Boredom on a Sunday is inescapable
I try to hide it behind playing my musical instrument
Trumpeting with my trumpet - blowing my own horn -
I'm praying no one interprets that last sentence as an innuendo
Anyway, I'm nodding off, signing out of reality
The world goes hazy in a second
And I'm ****** into the vortex of a dream

Weird how when a dream begins, we immediately understand the situation
For this scene, I'm spewing blood from my spleen like a bottle of sauce squeezed too hard
It stains the leather of my vehicle
My foot is pressing the pedal to the floor, and the speedometer is twinged in half from all the pressure
The monolith of a highway I'm speeding on shakes as though giants stomp upon it
And the wail of a siren drives me into a frenzy as I try to escape the inevitable
Their polychromatic lights dance at the edges of my eyes, spurring rhythm into action
Even though they must be aeons behind, my heart melodramatically pumps in my chest as though the police are in the backseat
Blood bursting through my temple, thoughts wheezing by like someone's let go of hundreds of balloons  
Up ahead, the road twists itself into a knot of nothingness
My hands are wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly, I fear I might never be able to release them
It's a slight movement: right hand goes down, left goes up, but it kicks the vehicle sideways
My body slams into the car with a satisfying crunch and my mind spirals to spaghetti strands
Oddly enough, the world becomes rinsed with blue wash and I'm underwater

My train of thought becomes peaceful, melodic
I float about, running on the inverse of the waves
Here, even a scream is joyous as it sounds all bubbly and childish
Suddenly, a red streak runs across the ocean, chilling me to the bone and erasing all my bubbles
The sea becomes glittered with red and blue streaks, a warning
Bullets stab at my spleen, reminding me of the pain that was, and still is
And my body gears into a full 360, concluding my return to the real world
Or is it the dream world?
Oh well
Either way, I'm back in my car
Carelessly freefalling from nowhere
Weapons, glass, blood droplets, pocket change, pedestrians...all breeze around slowly
Pleading with me to wake up
Then

Everything crumbles, and I smack my ugly head against the window, splattering my brains everywhere
My car flew from the sudden turn and I crashed, I think
Now I lay, grasping onto consciousness while pedagogues staple me to the ground
The Lawman towers over me, grinning madly at my defeat
The most barbaric insult, however, comes from the radio, still magically working
"I fought the law and the law won," The Clash idly sing
One of my favourite songs turned into dark irony
The last I remember before blacking out is the scarlet and marine lights clashing forevermore

When I wake up, I'm face-down on the stony and icy floor
The cold burns me enough to wake me from la la land
The iron grip of the handcuffs feels very real
Words are forced into my head, not by my own design, but sort of like they've been placed there
An argument as to whether existence has a meaning is taking place in my head, and I can't stop it
Sort of like how in a dream, you can't control your thoughts or actions
Wait
This is still a dream, right?
Right?

She lay awake in her tiny bed
And she waited for the dawn,
For then she’d be turning five, they said,
The day that she was born,
She hid her head right under the sheet
And she giggled, now and then,
Thinking about the presents like
They’d given once, to Ben.

For Ben was her older brother and
He’d recently been eight,
Was given a bike, though second-hand,
And Ben had thought it great,
He’d fallen off it a dozen times
And she saw he’d skinned his knees,
But how she would love a bike like his,
She lay and she whispered, ‘Please!’

He’d also got lots of lollipops
And he wouldn’t even share,
The one that she stole got sticky, and
Got tangled up in her hair,
But best of all was the parcel that
Unwrapped, was a railway train,
It puffed real steam and its livery gleamed
Til he left it out in the rain.

The sun peeped over the window-sill
And she thought she’d take a look,
For lying there on her counterpane
Was a well-thumbed Cookery Book,
And dimly, stood in the corner of
Her sparsely furnished room,
Was a brush and pan and a black lead can
And a new, short-handled broom.

‘You’re old enough for the chores,’ she heard
As her mother watched her sob,
‘You can start by filling the kettle,
Then you can place it on the hob,
You’ll use the pan for the ashes that
You’ll be scraping from the grate,
Then spread them out by the roses, on
The ones by the garden gate.’

‘You’ll sweep the floors in the morning with
That nice new broom you got,
Attend to all of the blacking when
The oven’s not so hot,
And then you’ll help with the cooking, so
You’ll come home straight from school,
Your Da’ has need of his supper, so
You’ll work, not play the fool.’

The broom had come from a gypsy van
That was camped out on the green,
Was shaped and whittled by gypsy men
To whisk the meadow clean,
It carried with it a gypsy spell
That was woven in a hearse,
To whisk it well, or a taste of hell,
Along with a gypsy curse.

When Martha picked up the broom she felt
The power spread in her hands,
She whisked away to a gypsy tune
She’d heard from the caravans,
She whisked the ashes over the floor,
Put blacking over her nose,
Spilled the kettle over the hob
And ruined her father’s clothes.

Her mother started to beat the girl
But the broom then beat her back,
Whisking her out through the open door
And putting her under attack,
It swept the porch right into a heap
It piled the boards of the floor,
Tearing them up from the joists, and then
Sweeping them out the door.

It whisked the lid off the blacking can
And spread black over the walls,
Til Martha’s mother ran down the street
To the sound of squeals and squalls,
So Martha’s father bought her a doll
That could do all kinds of tricks,
While Martha waved the broom at her Ma,
‘Just wait til I am six!’

David Lewis Paget

Justin I forgive you, won’t you call me, your birthday must be coming soon we haven’t spoken since we moved our family into the desert. I just pray you’re not seeking cotton fever yet again, chasing the dragon, or at the very least eating school buses while falling into ‘H’ before you find yourself in bed drunk again, and on Ambien too. Dead too soon. You’ve always wondered why I didn’t introduce you to Ryan, my other incredibly dear and brotherly friend. Well wonder none more, he’s in a padded room at Mt. Sinai in Lakeview or perhaps Northwestern’s adult care unit, there was talk or at least I imagined he could make it to Lakeside Manor right there East of Foster. So it’s clemency, peace of mind, and something to loosen the edge off your back, something to let you fall, something to set your pain at weightless your mind at I-Don’t-Have-To-Give-A-****-Anymore, my friend where have you been? Where have you taken yourself? Please drag yourself back at least a half-step, reverse your position and engineer an out please. I can’t begin to accept losing both of my brothers to two versions of the same disease.

Lou,
You're an orphan now.
The deciding vote
In your favor,
The good kisses,
The latent reconciliation
Linger in this thick room.
You won't need to clean chimneys,
Work in a blacking factory,
Get your ears pinched, and your **** kicked.

You've laid out a fine plaster effigy
In this cherry box;
Yet Enzo's nature is hidden:
His personal tears
And public laughter
Aren't in this demeanor
With rosary weaved into the basket of his hands.

