Money cannot buy happiness

My mother
Has a collection of jewelry
Diamonds are her favorite
Hers are pure and glimmering
She wears them on her hands
And over her heart
She has a collection
Of shiny things
They all sit pretty on her body
Glowing against her tan skin
But their worth is still not enough
To cure her instability
Or ease the anxiety that never leaves
She has all of these beautiful things
But still relies on antidepressants and nicotine
To make it through the day
And even after that
She is still not content
Money does not buy happiness

My father
Has a love for cars
He has spent his earnings
On greatly crafted vehicles
They are kept well and clean
They glisten
Shining almost as bright
As my mother's diamonds
They are fast
And smooth
Like his collection of fine liquor
All of the bottles lined up neatly
15 year, 18 year, 20
All of them rich in age
He has a lot of nice things
But at the end of the day
Still requires multiple glasses of whiskey
To wash out the bitterness of life
And the memories
Of how close he came to losing it
He has all of these cars
That take him from place to place
But it is still he
Who has to drag himself out of bed
Each morning to face the world
And even then
He is still not at ease
Money cannot buy happiness

Celebrities
Have lives that most would envy
But even they can be consumed by darkness
And fall victim to their own sadness
Money cannot buy happiness

The man who lives next door
Has a beautiful house
And a lot of things
To fill it
His home is never empty
But I can tell that he is
His eyes give it away
Money cannot buy happiness

I have
So much to be thankful for
I am provided
With more than one could ever need
And my level of privilege is beyond doubt
But most days
I struggle to make it through this one
And on to the next
It is always a never ending battle
Between me and myself
Between my mind and my sanity
Most nights
I fall asleep to a mix of ambien and panic
Having to **** my thoughts
With substance
I am overwhelmed
By constant fear
By frequent depersonalization and depression
Often feeling sad and then guilty

Because I have everything
I could ever ask for
But I am still not happy
These material things
Are not enough
To fill the gaping hole expanding within me
And there is a lot
That money can buy
But happiness
Is not one of them.

"Daddy! Daddy listen to me count!"

One. I am the one. Your youngest descendant. I had no claim to your throne. I didn't want your crown.
Two. You had two other women besides my mother. Your beloved Queen, her closest lady in waiting, and my Mother, a peasant barely of age.
Three. In case you ever wonder a single mother has to work 3 jobs to afford an apartment, that smells like cigarettes and depression, and a diet of Ramen Noodles and freezer meals.
Four. "Mommy cries alot. I can't seem to figure out why. She told me I'm gonna be a big sister. I hope it's a boy."
Five. "Mommy never leaves my bed side at the hospital. We lost our house because Mommy had to quit her jobs. I don't like it here though. They poke me with needles and I'm losing my hair."
Five. "Mommy tells me it's okay that I can let go."
Five. "Grandma said an angel came in the night to make me better.
Five. I got called a boy in the bathroom today.

Five. I forget how to count when I'm emotional.

Five. I don't want to be bald.
Five... I mean...
Six. Your peasant found comfort in the arms of your best friend. His names Jim. He introduces her to Mary Jane, Molly and Aunt Hazel. When they're with her she forgets her two baby girls exist.
Seven. After 7 foster homes we ended up back with Mommy. She's more tired looking but they say she's clean. She still smells like our first apartment.
Eight. My innocent voice would carry the same heart breaking question to my worn out Mother's ears. "Why don't I have a Daddy like every body else."
Eight. The first time I was called a *******.
Eight. At 8 the bullying began.
Eight. Maybe I'd be better of dead.
Eight. He wasn't suppose to do that.
Eight. Mommy said it's wrong for a man to touch me like that.
Eight. Daddy why didn't you save me. You were suppose to protect me from all this.

Eight. Because you loved the feeling of the bottle pressed firm to your lips and the scorching of your throat, burning away any truth that could crawl it's way out your mouth more the 8 children you claimed and your ***** little secret.

Nine. I've seen you 9 times in my life. And each time you look worse. No teeth. Little hair. You've had 9 strokes in just a few short years.They say you spent to much time with Jack, Jim, and Jose. They don't know how you're alive.
Ten. I used to think you were a king. I used to tell myself you were busy running a country, fighting a war, doing anything noble. Instead of just leaving me.

10. I'm an adult now.
9. They say you accept the love you think you deserve.
8. Maybe that's why I fall for the jerks.
7. There's a boy. He likes your friends too.
6. I don't think I'm very happy anymore.
5. Sometimes I like to hang with Uncle Jim and Uncle Jack.
4. I can never have just one.
3. Each time it get's harder to say no to Mommy's girl friends.
2. I'm the daughter if two addicts.
1. "See Daddy I told you I could. I can count from 1 up to 10 and back down 1 again!"
"Sweetheart, that's a teddy bear not your.. your.. your..."
"I know Mommy I'm just pretending."

Silly poets. .  
do you really think the ™ and ® symbol will save you?
the true artist
who wrote the great plays and poems
painted and played the immortal masterpieces
profited the second
it was available for all to . .

share
   observe
listen
experience
  feel

Protecting your work
for financial gain
with silly symbolism
of the status quo
only hinders the true wealth
it can present.

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
        17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
        need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
        the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
        it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
        joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
        somebody goes on trial for ******.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
        I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
        in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
        Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
        Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
        candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
        men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
        Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
        marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
        private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
        and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
        underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
        under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
        is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
        I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
        mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
        individual as his automobiles more so they're
        all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
        down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
        munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
        handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
        speeches were free everybody was angelic and
        sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
        cere you have no idea what a good thing the
        party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
        old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
        cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
        must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
        And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
        mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
        garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
        Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
        Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
        tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
        Him need ******* *******. Hah. Her make us
        all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
        the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
        in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
        psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

                                Berkeley, January 17, 1956

His name purred on her lips; 
She loved the way it
Rolled around on her tongue,
Loosened her vocal chords 

Every time she said 
his name aloud,
It felt as though she were 
Becoming more and more
Well versed in him; 
His character,
His very being

How can I get mad over the fact that no one stays,

When all I do is beg to be left alone?

The side I never knew...
Entirely, was you.
Trading in the confusion you feed.
Completely new animal. Completely new breed.
Rearranged by the constant of a ghost.
A stranger who found his body a host.
Whose touch is something to beware.
For a selfish serpent has no care.
Whose mind was washed by others opinion.
Secluding himself to a backwards companion.
Drenched to the bone by poor decision.
Consuming oxygen's way of revision.
Welcoming an uncomfortable thought.
Before one's born, a casket is bought.