Tell me, kid, you got a life?
Because I'll buy it off of you!
Name your price!
I'll trade you all my thoughts,
my chords, my words,
for that life you've got.

Tell me, kid, have you a lover
past your hand?
Name your price!
You want memories,
secrets, lust?
I own it all, and all could be yours!

Tell me, kid, have you a friend
past yourself? I'll buy him off of you.
Name your price.
I'll give you some supporters,
some labels, some renown.
What do you value? Name your price.
I'd give you my soul for yours.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

God has an iPod
that syncs prayers.
It's a miracle he ever gets to
listen to any.
But he does,
and over eternity
he has become a little more
deaf.
He even issued a new commandment:
Thou shalt pray louder.
Did you not get the memo?

Well, he can't turn up the volume anymore
so pray louder.
There's the memo.

But praying louder now
probably won't do much good.
He's deaf
and his headphones are busted
and- last time I checked-
he didn't leave any guidelines
for submitting prayers in writing.
Welp, I guess we're *******.

April's flames made the friendliest fire,
although I feared they would
char and consume my life
and leave it but smoking cinders.

Friendly, fragile...
a single tear could put them all out.

April's flames shone brighter than the
sun.
They shed new light.
I could see things that
the shadows kept to themselves,
disguised as if some kind of treasure,
but the truth was that they were only
burdens.

April's flames lit two packs of cigarettes,
thirty-one thousand candles,
and a cozy fireplace
for thirty-one nights
where I would sit and rest knowing
the fire had not gone out.
I could feel it back then.

April's flames were lit in  March
and snuffed abruptly in mid-May,
but if I have some lighter fuel
I'll rekindle them some August day.

Kerosene passion,
matchbook teeth,
you strike your tongue
and breathe on me.

Poison envy, 
acid breath,
oh, how I'd dilute
all your wealth.

Silver beauty,
copper soul,
I know how quickly 
you'll corrode.

Brimstone anger,
iron face, 
come back again
and do your worst.

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

she said

"i'll teach you to love,
just draw nearer to me.
draw nearer to me
and i'll make you mine."

as she

laced up her best heels
put on her 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 her kind before
"but losing you would be a chore
my darling detritivore"

i said

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.

dearest whole-hearted embrace of like minds
that sheltered me from my youth,
that purposed me,
that loved me when i didn't,
                                                         ­  couldn't,
would you shelter this outlier now,
purpose it, if possible,
or love this stranger in sheep's clothing?
or
would you lower your ladders into the gray abyss
and hope for something to crawl out?
or
shun me?

your blessed self-appointed savior
held my mutinous hand.
indeed, i will always owe him
a debt of gratitude,
concept or not.
and he will always be my savior,
concept or not.

dearest haven,
i have found safety within your fold
but
your safety starts to hinder me.
i need you now to
let
me
go.

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.

Keep telling yourself you'll get better.
Keep telling yourself you'll change.
Get on your knees,
bow your head,
and
keep telling yourself you're forgiven.
You go take the pills for your migraines.
You don't know they're just sugar,
but they work anyway.
They're nothing substantial,
but you're not informed enough to
know.

this silver remembrancer
with its onyx stone,
like polished coal,
never leaves my finger.

a symbol, inescapable,
irreplaceable;
what it stands for was
inexcusable
in the highest possible degree.

i wear my black ring
to remind myself
not to say another
"*******" to every "thank you"

because now
i think you're all right

I made a wrong move
and they all shifted to me,
gazed,
glazed,
unrelenting.
Their hollow, black portals
revealed their concealed minds
filled with disgust
and malice.
The same action a million times over,
and they never act upon their desires,
because they know this scars me more.

could i, would i
mutiny this life,
or trade it in
for fewer fears
and fonder friends?
could i, would i
quaff this night
the nepenthean
elixir of forgiveness
and make amends?
would that i could.
so,
could i, would i
sacrifice
a stable mind
for progress sake,
erase the line
that i have drawn
to suffice
a mad desire
to taste the softest flesh,
yet tame the fire?

could i, would i?
would that i could.

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.

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?"

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, *****.

we're

all over.
all taken.
all broken.
all spent.

you expected us all
to be heaven sent.

he was a liar.

"him" was a user.

that one obsessed.

and i went insane.

and we were all
salted
like the slugs we "were".

Do you remember that old quick stop
(they tell me it's a drug store now)
where we would get our beer each Saturday?

The clerk would ask "The usual?"
even though we were underage
and slip me a can and you a bottle.

I could hold my liquor well.
I always offered to trade with you
but you insisted on the bottle.

We'd drive to a far out field,
the sun giving way to the horizon,
and lie down in the grass.

The can served just enough to get me
buzzed,
but you poured yours out before it was finished-
you might have gotten drunk.

When the sun had set one night
you gave me the news.

I said,
"Put in the effort to tip back
your bottle.
It holds more than you think."

But you were my can.

Intimacy framed
and hung for all to see
by none other than me
put you to shame,

and I fell off my ladder
hanging our moment
and you allowed me to
hit the cold ground
face first with a smack.

I kiss the ground.

I would have rather kissed your lips
but you can't trust me
not to tell.

Our hearts aflame
once with passion and desire
until this situation dire
burned them in a different way.

They're now charred forever
when you look in my eyes
all you see is a liar,
all I see is ice.

And to the man I credit this whole charade to:

Your mouth is as big as mine.
You should have known when I had said
my secret that it should go dead
to you and everything would work out fine.

And I laugh about it with you
but on the inside
I'm stabbing you with knives
as hot as her eyes were
when she found out I had let it slip.

That's pretty ******* hot.

Believe me, I know.

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.

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.

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

Rule number one:

If it's personal, don't talk about it.

Rule number two:

If you talk about it, don't lie about it.

(And don't lie about talking about it.)

Rule number three:

If you lie about talking about it,

you

had

better

have a plan.

Rule number four:

It had better be a good plan.

Rule number five:

You had better have a backup plan.

Rule number six:

If all else fails, you had it coming.

Rule number seven:

If you can't keep your mouth closed

don't do things you can't talk about.

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

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

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 left myself behind.

when i cared that no one cared
and became afraid that i could die
alone, and desolate, and cold,
i left myself behind.

when i took a leap of faith,
but dove into a passion pit,
but proved myself i had a soul
i left myself behind.

when i wrote down the first few words
that hushed and stilled my restless mind,
when i was forced to change my name,
i left myself behind.

when i found my newest muse
and set out on a dream of mine,
i pressed record and started new
and left myself behind.

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

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

Love is even sadder
when followed by
a "d".

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.

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