

Saving grace, Anne Folderol.
Last chance, Anne Folderol.
Only one, Anne Folderol.
Truly folderol.

I’d rather die than be the other
to please my kind and loving mother.

No more, Anne Folderol.
Last chance, Anne Folderol.
No hope, Anne Folderol.

You have the teeth of a crack addict You’re such a ***** Fat-*** I heard he was going to **** himself I heard he had *** with an eleven-year-old I heard he has AIDS Why does he hate god Hey pizza-face If anyone shoots up the school, it’d be him him him him him him him him him

State of madness, state of pain,
the state from which all killers spring.
Darkness, loathing, spite, and shame.

If the Father up above
was looking down in true love,
he would have answered my prayers
for death.

4. High School (Part 2)

Love and pain, Mom;
yin and yang.
We sang in church
until I left the brethren bereft,
and we’ll sing again soon.

But first know that I’m a spiritual seeker,
and that God loves me if he exists
and I truly don’t know– because I feel Him
at times, and sometimes I feel just everything.

And also know that I’m not the other,
that my love and yours are the same.
Know that if God made me, there is a reason why.

That reason is to open minds and hearts to the love of God, which is all true love. But I must love myself first. And when I live in such a way that does not hide my true self, I demonstrate that love. Love me, not in spite of who I am but for who I am.

You are just a glass of milk
standing stagnant in the sun
and for the moment
you could cool my tongue;
any longer and you'd spoil.
Yet still inside lies the pus and hormones–
you're infected in a way that no one else can ever see.
You are vile, repugnant, putrid, *****.

Libera me, Domine,
de morte aeterna
in die illa tremenda
quando coeli movendi sunt et terra

dum veneris judicare
saeculum per ignem.
Tremens factus sum
ego et timeo,
dum discussion venerit atque venture ira:
quando coeli movendi sunt et terra.

November 21, 1976. 11:00 P.M.

With nothing
he packs his suitcase, turns
to his own personal prophet
and watches and waits
and waits, he will wait
for an hour.

And finally
the prophet speaks
in monotone, three short syllables.

He opens the door, careful
not to wake dad.
Turning the corner,
the suitcase jars the door ajar.

A stirring from upstairs.

Remembering the face of madness
behind the pulpit
behind the door,
he races out, fearful
of footsteps drawing louder
and with them, promises
of pain.

You are a virus absorbed through the eyes and ears
that attacks the soul. You are nothing more
than your own vaccine
and antibodies are rushing up to exterminate you.

Kyler– you are my favorite **** actor
because you look like its your first time,
and you look like my first time. It's disgusting, really.

When I began to feel like what is normal these days,
I groaned and I moaned
and I spoke to a doctor
who believed in homeopathy
and a hypnotist who believed my lies
until it all lost focus and I cut myself
in the worst of places–
where no one would see it
because they were private parts and nobody wanted them.
And the Reason came along and tried to kiss it all better
but infected me instead with this insatiable lust.
And now he’s fine; probably has a boyfriend
while I’m stuck wondering if I am even capable of
loving.
And its having said that that I offer a request–
find a studio that will suspend you from the ceiling
and whip you.
You look exactly like him.

The human race will evolve
elastic flesh with
chameleon characteristics,

but we’ll need daily testosterone injections
to be truly beautiful.

Dedicated to the ones who mock us
saying that they haven’t lost anything.

We flaunt flypaper photos,
hoping for horsefly quick fixes,
but I’m no longer
the person in my pictures,
but a spider.
Now, my red eyes burn–
boiling tears whose salt
cannot sustain me.
It’s also evident that
I’m gracelessly aging
as time flies faster;
I’m not having fun.

I’m not having fun.

He– external introspection:
embodiment of possibilities just out of reach.
He– the very visage of perfection,
anonymous, at least to me.
And here but an hour ago we were we.

Garrett let him in through the front door.
“I’m here to see Victor.”
“Sure, let me take you to his room.”
I’ll get questions tomorrow
for which I’ll have no answers or lies,
so I’ll tell the truth:
I poured my heart
into seven heavenly minutes,
only to find it unscathed.
Love is blind lust until
it suffers.