We've polished our shoes,
So we stand and discuss
The crucifix wedged
To hold up the lid,
And how we follow our fathers' footsteps.
We knew it to end this way
With our fathers' generation.
     But you must know your father lost a father,
     That father lost, lost his...
I too am orphaned, Lou,
And we'll continue on
As orphans do.

in june I felt the project change
from trying charting all scenarios of your face
to looking to books to blacking out spontaneous lines in found papers
to clearly eventually
be a misneglected omen of your impending collapse.

"I would like to blame this on the weather,"
I said to the sky,
"I would like to stay."


I felt the camera flash stop taking
strobe light moments of our strobe light moments
instead slipped tape recorder in your cereal box
videotaped the tooth brush
ever scraping dead skin while you slept.

I said, "If you wake up I will know nothing."
if you call this a dream, I will shake
and shake.
I said "it is clear now that you are decomposing."
(there's only so much the heart can take.)


stopped thoughts about the bus would hit you
spent time watching the sun through your palm:
little bones will scatter light.
little scars on thumbs.
we are made up only of who puts us back together.
and I could smell the rain.

I said, "It is easier if you stay angry"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."


I put the Starbucks mug on the radiator
ceased to chart your worried looks.
I knew your brow, heavy clouds as you'd undress
but made a scrapbook of frozen dinner clippings
drew a line through where you went that day.

I said, "I want to prove that you meant nothing"
I said to the sky.
"I would like to stay."
I said to the sky.


and then the rain.

Cherry red nail polish chipped from nights before.
After blacking out she will later notice empty bottles sprawled out on the floor.
Ignoring her shame
she will once again play this game
by promising to have only one more.
Despite previous knowledge
she denies ever being an alcoholic.
She becomes out of control when she is full of liquor.
Why speak out about her problems? When drinking is so much quicker?
With hands decorated in chipped cherry red nail polish
She wonders if it could be symbolic.
She looks down, noticing the cracked lines of what was once a cherry red.
She considers retouching her nails but takes a drink instead.
She looks once more this time understanding the cracked lines of what was once a cherry red.
She considers retouching her nails but takes another drink instead.
She wonders if it could be symbolic
with hands decorated in chipped cherry red nail polish.
Why speak out about her problems? When drinking is so much quicker?
She becomes out of control when she is full of liquor.
She denies ever being an alcoholic.
Despite previous knowledge.
By promising to have only one more
she will once again play this game.
Ignoring her shame.
After blacking out she will later notice empty bottles sprawled out on the floor with
cherry red nail polish chipped from nights before.

M covered in blood and attempting to roll a cigarette throughout but failing utterly.

M: Blood dries much quicker than you think. It is hell on cotton and wool blends, but once it's dried on the skin, you can either chip it off or just rub it off, so that's cool. (beat) You know, after a while you start to be able to smell if someone is anemic. It's crazy, I know, but when the metallic perfume entertains the thought processes for so long, you tend to notice when something changes...

M realizes he is divulging too much and snaps out of it.


M (contd): I always feel like a greasy kebab at times like this. Maybe it's something in the electric meat shaver thing that just evokes memories of drunken nights and mysterious bruises acting as battle scars, compared between those who saw, and those who pretend they had. (beat) I feel a kind of aggressive nostalgia for those debaucherous days. I would do anything to be still under that one, singular light source, barely being able to stand due to the altered states, blacking out Blake's eyes and standing so close to him, that with the right music we would be sharing a slow dance. The air was thick and Miss Love bleaching her hair in the sink provided the perfect musings of life and love. We stumbled. We laughed. We fell. Now only I stumble. I pretend to smile. And they fall. They all fall. When I am King, you will be first against the wall.

M again realizes he is going too far and dials it back


M (contd): Some people suggest that human meat would taste similar to pork because of the similarity of blood supply and flesh density, blah blah blah. They're wrong. It's more like veal all over, but that really depends on how latent the person is, and where the meat is cut from. And who was the idiot who said the Chianti would pair well with liver?! ******* idiots. Too fatty. I wonder if the new 'Mock The Week' episode is up yet. Torrenting is a crime, I get it, but who pays for anything any more anyway? Imagine going to jail for video piracy! (laughs) God, like sharing a cell with a ****** or gang member or something, and you're there because you don't have Foxtel and you want to watch 'Game of Thrones'.


M finally decides to drop the facade of small talk and just be real*


M (contd): I'm not... normal. People don't often walk the streets covered in their neighbour's families blood. But if I take out my phone and pretend to be talking about how exciting tonight's costume party was, eyelids usually aren't battered. Normal people are too trusting.

A fire started in the baking store on Pudding Lane last night.

I stood across the street and watched the cobblestone break away, the ruddy bricks of kiln-soaked stuff crumbling at my feet. As people came and gathered round, and watched the flames rise up, I could only wonder what the bread was feeling, it’s life coming to a brittle end.

I began to doubt my mental state, for it was only bread. And yet I felt an urgent dread rising. It started at my toes. It rose up through my knees, begging to bend and spread, as if to say, “You can run, run, run. Save the bread.” It crept up through my hips, my stomach, into my arms, and up to my scalp. It was intriguing, this dread. I stood completely still, denying the temptation to ‘help the bread.’ My body wanted to panic, and it was enthralling to feel this control in my denial.

I looked up at the canvas, the canopy of the store. It was fringing and shriveling and blacking at the corners, flames licking like an acid that leaves an ashy residue. The letters of “Abruzzi Bakery” looked wrong here, like an abranchiate fish. I felt a flash of hatred for the letters themselves, the way they were shaped, and if in the possession of a knife I would have been tempted to slash every letter away. It was hate, pure and simple.

As suddenly as it had come, I looked at the letters once more and there was nothing. I felt nothing. The windows were browning at the bottom, caramelizing the glass from the heat. I thought of me, caramelized, like that glass. What if I were see-through? It was an appealing thought.

People were still crowding around, and I wondered where the men were that would save the last of the store. I looked around me and the faces of the people were contemptible, disapproving of the conflagration. I was hurt by how they shunned this phenomenon, this magnified chemical reaction that reflected in my eye and appealed to my senses. I couldn’t associate with their way of thinking, another doubt of my mental state.

I stood here, with a gathering of people, and as I looked around, I slowly began to feel as if they were the conflagration, these people with their scorning minds. They were but a fire in humanity, a fire that did nothing but kept burning and hurting. I felt an odd sense of brotherhood with the fire, and I was ashamed that people had to see it. These people did not deserve to see this act of beauty happening before them, and I wanted them to go away.

A mouse scrambled out the open door. It’s tail was ashen with a few sparks of fire still on its tail, living from the oxygen around it, but slowly fading.

