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

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

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

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.

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?"

i'll admit it

i'm just trying to score some prozac;
something to supplement the steroids
that never seemed to ease the pain.
my body never
tolerated
anything they gave me:
all their alcohol distraction,
all their **** carelessness,
all their acid lifestyle,
none of it.

as for ecstasy,
i never got the dosage right:

i've been offered ersatz masterpieces
and turned them all down,
so they sacrificed their snatches to other gods,
who happily and hungrily partook in the
appetizing, dangerous bounty for which there is no cure.

i was once appeased for my lust
and committed love crimes,
so i learned not take ecstasy
until i tried the steroids.

i'll admit it

i'm just a pair of eyes
in a white ocean

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

The human race will evolve
elastic flesh with
chameleon characteristics,

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

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!

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.

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.

there is pride in pain
pleasure in punishment
and dignity in degradation

so i'll be

in my own little self-torture chamber
wallowing in my own little passion pit
plastering a new persona on myself

and when i'm done

this internal itch for ill blood
will ease
but i myself will be stronger

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.

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

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.

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.

I.

I used to be a crocodile.
I knew no risks, no tears, no joy
no excitement to lure me above water,
no work, for it was cut out for me
in the shallows with the small fish,
no heavens to make up for,
no hells to hope for,
no soul to shatter on mid-spring days
when all life is but a nightmare
and clouds are all but
******* on my head,
who granted to desired effect
that siren hoped for,
who sits upon the sandy shore
and whispers sweet songs to me, myself
evolved,
and repeats me back
the songs I taught her,
"Over and over again,"
she mocks.
How Neptune did churn his waters
to beach a loveless Odysseus here
shall ever be unbeknownst to me.
But
beeswax I have fixed in my ears,
but
now I cannot hear my other friends
in the trees.
but
once I make my flight from this island,
away from the crocodiles,
and starvation,
and sirens,
I will take it out, and
I will hear!
by God! I will hear
and be heard!

II.

No sound.

The siren's lips move;
the water recedes.
the sky grays.
the crocodiles come.
I am drawn near
by her lotus lips that bid me down this tree
but
I must not dismount.
but
a second siren in the trees
has been picking out my beeswax.
Two songs.
The reptiles draw ever nearer to
the siren, her song is the loudest.
The second siren sings a song
of warning                              and captivation.
              

I dismount the tree
to fight back the green menace, and save
the first siren.
I knew these fellows once.
They were my friends,
and now do I slay them.
I see only jaws and red blood now,
and now am I defeated.
The crocodile has taken her as prey,
so familiarly,
for I was a crocodile
once.

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.

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

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.

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.

when you gave me my heart back,
it was cold in my chest.

when i gave you your heart back,
it was warmer than before.

i cherished it and kept it warm.

you threw mine on ice
so it wouldn't spoil.

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.

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.

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?”

pick a rose
next time you see one.

smell the flower.
then,
***** your finger
with its thorn.

keep that rose.
extend its life as long as you can.

when it dies,
***** your finger
with its thorn.

when the roses of early years
have lost their luster,
when they're given to drugs and liquor,
the thorns will still be there
who weren't afraid to ***** fingers
and be found as a nuisance.

thorns remain.
they leave their mark.

in life,
the victors will always be
thorns.

Victor Thorn.

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.

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.

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

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 *****.

so scream you
from rooftops and sidewalks
to barstools in dark rooms
the last pleas of a broken soul:

"i am me
and so i matter!
lift me up
on these clichés and gray hazes!
applaud me for dreaming,
and bow down to the dropout!"

so dig you
deep and wide
the void you're trying to fill,
and use it as your grave.

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, *****.