He leaves and I wait for confirmation
that we’ll never speak again.
And it comes.
And I think:
He might have been a pre-med student.
His favorite color might have been yellow.
He might have been able to sing.
He might have been living poetry.
He might have loved Jesus.
His faith in Jesus might have been unshakable.
His name might have been Bradley.
His best friend might have been his mother.

Focus, raise awareness,
sing sing sing! Breathe deeply
RELAX, Get excited.
James Heaton, make more
lists, Run, ferret?
stretch every day, stay calm
laundry, be grateful,
call granddaddy, make things
w/ Pam, love love love love

To fill my glass
necessitates I drink it.
When I turn the heater on,
I must wait to feel its warmth.
If I begin to write a poem,
I must continue to its completion.
If I load a gun and **** it
and **** on the barrel,
then I must follow through and pu

youth–

someday soon we’ll sit in silent solitude
content and cautiously counting hours
until mid-august’s arrival;
and on that day i’ll wonder to myself:
is this the best that i can do?

– your dearest beauty

1.**

A horizontal fall
from the high-up slide
made for big kids was not
what I expected as I screamed
“Push me down, Haley!”

Unexpected, too, was the destruction of your wounded butterfly days later–
revenge is sweet, yet unsatisfying.
And then you left for six years,
turning up again as hormones
were in full swing
in our freshman year of high school.

2.

you said



"i'll teach you to love,

just draw nearer to me.

draw nearer to me

and i'll make you mine."



as you



laced up your best heels

put on your best face

and applied another coat

of liquid vanity.



as i


made an effort to


concoct a new way to say

"no"


and


ignore the 
rotting

carcasses of

hearts

that strewed the floor.


i'd seen your kind before


"but losing you would be a chore

my darling detritivore"



i said

3.

focus of a new kind sheds a big difference BIG DIFFERENCE upon your face bright yet shadows consume both it and your body like a prophecy. since when did that happen? so what if it never did? so you came to your senses; perhaps that was it. perhaps the realization of “you sure do know how to pick ‘em” broke you and now you’re left with a twelve-and-one-half-inch phallus in your big box of board games. we hardly speak anymore. i am now your temptress, detritivore and you’ll never escape never escape the howls of agony and desire releasing themselves from your joints your muscles your heart aches for fresh meat and you get it, **** you. you get it daily for viewing pleasure. dear heavens speak of shabby apartments and televisions that don’t work. they never knew how to comfort me; so why should they now? falling down the stairs into the pitch black night irreversible womb child conceived on camera and carried to term on God’s watch. do you remember pushing me down that slide in the second grade? it’s your turn.

4.

Unexpected, too, was the destruction of my wounded memory
of an innocent girl from second grade
now in chains and leather,
used and watched and seen and lusted over and masturbated over,
but for a hefty sum.

And I still see second grade Haley
and we still talk
and we share the occasional cigarette
and we tell of our conquests.
But I am no savior–

5.

Feeling vibrations in my palm is finding decaying matter on the forest floor to eat–
the words they carry are a substitute for nutrition.
The nearest bounty of corn is a thousand miles away,
for God places us here and our placement is the source of life’s cruelty.
And second-grade Victor would happily take a beating
for gas money; desperate detritivore–
feast on decaying matter, get your fill
and one day substance of corn will fill your stomach
and you will hibernate indefinitely.

Deny it; it makes no difference:
the American government pitches its deceitful realtor-reality to the world:
flaunting our flag as the banner of the free, but avoiding
our faults and failures as a country.
“Oh yes! We’re rollin’ in the (borrowed) bucks!
We’re a proud superpower capable of chaos; calamity!”
Well, kudos on your catastrophes: we all know it’s a hollow show.

See, we’re slaves to China, bound by China’s chains
to billions of dollars, the deficit deepening daily.
And who’s to blame?
“Not I!” says the Democrat.
“Not I!” says the Republican.
“Not I” say I, but we
weaved our financial woes together.
It’s not stupidity; if we could see into the future, we’d be shakin’ our money makers.
But have you seen the current fiscal guillotine
whose blade looms low and approaching our throats?
Oh, irony of ironies: the American government isn’t free.
Oh mah gee.
Freak out!
Calm down...
Forbes informs me that federal spending spurs private sector growth.
But when fifty-four thousand buckaroos from you
and you
and you
and me too is just enough
to cover Congress’ **** until the dimwits there do another... (insert something dumb),
it’s time to draw the line.