I realized that it was symbolic of what humanity is. Humanity is a fire, glowing bright. But like this mouse’s tail, it had to end, and would slowly rise and fall with the mixture of oxygen it comes in contact with. I realized I wanted no part of this. I wanted to be nothing but whole, a brother of this roaring sensation in front of me.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Johnny Cash had also understood, when writing “The Ring of Fire.” Maybe he knew, he also could grasp the concept of fire and its place with humanity, and like I was starting to, wanted nothing to do with it. Him falling into the burning ring of fire was not a tragedy, but an act of righteous martyrdom.

I walked across the street, separating myself from the soon-to-be fading gathering of this sickening humanity around me. I felt the sparks of lit ash hitting my arms and began the denial of running away. The control of my denial to save myself would be hard. But I knew. I was saving myself. From everything in this world that did nothing but look down upon that which had more of a right to be here. Of that which was here before them, and that which would be here after nature’s tolerance of the abuse failed.

I was in the bakery now, in the belly of the beast that was only misunderstood, and could only be my savior now. And I understood all the doubt I’d had about my mental state. It was not impaired in comparison to others, it was heightened. I was the only one who could see what it all really meant.

I sat down in the flames and, as I felt it appropriate, began to sing “The Ring of Fire,” feeling Johnny’s spirit sitting next to me, singing along.

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay

That interim between dreams and consciousness, that momentary lapse of reality
When slave children don't howl and the wild animals lay tamed in sun traps, weary

Your scattered thoughts betray reality
and you
question everything - now waking
Smiling chief, chirping loud
Your body gathered and prepared
under torchlight in dusty tents
Ingesting iboga and that old familiar numbness overpowers
You've been here for a life now, looking back on your life now
hatasha hullah - dey
vey, okay, huttah, ulay

Witch doctor, tribal medicine, fanning smoke from a wild fire
flashing imagery akin to memories of when life was decadent
you remember the taste of stray rain drops on your upper lip on muggy British summer days
and waking on a beach, bloodied as the sand at your feet is the next recollection, how powerful
the act of reflection, as you recall the mirrors of the sea and your torn body weakened and inept
The gathered village chant in unison and splinter groups fall off beat only to rejoin intermittently

Remember the Burmese boy far from home on the Gabon shoreline
and he informs you of your own death,
and asks you why do you breathe still?

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
ley hatasha hullah - dey

On some beaten path lost in Angola you carried two packs, food for the world
but you fell starving and spluttered on the rock that looked like your home
Rebels run wild in jeeps black as night, your supplies strewn on rubble grounds
- hatasha hullah - dey
Taken in a flurry, twittering birds in far off trees betray your trust and fly away
in the opposite direction, and the juggernaut jeep catches air over uneven tracks
You were scared and crying under blindfolded eyes and captors jeered, captivated
- parablah nuh parrah
An orchestrated mass of military garbed children with rifles gather you abruptly
when the car stopped with a rumble
And tied to rusted rigs you're gagged and stripped, bloodied your face now
as they beat you and laugh
- vey, okay, huttah, ulay
Congolese giant man, sword in hand and grimacing through bared teeth
Making bold gestures and speaking some inscrutable language
You cannot answer and fear is now in control, you shiver in the ghastly draft
On failure to answer you must be beaten, your back is lashed, repeatedly
- narralah, narrah, nutay
You remain silent but cry in disparity, after shrieks of horror finally escape your barren lips
Through stinging eyes you assess the surroundings after hours of torture when they retire
to their leather beds of shame and innocence faltered, try and remember how to live
- Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
Months must have passed, survive off insects and morning dew on the muddy floor
This African wasteland, time forgotten, child soldiers and lack of humanity is trivial
Always scheming, recollect the armament and through door-way shack trapped light
you see a clear path, and it is good
- ley hatasha hullah - dey
The pinnacle nightfall anticipated arrives, and your skinny wrists released now easily
(their faltering lack of knowledge and abundant braggadocio betray them)
AK laying in moonlight illumination, a sign of God perhaps, but experience proves otherwise
(How cruel the dreams you had of such a gift)
When they spot you leaving, the night lights up, wild crackle of gunfire, heart beats, tribal drums
(To massacre children, such proficiency, the dreams were mindful)
No lapse in concentration, you may ruminate on objective morality in due time
(Crawling through blood and bodies of children, so pure, cadavers tell lies)
The clearing ahead in giant trees, you run and don't look back, praying for no pursuit
(Another genocide committed by a white man, justified perhaps this once)
Weeks pass and you falter only to slurp rain water from Congolese sipping cups the leaves
(Blacking out somewhere in the Republic, or on a border or who cares, as you died long ago)
- vey, okay, huttah, ulay
  ley hatasha hullah - dey

To awake from hallucinogen dreams, and cruel memories linger, it's painful you agree
Witch doctor still sings, lonesome now as the tribe apply ointments and silently pray
The fire still dances to some incredible song and your scars redacted, physical and other
How incredible the mind feeling fuzzy and that insane dream is just that - a dream
You black out again, a common occurrence but upon waking you're free, no tribe exists
With a sheepskin rucksack full of cassava, plantains and sugarcane and cocoa beans
Months pass and you make it to the North, when you leave Africa your body is new
and your mind is stable, no lingering cognizance or frightful thoughts of a forgotten ordeal

You arrive in Turkey, to partake in ***** with nimble girls
and I see you floundering on silken sheets,
My memories were fresh as the nymph on your lap
I write to you a note, and you turn alabaster, moon faced being
I was there always and saw every moment
Your ideals on morality are hazy at best, and to your behest I detest all that you stand for
Is your afterlife so pure, now that bodies litter the forest floor
and do you believe that I am not (a) God
and is this mere poetry, or an indictment of your folly and a warning to all whom engage
but do you not also see that every reaction was an action taken to your original action
and when all is said and done, do you no realise that from the day you were born
you were born a God and that God was born dead
and this is just that interim between expiration and consciousness, that momentary lapse of reality
when slave children don't howl and the wild animals lay tamed in sun traps, weary

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
ley hatasha hullah - dey

(1)

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.
How the sun's poultice draws on my inflammation.

Electrifyingly-colored sherbets, scooped from the freeze
By pale girls, travel the air in scorched hands.

Why is it so quiet, what are they hiding?
I have two legs, and I move smilingly..

A sandy damper kills the vibrations;
It stretches for miles, the shrunk voices

Waving and crutchless, half their old size.
The lines of the eye, scalded by these bald surfaces,

Boomerang like anchored elastics, hurting the owner.
Is it any wonder he puts on dark glasses?