And time to erase lines previously drawn:
George Washington warned us once before:
“...the common and continual mischiefs of [political] parties are sufficient to make it the... duty of a wise people to discourage... it.”
Yet here we are: the media’s reporting majority wars
that serve only to sail us further offshore from Pristine America
and a time when things really seemed to matter, especially when they did.
Deny it; it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t change
our chances of escaping another Cuban
Missile
Crisis. If we waged World
                               War
                                            Three, what would we
                                                       do?
                                                               One
thing: debate, procrastinate, our fate
a fragile plaything fought over
by infantile, full-grown fanatics who never quite phased out of high school debate.
They never learned to lose, and so they play the inane blame game,
I say quite frankly: gurl. Dat cray-cray.

Dear Democracy, when will my words hold water?
When will the weight of a rainbow OREO or a
monogamous monotone monotheistic chicken sandwich
on my guilty conscience be lifted?
Must I muster a hungry lackluster life in the land of opportunity
to oppose tyranny
and uphold justice? I turned eighteen last December,
but for as long as I can remember
I’ve been voting with the dollar bill, my ballot
traveling through the bloodstream, fueling the body of big business, who fuel the daring charities, who fuel their bills in congress.

Democracy, do you know me?

For this faux-democratic nation where the population waits for the government to lay itself to waste, the Founding Fathers sob, disgraced.
                                                       Oh, God Bless America!
the nation where when faced with any
[man, woman, child, intersex, genderqueer, etc.] who dares defile the status quo,
accept the stigma like a crown of thorns, on top of all the scorn
                                                                    We The People
donate millions to “charities” who dare to speak for
Jesus,
the meek and mild. John chapter eight, verses one through eight:
he drew a
fine line in the
sand, man:
it’s where your rights end and mine begin. Irony, irony: they are as good as
mine.
For this faux-democratic nation where the population waits for the government to lay itself to waste, the Founding Fathers sob, disgraced.

I put little stock in counseling, simply because it doesn’t work for
me. That’s reasonable. right?
That’s why I’m not
going back.
Because contrary to the initial irrational paranoid belief held by
not me, I was not
***** by anyone this last July, I am not
an altered boy.

Repression? Obsessions? Depressions?
You’re right, in a sense. I was not
***** by one man this last July, I was
***** by the whole church for the past 18 years.
I learned, or perhaps deduced, from Sunday School
that all *** is sin
that inanimate objects had a goodness or badness about them
that Satan was in my head (by this I was terrified)
that all my friends were going to Hell (by this I rebuked them and was never forgiven)
that its true: my parents would have gotten me ****** to death in biblical times
because they love me
that I could choose who I was attracted to (apparently by watching straight ****)
that God needs money
that the Internet is of the devil >mfw intellectual open market
that I could only achieve ****** once in a lifetime >mfw I came
that God’s love is conditional
that electronics are a sin if they make noise and are inside a specific building
that all Muslims are terrorists
that I’m worthless because I’m a sinner
that I’m inherently evil.

And I still miss it sometimes.
I miss the taste of Christ’s ****.

this may be immature and boyish
but i'm breaking up with you
because you won't put out
or maybe i'm a pig,
an instant feminist,
just add guilt and water to the mix
I'll be fine;
no no i'll be fine
you *****.

playing snowball fight with myself as a child;
now i'm taking the lower ground
as he curiously rolls a snowball down
the hillside.

accumulating
**** and sticks
and grass and dirt–
for Oklahoma, the land of my youth,
never sees more than twelve inches of snow–
it overtakes me.

and from the nucleus of that humongous ball
i curse the child,
wishing death and hellfire upon him.

he only cries harder
as the black avalanche consumes reality.

an exercise in trust:
her white nisan maxima speeds down the roadway.
speeding away from my sixty-dollar loan?
speeding away from my repayment?

i say:
check your pockets!
                                             check your purse!
              check your wallet!
                                  check between the seats!
                            there it is.

why am I here anyway?
choose one of the following: (desperation/generosity)
__

the maxima now wanders aimlessly
through unknown city streets
far from home
on the laziness of pet merchants:
an exercise in trust.
__

a fib is told, biding for time
two
three
a hundred fibs for the hundred unwary,
an exercise in fate.