Is it any wonder he affects a black cassock?
Here he comes now, among the mackerel gatherers

Who wall up their backs against him.
They are handling the black and green lozenges like the parts of a body.

The sea, that crystallized these,
Creeps away, many-snaked, with a long hiss of distress.

                (2)

This black boot has no mercy for anybody.
Why should it, it is the hearse of a dad foot,

The high, dead, toeless foot of this priest
Who plumbs the well of his book,

The bent print bulging before him like scenery.
Obscene bikinis hid in the dunes,

******* and hips a confectioner's sugar
Of little crystals, titillating the light,

While a green pool opens its eye,
Sick with what it has swallowed----

Limbs, images, shrieks.  Behind the concrete bunkers
Two lovers unstick themselves.

O white sea-crockery,
What cupped sighs, what salt in the throat....

And the onlooker, trembling,
Drawn like a long material

Through a still virulence,
And a ****, hairy as privates.

                (3)

On the balconies of the hotel, things are glittering.
Things, things----

Tubular steel wheelchairs, aluminum crutches.
Such salt-sweetness.  Why should I walk

Beyond the breakwater, spotty with barnacles?
I am not a nurse, white and attendant,

I am not a smile.
These children are after something, with hooks and cries,

And my heart too small to bandage their terrible faults.
This is the side of a man:  his red ribs,

The nerves bursting like trees, and this is the surgeon:
One mirrory eye----

A facet of knowledge.
On a striped mattress in one room

An old man is vanishing.
There is no help in his weeping wife.

Where are the eye-stones, yellow and valuable,
And the tongue, sapphire of ash.

                (4)

A wedding-cake face in a paper frill.
How superior he is now.

It is like possessing a saint.
The nurses in their wing-caps are no longer so beautiful;

They are browning, like touched gardenias.
The bed is rolled from the wall.

This is what it is to be complete.  It is horrible.
Is he wearing pajamas or an evening suit

Under the glued sheet from which his powdery beak
Rises so whitely unbuffeted?

They propped his jaw with a book until it stiffened
And folded his hands, that were shaking:  goodbye, goodbye.

Now the washed sheets fly in the sun,
The pillow cases are sweetening.

It is a blessing, it is a blessing:
The long coffin of soap-colored oak,

The curious bearers and the raw date
Engraving itself in silver with marvelous calm.

                (5)

The gray sky lowers, the hills like a green sea
Run fold upon fold far off, concealing their hollows,

The hollows in which rock the thoughts of the wife----
Blunt, practical boats

Full of dresses and hats and china and married daughters.
In the parlor of the stone house

One curtain is flickering from the open window,
Flickering and pouring, a pitiful candle.

This is the tongue of the dead man:  remember, remember.
How far he is now, his actions

Around him like living room furniture, like a décor.
As the pallors gather----

The pallors of hands and neighborly faces,
The elate pallors of flying iris.

They are flying off into nothing:  remember us.
The empty benches of memory look over stones,

Marble facades with blue veins, and jelly-glassfuls of daffodils.
It is so beautiful up here:  it is a stopping place.

                (6)

The natural fatness of these lime leaves!----
Pollarded green *****, the trees march to church.

The voice of the priest, in thin air,
Meets the corpse at the gate,

Addressing it, while the hills roll the notes of the dead bell;
A glittler of wheat and crude earth.

What is the name of that color?----
Old blood of caked walls the sun heals,

Old blood of limb stumps, burnt hearts.
The widow with her black pocketbook and three daughters,

Necessary among the flowers,
Enfolds her lace like fine linen,

Not to be spread again.
While a sky, wormy with put-by smiles,

Passes cloud after cloud.
And the bride flowers expend a freshness,

And the soul is a bride
In a still place, and the groom is red and forgetful, he is featureless.

                (7)

Behind the glass of this car
The world purrs, shut-off and gentle.

And I am dark-suited and still, a member of the party,
Gliding up in low gear behind the cart.

And the priest is a vessel,
A tarred fabric, sorry and dull,

Following the coffin on its flowery cart like a beautiful woman,
A crest of *******, eyelids and lips

Storming the hilltop.
Then, from the barred yard, the children

Smell the melt of shoe-blacking,
Their faces turning, wordless and slow,

Their eyes opening
On a wonderful thing----

Six round black hats in the grass and a lozenge of wood,
And a naked mouth, red and awkward.

For a minute the sky pours into the hole like plasma.
There is no hope, it is given up.

Inside-outside, upside-down. Constant motion, spinning round.
Conscious split, two sides torn. Personalities are born.
Balanced, stabled, falling down. Spilling over onto the ground.
Thoughts amuck, frayed and tattered. Sanity beaten, bruised, and battered.
Sailing, drowning, waters of my mind. Washed upon its shores I might find.
Forgetting rhythm, losing time.  Blacking out, right here is fine.
I'll end this now, my own terms. I'll perplex them, their thoughts will burn.
Gathering together my person, my flock. I'll lay it's all down on the chopping block.  
Panting, sweating, head in hand. It's okay... Im normal again.

Words shouting, singing, smiling, frowning--
Sense lacking.
Ah, nothing, more obscure than Browning,
Save blacking.

Sitting in a restaurant in cottage country.
with my parents, my friend,my sister and her two friends.
I'm eating these miniature boneless chicken wings
I feel a pain in my chest,
I take a sip of my ice tea through a straw
And sit there holding my chest and closing my eyes
--
In my head is a jack hammer just pounding
My whole body feels pinned down
but also moving like the jack hammer
--
Laying on the ground I see my father leaning over top of me
I am on my back
He is pinning me down
My vision blacking out and head still pounding
"Call 911, she's having a seizure"

The only thing I can manage to say is "no"
"no. No! no! NO! No? NO... no no nonono...."
And the only thing I could think of was 'I don'y want to be a seizure person'
Epileptic is what i meant to say, but the word didn't come to me.
Tears are rushing down my face, terrified.
I can only hope this is a one time thing.

As I am helped up by my mom and escorted to the bathroom
I see all these faces looking at me
Faces of sympathy
That is the worst feeling ever.
Being stared as you are leaving the room after a seizure

Sometimes I wanna put my head in a blender,
Ain’t been sober since September, never wake me up till I see green days front & centre.
Everyday another ****** than I go and get fried.
No, futurama just future drama, but **** it I’m zombified.
With hangovers being the only thing confirming I’m even alive.
Treating life like a game but in real life there ain’t no revives.
But I know eventually like Chester I’ll cross that new divide.
Where the irresistible force & the immovable object collide.
Understand the analogy? If not my apologies.
For these are just the ramblings of addict unable to stop gambling.
Gambling with the life creator has graciously given me.
Wonder if he’s disappointed in me.
Uh…
Think I need some more REM &
***.
Blacking out till the next one.
Blacking out till I’m gone
Uh…

Liquor in my dreams,
Liquor in my mind,
Stumbling around the streams of thought,
Like a philosopher lost in time.

Liquor in my dreams,
Liquor in my mind,
Drowning out the past,
That left me traumatized.

Got me wanting to take a leap of bad faith,
Right into oncoming traffic.
1000 ways to die to meet the wraith awaiting like a bandit.
To take away life off the list with a tick,
Tick, tick.
No escaping the Clock of fate.
That’s why I numb my mental state.
So, I don’t feel **** when I arrive at hells gates.
Cause it cannot be worse than the **** I’ve already faced.
At least I’m hoping that is the case.
For goodness sakes.
Give me a ******* break.
But life is rigged speedway where shadowy figures cut one’s brakes.
Understand the analogy? If not my apologies.
For these are just the ramblings of addict unable to stop gambling.
Gambling with the life creator has graciously given me.
Wonder if he’s disappointed in me.
Uh…
Think I need some more REM &
***.
Blacking out till the next one.
Blacking out till I’m gone
Uh…

Liquor in my dreams,
Liquor in my mind,
Stumbling around the streams of thought,
Like a philosopher lost in time.

Liquor in my dreams,
Liquor in my mind,
Drowning out the past,
That left me traumatized.

I close the door of the bathroom cabinet, revealing the figure standing in front of it. I tilt my head back, bring my hand up to my mouth, swallow, and feel the slightly farmiliar sensation of the little pill sliding down my throat. Anything that used to be normal is only slightly farmiliar now, an effect of these little pills.
I look up into the ghost in the mirror, the one that slightly resembles my own face. I can barely pick out the individual features, but I'm pretty sure that's me. I bring my hand back up to my face, this time to pull up my cheeks in something that somewhat looked like a smile. Yep, that's me all right. The hand moved to the left, and grabbed my ear, tugging at it. Slowly, it made its way across my whole face, surveying all my features, feeling everything. I'm still here. Wish I wasn't.
I sigh and continue staring at this ghost of a person. She looks tired, and *****. Her dark brown hair ******* in a messy, greasy bun on top of her head. Her once bright green eyes are now a dull brown. Her once flushed cheeks, now completely pale and lifeless, still bear the scars of the crash.
I sigh once more and turn around, almost losing my balance.
I start toward my room, remembering I have to do something today. Not school, nor work, nor anything else in particular. Well, of course there is a reason, but thinking of that reason makes everything clear and painful, so lets just keep things hazy and safe.
I pull my once too small jeans on, which are now extremely baggy on my scarred legs. I try to steady my shaky hands as I attempt the eyeliner, but give up, and remove the waterproof makeup. It's not like he will care, he can't see my face anymore.
A sudden stab of pain envelops within my chest as everything suddenly becomes clear and I can see his face, his beautiful face, laughing. I blackout and end up on the floor.
When my eyes open, they are greeted with the concerned eyes of my sister-in-law. She's holding my face, trying to wake me up. "Woah there, woah. Are you okay?"
I sit there thinking of what just happened and what she said. It takes me a moment, but I reply, "As okay as I ever am."
She rolls her eyes and sighs. "C'mon, get up. We have to do something today."
Another stab of pain as I remember where we're going today and what we're doing. I ***** on her as the pain overcomes me once more, this time not blacking out. Instead the images, the very ones I have countless nightmares about, flit across my mind. Every one bearing pain, bearing a very specific pain. I start to scream and convulse, as I claw the arms of my brother's wife.
My brother comes in to pull me off of her and put me onto my bed, as I continue screaming. I can very clearly feel the very farmiliar pain in the middle of my chest. It's as if 10, no. It's as if a 100, a 1000 knives are being shoved in, turning, breaking bones, slicing organs. And then it feels as if someone is spitting salted lemon juice into my wounds, stinging.
It's all in my head though. Everything I'm feeling is all in my head. And that's the problem right there. Why couldn't I have just died in the crash, why can't I just be gone already.
I blackout again. And when I wake up, both my brother and my sister-in-law are standing there, watching over me. I see that my sister-in-law has changed clothes. Their troubled faces brighten up a little as they watch my eyes open. Unsurprised. This happens every time we plan to go to the hospital to visit him in the ICU. It's happened before, many times, so they know what to do and how to calm me back down.
They help me up from my bed and out into the living room, where there is a tray of fried eggs and bacon sitting on the coffee table. Probably for me.
I disregard it and instead walk to the kitchen to grab the *****.
My sister-in-law was right there to stop me. "No no no, not this early. Besides," she says as she takes the bottle from my shaking hands, "you already took your medication."
I begin to protest, and quit, knowing that it was no use.
Asides from the ***** and my medication, they have baby-proofed the whole house because of me. All knives are locked up somewhere in the garage, any tool that could be used against myself gone. No rope, shoelaces, small appliances, or other things that I may use to **** myself. The ***** was out because they confiscated it from my room. I had shoplifted the liquor the other day, and was trying to start a collection so that I may drink several bottles of alcohol at once and overdose. Not too smart, they search my room all the time. I'm too drugged to even care. And my medication tastes too nasty to overdose on, asides from being nearly impossible to OD from.

In the car on the way to St. Rosemary's hospital, we stop at a florist to get some 'Get Well Soon' stuff. My brother gave me some stronger medication, as he always does whenever we go to the hospital, and it makes thinking better. I'm able to think about what happened, but it makes the images in my head seem like they're from a movie, rather than my own eyes. I'm able to think about the man who lays there in the ICU, day in day out. That man I was once in love with. No, I still love him. And he loved me too. Loved.
I'm brought back to reality by my brother.
"What colour do you want to give him today?"
I don't know why he asks. I always say the same. "Green. His favorite colour."
My brother sighed. "I think he has enough green. But oh well, it's your choice..."
I love my brother very very much. I'm so grateful that he puts up with me. It's kind of a funny thing, when we were much younger and he was a ***** up, I could've sworn that he would have to end up living with me when we were older. Ironically, I ended up having to live with him. Well, 'living with him' isn't what it is. It's more like 'babysitting' or 'mom didnt want her in a mental hospital.' Like I had said before, I'm too drugged to care.

We also stop by SubWay just before we get to the hospital. I get the usual, a footlong ham and Swiss, with three chocolate chip cookies and a large Dr. Pepper. It's not for me, of course. I never eat anymore. This food is for him, if he wakes up. Because if he wakes up while I'm there, I want the satisfaction of being there with his favorite food. I do this every time. It's been a very long time since my brother or his wife has complained, wasting food and such. I don't care whether or not they're mad I waste stuff. I want this, no. I need this, for my fiancé.