A book of Shakespeare
being used
to prop up a television antenna

Mindy takes a seat opposite me,
as if we're about to engage in some serious conversation.
Christmas carols would make the background stale
if there was no twist to them.
"Thanks for buying the ice cream," she reiterates for the fourth time,
her potential lover-girl Jaclyn repeating the sentiment half-heartedly.

"It's no problem."
I reply with my usual comeback.
"I'm sorry Daniel couldn't come.
He had excuses
akin to my last three boyfriends,
and you know how long those lasted.
It's enough to make me want to go straight."

"I can make you straight."

"What?"

"What?"

And we continue as if nothing happened.
Jaclyn eats her ice cream as Mindy shares hers with me.
It has a twang to it, a strange flavor she made herself
that you wouldn't expect to be so good until you tried it.

Deep in my core, that ice cream sent a chill through my body–
a chill of uncertainness.

I was hungry
so I made myself a sandwich
with bread (from a bag)
and meat (from a bag)
and cheese (from a bag)
and in the sixth or seventh bite, found
a bit of bone crushed up inside.
I ate it
while why screen played out
my life
my friends
my ***
my dreams in front of me–
a portrait of Utopia.

I needed to move,
so I sat
in a car, cursing the wind.
I drove down Main Street
to see the park, Illuminated.
I needed expression
so I came back
to the place where I waste my life
to write a poem.

I require exercise
and so I will run
on a treadmill
and go nowhere for twenty minutes.

Pink: the color they hid from me in the days of dewy youth.
But what I see as pink may be a yellow, green, or blue.
My eyes don't deceive me;
I think yours do: you have not the slightest clue.

Pink: the aid in love's elusion.
Pink the way and pink the means
by which I loved at last!
Still, they all insisted on my blueness
while emboldening dividing lines
dividing most of human kind.
Open minds will quickly find
that nothing and yet everything is pink.

And I loved him as a human,
not an object of desire.
His knees must be weary:
sore from bowing.
He found god between my thighs,
but I found Love between his lungs.
It's okay– at least I felt something.
And now he just abandons me
and -silence- ends my fantasy
and I can see reality.

Could I, would I sacrifice
a stable mind
for one last night?
Would that I could sleep so fine as to
not rely on him beside me,
emboldening dividing lines
dividing most of human kind.
Open minds should quickly find
that nothing and yet everything is pink.

Everything is pink (and yet nothing).
Is it too revealing?

the bathroom stall
where two new lovers gave it all
away,
left,
and never spoke again

the stage lights in high school auditoriums
that burn out
within the minute you turn them on

Just a little makeup
and that way they won’t know–
some concealer on my cheeks
and my hair placed just so.



Perhaps a little more,
so I can feel who I am inside;
to distract myself from chest hair
and bruises to hide.

But everywhere,
on my neck: brown
on my body: purple
on the wall: red,
no makeup can hide.
God knows I’ve tried;
he just doesn’t listen.
I’ve longed to confide
in a word from his book
but the text suggests
his infallibility.
I know that’s a lie.
He is imperfection– just as I
am imperfection
on the outside.

the ****** dispenser at the mall
that now dispenses
children's toys

Alyssa moves like she’s being watched
and watching me,
but the white-walled room, despite her husband’s presence
is empty.
Everything echoes.

Alyssa and I have serenaded the dead and dying weekly.
Today is no exception.
She performs, I just sing–
are my songs really any emptier than hers?
We and the dying clasp hands in a circle
and mimic a psychic raising of the dead.

Alyssa and I have sat through the same
cut-and-dry
hour-long condemnations
all our lives,
but she bought in and now moves
like she’s being watched,
at which I scoff.

Alyssa is not allowed into Business Meetings
because of sexist Paul,
and I make this known to a friend
I trust now more than Alyssa,
now happily chatting with the guy I was eying.

Alyssa’s father takes me aside
for inquisition.
I confess of my sin, but I do not repent.

Alyssa found out, and now my existence is *******.

Are you a lie?
Are you ashamed?
Have you given up?
Who drowned you in that murky water,
saying "Nobody has to know?"

Step in, step in!
Your weary eyes don't match your expression;
let me help you stitch up your style.
Rid yourself of this black concealer!
Are you even there?

Why do you torture yourself in the corner?
Your eyes glaze over when I walk by;
sometimes I wonder if you have gone blind.

Dig, deep and wide, the void that you try so hard to fill,
and bury the past that has possessed you;
bury the loved ones who ****** you.
The enemies of the empty closet whisper,
"Nobody has to know."
But everyone has to know
because you torture yourself in the corner;
your eyes glaze over when I walk by;
sometimes I wonder if you have gone blind.

Why do you torture yourself in the corner?
Your eyes glaze over when I walk by;
sometimes I wonder if you have gone blind.

Virginia and Maxwell are the skin that will grow
together to cover the wound,
and I am the IV.

“This will only take a few minutes,”
I reassure them as
the vein is struck.
So much blood fills the bag
in five short seconds.

I remove the needle
and trek across hospital halls,
up and down elevators,
through pristine rooms,
to the Intensive Care Unit,
to a dying man
named Anthony
in dire need of a transfusion.

“This will only take a few minutes,”
the vein is struck.
The jealous blood exits the bag
in five short seconds.
But I wish they were at least years.

In those days
I lost myself
in questions of god and ***; I pleaded
guilty
of searching
for truth until
I asked, "What is truth?
Who am I?"

lilli, lilli, lilli,
now sacred and independent of mother,

all new
to be caught up in this cycle again?
the doors were many,
the keys were few,

and now you’re here in my arms,
the arms of an uncle’s friend
visiting objectively,
wondering
if some day you’ll wonder
why you’re here
and wondering
what might cause such thoughts to surface
in your pure, unadulterated mind.

let this be our answer.

mother of seventeen
to grow old and fat and unfulfilled
violated the pact she will soon teach you
and later repented and kept you.

father of seventeen
to grow desolate and disconsolate and cold
valued not himself
and will passively teach you to follow suit.
but you must not follow suit.

lilli, when you are of seventeen,
will life be worth living?
or will you hand your own infant to an older poet
who whispers in its ear,
“perhaps if you had never been born?”

The deed is done; it’s over now.
It had to come out
somehow.
And how the stars shine
brighter now,
out sixty miles from town

and all alone.


You are
You were
(check whichever fits best)
my dearest darling whitest,
the only one I could trust.

Now,
as the dew succumbs to frost,
I begin to fully understand what I’ve lost.

I prayed for love
and received love.

Dear god, you’re scaring me.

To think we’d never speak again
or you would set me free
if, by chance, I disagree!

Why must I hold my tongue?
I’d like to change my mind, but still
my heart is a smoking gun
and changes for no one.

And as I watch you come undone,
in your eyes I’m as good as gone,
and everything I’ve worked for means nothing
to you anymore.

I’m out here in the cold;
my life is over;
I can tell I’ll never know a home,
save what I knew before I told you.

I’ve thought on this for years on end.
I’ve lied until my will was spent;
the lie I’ve known since birth is dead.

While I watch you come undone
and shrink and shrink until you're gone,
everything that I held dear
is meaningless now, I fear.

All you've given me
is smoke and mirrors.

70 mile per hour, one-way nighttime highway;
cars still **** past.
some with one headlight,
     but most with none,
          but all with horns, horns, horns
blaring, "Bryan! Your brights are blinding me!"

Old 50's culture pitches me his deceitful realtorality from the passenger's seat,
assuring me all is picturesque clean
when,
     in fact,
behind his plaster hair
and plastic smile
and porcelain eyes,
disaster lies- a land mine.

Bombs-BOOM-bombs explode coldly,
leaving none to not witness fulfilled prophecy
and say,
"He's dead.
He's really, really dead."

dedicated to the mirror of the shadow of my former self.