Hospitals used to always scare me. As a child, I never had a reason to go to the hospital, except for my mother or grandmother, and even then I never went. I just knew people died there sometimes. I used to be so afraid of death. Now I'm wishing for it daily.
We head up to the ICU. He has his own room to himself, but he wouldn't care whether or not he had other people in there. All the people here know me, since we come around so often. They always look at me with extremely sympathetic looks, and then whisper about me to the people who they're around.
"Poor woman... Was in a terrible car crash... See those scars?... Just about to get married... **** near lost her life..."
They think I don't hear them but I do. It's a complete blessing for this medication, and that it makes me not care anymore, but sometimes I wish I could care. I wish I could turn around to them and tell them to shut the **** up thank you very much. I just literally do not care anymore.
We get to his room. The nurse comes out with the same sympathetic look as the rest of them.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to remember the last time I heard his voice, seen his eyes, felt his smile, heard him singing, the last time he told me he loved me...
And then the whole scene of when my life basically ended flashed across my mind, like a movie.

We were in the car, driving, listening to the iPod that was hooked up, singing along with whoever the hell was on. It was the middle of April. Nice weather. It was the perfect day.
We were on the way to this favorite place of mine, a 'special date' he had called it. At the time I had no idea what he was going to do.
We went into the place, a rollerskating rink. We got our skates and went into the rink to skate around. The DJ called out a special song for a special someone. As we danced and skated to the song, which was 'our song', the song we used to sing to eachother all the time, when a spotlight shined on him and he stopped what he was doing.
"You know that I love you," he said. "And you know that I want to be with you for the rest of our lives." He got down on one knee. "Will you make me the happiest man alive, and marry me?"
I started to cry. I said yes, if course. It was the happiest moment of my life.

When we were finished with the date, we were driving back home. We were seated very close, holding onto eachother.
We stopped at a stop sign, and I wanted a kiss. So I turned my head toward his, and we kissed. When I opened my eyes, we were in the middle of the intersection, and a car was coming our way from the left. It's headlights were shining in my eyes, and it was too close, going too fast. Right before the hit, I looked at it, knew the danger, and screamed my fiancé's name. He looked into my eyes in alarm, and that was when it hit. The other car smashed right into us, t-boning us on the drivers side, while my husband-to-be was driving. That moment felt like an eternity. We were flown around, and we hit some **** I don't even remember.
The next thing I remember was the sirens. The ambulances came and took us away from the wreckage. He was hurt severely, put into a coma. Me, I had some bad injuries, but not as bad as his. We were rushed to the hospital, and he was flown by helicopter to a bigger hospital that dealt with more serious injuries. Within two days he was considered brain dead.

And now, here I am, walking on this earth, while the love of my life just lays there, brain dead. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was to make it so I have to walk around, wondering whether he will ever wake up. The doctors always say that it's been too long, or that there's no hope now, or that we need to pull the plug. But every time they tell me that, I flip out. I flip out so bad they have to basically tranquilize me and send me back to the mental hospital. It's horrible. I just wish I could die, and that they would finally pull the plug after my death, so that we can both be together, wherever we go when we are finished with this life...

And the picture that always haunts me? The one of his eyes, in alarm, when I screamed his name. That picture is what haunts me day and night. It's what my nightmares are composed of. Every. Single. One.

I think all of this over for about a minute before we walk in. No one urges me to go in faster, they all know what I'm doing. They all know that I'm reliving the moment that pretty much took him away.
I open my eyes, ready to see him at last. I take small, careful steps into the hospital room, watching the floor. I finally looked up to see him lying, like usual, in his bed.

...At least, that what I was expecting.

Instead, he was sitting up, eyes wide, waiting for my reaction to see him awake.

And that was when I fainted.

i woke up today thinking about almonds

on the bus to school i heard the crunching of their shell
breaking between the teeth of a chubby little girl
and i grasped at the corners of my binder
until my palms were dripping blood

my mouth watered to the thought of muffins in algebra

the teacher called on me and the kids laughed
when i didn't respond
but i'm sure they've never heard
such a shrill silence

i cried about pasta while my family ate dinner

my mom's eyes never looked so dull
as she asked me if it was her cooking i didn't like
and i cringed as she touched my shoulder
and told me i felt cold

i went to bed thinking about my weight

i peeled back the fat of my stomach
to see if there was any part of myself left
inside this hollow shell
i called a body

i blacked out tonight

i could hear my skull smash
against the white tiles of my bathroom floor
but you can't feel anything
when you're weightless

Well since you gave me the idea,
I'll just to my alley of worship
to sing hymns of ecstasy and ****,
to glorify the power of  my all mighty drug dealer,
with the rest of my burnt out, strung out congregation.
A few beers doesn't make you an alcoholic
it means you were thirsty.
Before you read the rlab report.
Do you mind if I make a drink?
I wasn't going to show,
but our blood has bound us to the familial microscope.
Blacking out the ******* with the facts that proove you wrong dancing on the tip of tougne.
Your wasting my time.
I'll be the gentleman and I'll hold the door open for you.
Now walk right out of my life.

I wish I was your little
whiskey girl and you
were pouring yourself
into my bottle to come
drink me up.

But you drained me
dryer than the Savannah.
Now men build boats
inside me, and I haven't
a corkscrew to get out.

I wish I was your little
*** doll and you were
dizzy over me, slurring
I love you's and burning
with me in your throat.

But you don't drink
expensive liquor anymore
not since you spent your money
on losing lottery tickets
and vinyl.

I'm top shelf
but that is only because
you put me there
to forget about me.
And now you drown
yourself in wells,
blacking out
the parts of you
that loved me.

This strange egg you've incubated
has sprouted skinny chicken legs.

It follows you around clucking at
every throaty word you nasty-utter.

Pointing and pecking at your guilt
borne by some years ago sin which
all others hatch from and you keep feeding,
Remorseful grains of misdeed shell grit
to harden its anxious green shell.

With no law outside itself the taint faint
heartbeat of your reproof I hear beating
like fear's unglued false eyelashes

You soft swaddle it with empty gestures.
It gestates in every grimace of piety.

I watch it govern your vocation of drab
and undramatic mastery of feathered illusion.

I want to tear shreds in your black satin cape,
To avalanche your fears into frosty exile.
Burn them screaming in the blinding white of
anemic unconscious,
the blacking out.

Hang a trophy **** of your winged demon
taxidermied with glass eyes above my bed.

My compass needle has lost your polarity
there's just a crude representation of pain

I will plant this seed you gave me, in Lethe;
The River of Forgetfulness on its grey shore.