8:25 A.M.

step in late.
the eyes,
the eyes,
exceptional in eye shadow
find mine,
or perhaps i was looking for them,
and i realize
how distracted i’ve been
by my new summer coat,
but now
the eyes are relentless,
the eyes do not blink.
the eyes are omniscient,
the eyes will not sleep.
now that i’m
face to face with fate,
a captive to the eyes
that supposedly convinced me
that all
         faith
                       is
                        blind,
one half second suffices
to make hell
now something to be strived for,
and heaven twice the myth.

and near those eyes,
the face,
the face that infected a thousand consciences
stands by, silently
begging for a command,
its latest fix up on its favorite neurochemicals;
the face,
the face that screams satisfy
for the member that skull-****** a million subconscious desires!

or,
       perhaps,
         he’s a mirror.

9:05 A.M.

and i, the mind,
the only man wearing a collared shirt
in this barren company,
plead for recognition;
to make an impression;
to grab the attention,
scribbling in slang
for hate
            or,
        perhaps,

            triu­mph!

the eyes
beam blistering illegitimacy
into the mind,
unawares and
unintentional.
i make the silent error.
still, the face
chokes out a weak
“hey,”
where there was once cold callous.

definitely a mirror:
opportune moment,
easy catch
while the eyes still wonder:
“standards?!
what the *hell are those?”

of all faiths, his
                 is
                            blindest.

12:00 P.M.

away,
away,
away, away,
unto the scarlet heat of day,
with winter boots on sunbaked clay,
away,
away,
away, away,
away, away, away
from malady of present way:
the lonely path, too late to pray,
“erode your blessing’s granite sway
away!”
away,
away, away.

but affectation stays not long
as the face has just found out,
contorted, cried, and bellowed shouts
and in the mind’s eye, belted songs.
first contact in eighteen months;
he says:

“it’s you, weakling, you
first source of all my pain!
worthless, worthless,
perverted, scheming,
evil source that
ruined my life!”
definitely a triumph.
“or
perhaps
enhanced it,”
say i.
“herman,
i observe
you’re not so weak
as once i thought,
and half as meek
as last time i heard you speak.
away.”
away,
away, away
unto much cooler, peaceful days.
for now, i’ll put my summer coat
away.


1:57 P.M.

step in late.
no eyes,
no eyes
filled with hate.
no fears,
no fears,
no heavy weight.
no tears,
no tears,
for the day grows late.
today i committed sacrilege:
i tried to sanctify this date.
today i blasphemed against the
holy human mind.
i eschewed the natural anesthetic of time,
and repented of a baseless crime.
the eyes,
the eyes are in my sight,
yet out of mind,
and cannot last for long,
for the many hands,
the hands that rip and tear asunder
will render limb from limb
so desperately trying to
save her from
each other!

Hold me up to the sun and it becomes clearer
I'm counterfeit:
I clip my style from trashed magazines.
I've built a persona from bricks without straw.
Hold me up to the sun, and
you'll find no watermarks.

Too much, the number of days spent
                            wasting away
learning how to
                            not waste away
and then
                            wasting away
                                                    the next day
                                                                          anyway.

Too far, the sum total of all those futile miles,
running toward "a better tomorrow"
and then having
                              a better next twenty minutes.

Too hopeless, now I cast
the past's ashes into the air
and subsequently wallow in them.

i used to buy astronaut candy
when i was twelve.

in case you're wondering what astronaut candy is,
it's gelatinous goo that you squeeze from a tube.

the particular brand that we always bought
had a special tube.
it was dome shaped on top
with a hole in its concave center.

the point was,
you squeezed the tube,
out comes the goo,
and you lick it off;
most of us just ****** it out.

three varieties:
blue raspberry,
orange,
and everyones favorite,
white cherry.

in hindsight,
i guess that explains why so many of my friends
turned out to be so
"fabulous".

maybe we should've opted for the candy cigarettes.


nah.

****** pleasuring a plastic tube:
so much more fun.

i love the way you
feel me up in public places,
****** to nameless faces,
tell my friends to ***** themselves:
"it makes me feel protected".

command the god of heaven down,
wear your flimsy clinquant crown,
weave tales of fictitious sounds
that i will "soon" be making.

i love the way you never bathe
i love the way you never shave
i love the way you never made
an effort just to please me.

-

and the rain fell backwards that night
and the fires restored houses
and we all took showers and got
dirtier
and
dirtier
and
dirtier.