A watery landscape without vanishing point.
Where a white heron will weep tears of sorrow,
like a human to feed hope's tender shoots.

anxiety: my heart wakes me up, tattooing irregular beats against
my ribs, pulse racing, breath shaking.  i cannot tell
if this is real or psychosomatic.  these days,
i think about death all the time,
no longer by suicide.  now, i am
an accident waiting to happen,
fragile from years of misuse &
neglect.  the shallow inhales
of my lungs tell me
i am not okay.

depression:  this is a gray day.  i swallow my meds even though
they take away my mania.  so i drink black coffee until my mind
races itself in circles, chasing its tail like a rabid dog.
i keep the razors hidden in my sock drawer,
just in case.  

anorexia: my ribs ****** forward from my skin again, the sharp
protrusion of my bones beginning to show through.  i am eating
but drinking my weight in water
& mainlining caffeine to keep my metabolism high & my weight
low.  i am still child-sized & i don't want to grow.  
they lift me easily with their arms & marvel
at my featherweight body.  
the compliments i get only make me
eat less.

self-harm: on the days when i am low, i trace
the silver stretch of scars scattered over my skin
with a yearning for a blade between my fingers
just one last time.  i swear to you, the bleeding is over,
but i need to know
i am still brave
enough
to hold a sharp edge against my flesh
& press down,
hard.

addiction: a month ago,
i downed four adderall in one sitting,
luxuriating in the heady rush & lack of pain,
the quiet & the calm.
when i lived at home, i stole
my mother's vicodin & took the whole bottle.
i'm not sorry.  
when the boy who only cared about ******* me
offered mdma for free,
i accepted, but i shouldn't have trusted him
to keep me safe,
blacking out on his kitchen
floor.
drink red wine to forget
my insecurity, inhale
thick, sweet smoke to feel
some semblance of happy,
drag on cigarettes
down to their filters
until i feel properly
alive.

all i want is to be better, but
where to begin?

Once I was at a house party in the highlands, I got very drunk.
We were skateboarding on the large tennis court up on the top of the extravagant property which did not belong to any of us.

I was trying to do a trick and the board flew out from under me and rolled out of control into the center net. I didn't know it, but I broke both bones below my wrist clean across.

When I fell, I was initially disoriented.
I remember everybody letting out a big gasp or "Oooh, ouch."
I staggered to my feet and tried to assess the situation.

I started to feel dizzy and fell back over.
I think two people helped me back up and got me sat down in a chair.
I remember the feeling that I was blacking out and couldn't breathe.

"I think I am going into shock." I said to everybody around me.
"I think I might need some medical attention." I said immediately after.

Nobody really paid attention.
"You're fine." Somebody said.
I shook my head as to say no, but to no avail. Nobody was listening.
"I need an ambulance"
I passed out again.

At some point, I woke up and drove myself home, drunk and with a broken arm. Nobody wanted to give their good time to help me, even though I knew everybody and I desperately needed it...

The terrifying part about this, is that it has happened before.

Know who your friends are
Know how cruel and negligent they can be.
Know how little drugs and alcohol care about you.

you are literally haunting me tonight
this is a strange dream
and I don't know if it is the alcohol

you are also there
why are you in my dreams?
I have not felt you in a long time

there are these others that give me butterflies

i go to high school
the love of my life and I are together
he is here too

flashback
we are crying
flashback
I am on his lap and he is singing in my ear
flashback
he grabs my wrist too hard this time
flash back
I wake up with a smile hearing him in the shower
flashback
my mouth is awoken with kissing and tickles
flashback
he is crying and I don't know why
GOD PLEASE I'LL BELIVE FOR HIM
he cannot stop
sit down babe sit down
his eyes are so red
like blood

I don't want to cry
I need to be strong like always
I am a Stamm
I am STRONG

he is falling around
God help me please
what is happening to his brain

flash forward
the next morning

you didn't talk about it
you didn't want to
just Xanax

I have this dream
where you won't stop crying
and you won't tell me why
I am just trying to be ******* strong ******* it!! I LOVE YOU!! LOOK AT ME!! SHOULD I CALL AN AMBULANCE?! PLEASE BABE I AM SO SCAred.
Please
babe. Look at me why are you crying.
'whispers'
       please babe just tell me why are you crying
please it's ok it's ok please it's ok it's ok


my tears fall down the dark nape of your neck and your large head is cradled in my arms
I sat on his lap
but I cradled his 200lb body with the 150lbs I had
he shook and it used to wake me up at night
he would get the shivers
and I was so afraid he would "be like a cup, spilling over with just a touch"
I found out that day that love can really hurt
I found out that day I was in love...


flash forward
I've been taking benzos the past week
it amazes me how I feel so much relief
when even a piece of anxiety
flutters
like a moth off my neck

then they wear off
and I hate my true feeling

who knows how many I've taken
blacking out is my trend again

i am going to go to sleep now
please stay away

I only cry about you once a week now!!!
Once a week Justice!!
If you could read this I think you would be proud of me.
I hope one day when we are older we can talk like we weren't lovers.

I am sorry I touched your face Justice.
That was very immature.
I guess the best thing to say, is when someone is passionate.... When someone truly would put their life on the line for a person, in this case two people... And they do something that would normally hurt her....

I wanted to **** myself.... ok?
I thought I mattered to only two people
and it turned out I didn't.
I have never been so broken in my entire life.

Not as broken all of the neglect and mental abuse from an alcoholic father,
from being kicked out of my own house at 18,
having a mother who called me fat since I was 11,
not from having a boyfriend who hit me when I was 15,
worse than hiding my cut marks with silly bands in middle school ,
no you know I was broken by something else.

The love of my life and the best friend of my life going behind my back and being together.

My "future husband" hah
and my maid of "honor".      ****

But I fought through everything
through the cutting
the binge drinking
******* to feel something ANYTHING
requesting rough ***
starving myself
going through a car accident
I made it back.


Without the help of you two.

Now I work with kids 4 days a week, I am Ms.Shauna Mon - Wednesday for 2,3,4, and 5th graders, and on Thursday's I am Coach Stamm. I empower young girls to love who they are and to be healthy and to stomp any bad feeling about themselves with every stride in every cross country run.

So


Please leave me alone.
Figure all of your ****** **** up now
I'll do the same to you.
please please for my mental state

I'm stuck.
Inside my head again
Each time on the edge
Of discovering why
I keep getting stuck
I’m lost once again
Once more thinking hard
While sleep eludes me again
I keep getting stuck
Wondering who I am
Wondering where I am
Wondering who the person in the mirror is
I remember being small
But it feels like those memories aren’t mine
I remember everything
About love about drugs about pain
I remember so much
Except who belongs to my name
I keep getting stuck
Jammed
Feet glued to the floor
Overwhelmed with sorrow
Disgust
Rage
And more
I keep forgetting
Who I am inside
Am I the packs of cigarettes
Empty bottles
Empty cans
Am I the twisted shell
Of a car once proud
Am I the cries
Of a girl
Abandoned by mommy
Wondering why forever
Mommy isn’t coming home
Am I the canisters
Lying on the floor
After a good few seconds
Of never wondering when the pain comes back
Am I really this girl
Who binge eats at night
Am I really this boy
That is scared to be mean
Am I really an adult
Out in the world
Never getting tired
Just blacking out
I can’t sleep
I can’t get tired
I can’t get a hold or a grip or a sight
I can’t peek through this tarp on my eyes
I keep getting stuck
In a hole in my head
I keep getting stuck
In a well in my heart
If I ever get out
Will I still wonder
Why I can’t remember who I am
And why I keep getting stuck

I'm shaking and seeing red
Im blacking out before anything is said
Its the fight I try to hide
The anger that rages in me
The dark mystical clouds in my eyes they swirl till I am shaken
I am enraged I see red and black
Don't know what's happing
I want to fight to relse my anger
But the beast dont want to run it wants to play

My name is Mr. Skullcracker and I'm in the business of cracking skulls,
I whack skulls, I smack skulls, I've got a knack for cracking skulls,
I follow my endeavors for attacking, cracking skulls,
And although it isn't clever cracking skulls is never dull,
There are stupid skulls for hacking that are lacking any brain,
But there are intelligent skulls I'm whacking that are cracking open just the same,
When I'm blacking out from cracking it's the glamour that I lack,
No one's enamored with my hammer or the skulls that I do crack,
And though cracking skulls is colorful there are lulls where I lay back,
And when I'm laying backing instead of whacking there are skulls that could be cracked!
What I need to aid attacking is a girl to watch my back,
She could be tall with auburn hair, or short and fat with black,
Have back acne, be a banshee, I couldn't care less about that,
But if her hacking skills are lacking then my emotions do fall flat
All she needs is a thick enough forehead so that her skull I do not crack,
She could fill stadiums with her voice or be tracking with the bulls,
But she needs a cranium of titanium cause I'm in the business of cracking skulls

this is the city
that my daddy built
inside of me
between my guts
where my heart should be.
what isn’t rusted
or burnt out
or tired
is barbed-wire and wary.

this is the city
that my daddy built
with his anger.
it’s set up high
on a hill of scissors and blood oranges
and blood oranges with scissors
inside of them,
red juice stains
in sticky pools and dirt.

this is the city that my daddy built
in our house.
in our home.
where the people are shadows,
speaking in whispers
tiptoeing behind closed doors
so as not to rouse the beast.

this is the city
that my daddy built
here we pay tithes in blood oranges
to humor his desires
warding off uncalled for bloodshed
like the time that I
finally stood up for myself
and he broke the kitchen table
with his fists.
it was an antique
that traveled with my great-grandmother
from Sweden,
now just another broken thing
in the landslide
of scissors
and blood oranges
and dirt.

this is the city
that my daddy built,
scarring my skeleton,
following me everywhere
like a spilled bottle of India ink
blacking out the finely drawn sun,
like past transgressions
follow the guilty,
like the golden touch of Midas,
turning everything into
a mountain of scissors and
blood oranges and dirt.

this is the city that
my daddy built,
making my concept of home
a depiction of ruins;
the vestiges of what
could have been
if we hadn’t lived
too close to his minefield,
before causing my mother
to take my sisters and leave
like a snowbird at the arrival of spring,
at last realizing that her spine
consisted of wings.

this is the city
that my daddy built.
this is the city that
scarred and weary,
shadows of skeletons of birds, we
will move on, leaving behind
brick by ***** brick
until it’s nothing but a memory
of a pile
of blood oranges
and scissors
and dirt.

PREFACE

If---and the thing is wildly possible---the charge of writing
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line

''Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes''

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal
indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral
purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so
cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural
History---I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining
how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances,
used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be
revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for
replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the
ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to
appeal to the Bellman about it---he would only refer to his Naval
Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which
none of them had ever been able to understand---so it generally ended
in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman
used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong,
but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, ''No one shall speak to the Man at the
Helm'', had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words
''and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one''. So remonstrance
was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next
varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually
sailed backwards.

This office was usually undertaken by the Boots, who found in it
a refuge from the Baker's constant complaints about the insufficient
blacking of his three pairs of boots.

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the
Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that
has often been asked me, how to pronounce ''slithy toves''. The
''i'' in ''slithy'' is long, as in ''writhe''; and ''toves'' is
pronounced so as to rhyme with ''groves''. Again, the first ''o'' in
''borogoves'' is pronounced like the ''o'' in ''borrow''. I have
heard people try to give it the sound of the ''o'' in ''worry''.
Such is Human Perversity.

This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard words in
that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one
word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words ''fuming'' and ''furious''. Make up
your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which
you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts
incline ever so little towards ''fuming'', you will say
''fuming-furious''; if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards
''furious'', you will say ''furious-fuming''; but if you have that
rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say
''frumious''.

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known words---

''Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!''

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or
Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not
possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that,
rather than die, he would have gasped out ''Rilchiam!''.

Regressing into happenstance
I grasped the Rabbit in my hand
One sip I took, upon a chance
Off the edge, into quicksand. . .

Blacking out on your front lawn
On the ground, where you could stand
Can’t remember dusk or dawn,
Sinking fast into quicksand.

(10/06/11)

He had so much anger , so much hate
To lash out at someone he couldn’t wait
An innocent bystander walking down the street
This was the one that he would beat.

If she had suspected what lied ahead
She would have turned her back and fled.
With fists flaring he knocked her to the ground
Her jaw broken - she couldn’t make a sound
They say they don’t know how she survived
With the extent of her injuries
they was sure she would die.

She gave a description of what he looked like
And before blacking out she started to fight
They caught him with the description she gave
They saw that he was full of anger and rage.

They say from his step father he had been abused
And fighting back was of no use.
His mother did not believe what he had said
And she turned - and sent him to bed.

He now blamed his mother for what
His step father had done
no one to turn to, no where to run.
She should have - defended her son.

He and his step father are both in jail
Because his mother had truly failed
To hold a man she did not watch her son
Now look at what he has gone and done.

( child abuse can create stories such as this)

i tried forgetting you so hard
my liver's collapsing
& i've got these bruises & cuts -
contusions & concussions -
from my aggravation, concentrated
on the wrong people in crowded places
but we all need ventilation.
so i spilled out abuse
on whoever was willing to take it,
combining fists with faces -
call it distraction or entertainment,
whichever way you phrase it,
i won't remember...i was wasted -
i was swimming in liquid sentiments
the backstroke of the blind
as i'm blacking out my mind,
turning off the lights
on the portion of my life
you partially defined.