You're a good distraction-
like the channel without infomercials
at 2am.

During the day
you haven't time for me
and I'll waste away

and no one will ask about us.

Is this what it means to be alive?
The heavy thud of strong ***** and cheap beer
Sounds slowly throughout my empty body.
5am sinks into 6 am
And I remember that I never made a wish
When I was blowing out my candles.
Warm suds mix with the remnants of my birthday cake,
As my trembling hands focus on the glass container
Beyond the slightly dull kitchen knife
That rests alone on the marble countertops,
Facing it's long sleek body towards my upright torso:
A modern take on spin the bottle.
No one cares, here.
Houses flood in and out with lonely crowds of
"Nice to meet you" and "I've missed you so much",
Until all you can hear is a constant drone of yesterday and tomorrow muddled together in a ***** sink.
Is this how it feels to grow older?
Each year seeps into the next, and sometimes I forget my name,
Lost in the American dream of party hats and pinatas.
There's nothing real here, anymore.
It was all left behind: all the cherry stained finger tips, macaroni noodle jewelry, piles of presents by the living room door:
There's no room for any of it, now.
The train rolls by like tiny knights clinking around in their brass armor,
Off to slay emerald dragons that only appear
Right before sunrise,
And evaporate before their presence can be uttered from the lips
Of anyone ****** up enough to see them.
Another year has snuck it's way into the room,
Gradually slinking over to the small leather couch,
Where I dutifully await its arrival.
Outside, the world grows restless;
Sleep walking, the city streets begin to dance and pulsate with empty ambition,
Jerking back and forth to the rhythm of the rusted train tracks
And nameless sounds of empty avenues and sidewalks.
Knees curled to my chest, I'm five years old again,
Listening to the tired clamor of white and grey birds and the smell of salt water.
Everything's easier when you only know enough to paint your world with the same colors
You found in library books and pamphlets from the aquarium.
Now, the acid in my stomach churns with yesterday's Taco Bell
And the distant squalor of seagulls falls flat against the ***** windows
Of my second story apartment:
Nothing grows here.
What's left of yesterday's light
That hung around until the morning,
Slowly spreads across the kitchen floor
Until it reaches the thick, shiny skin
Of our resident house plant,
Basking in its sorry habitat,
It's spindly arms reach out towards the window,
Only to be smushed back towards its fleshy body
By the paper thin mesh netting:
A testimony to the world around it.
I'm fourteen, again,
Fighting back tears in algebra class and planning my Friday night,
Because life turns the color of Nebraska mud
As soon as you dilute your reality with that of everyone else's.
Bang bang,
Sounds are only as poignant as our imagination;
Afraid of what we would hear,
We force the fairy tales that once flew freely throughout our worlds,
Into a tiny ten minute daydream,
Too brief to ever be accepted as anything more
Than a distant memory of a half there story
That served no purpose
Outside of entertainment.
We've replaced never land with shopping malls
And Main Street.
Throwing our arms up as we pivot down onto the paved floor-
Fairy dust can only hold so much before failing,
Leaving us to our own devices
And a slew of infomercials and prime time television series.
Being nineteen isn't that different from any other age.
The past continues to build up like caked mud
And dog **** on the bottom of peeling, white tennis shoes.
One, two, three,
Maybe growing up isn't so painful after all,
Until you look back and realize you accidentally
Left your entire life behind in the process,
Tucked away in a musty banana box
Between a broken pink dresser and old magazines
Somewhere in your mom's garage,
And the more you think about it,
Try to remember it in every subtle detail,
The more you gently try to force it out of the crevices of the past,
The more faded and distant it all becomes.
Age makes us clumsy, time makes indifferent,
And nostalgia will drive you mad.
The light in our eyes that was once illuminated by childhood ambition
Now shines from the reflection of a glossy
Photo album that lies face down
Amidst the remains of an instant milk childhood
And birthday wishes that gave us something to believe in.
Now our gods rest indifferent on the chapel floor,
Reaching out from under cedar pews
To grab the ankles of desperate sinners,
As they drift up the isle
To drown out their passion in holy water.
Nothing changes, here.
All around us, the same old song falls effortlessly from the end of every syllable we
Mindlessly spit out like watermelon seeds.
Generation to generation,
We preserve our day old revelations about what it means to feel,
In the hopes that we may fight off death
By forgetting that we were ever alive.

Handicap suburban hippies
Cruising like hyenas
Trampoline ******
****** tissues in ashtrays
Natural born riders
Liquid courage makes little peanuts
Alien Nation
Infomercials on mute
Strange thugs and dark markets
Needles and pixie sticks
Under the manmade weather
New types of bullet holes
Slaying the jabberwocky in
The new Transylvania
The Yes monster
Cranium stadium
Swords and roses
Barren space
Insolent minx
Holidays gone bad
Continental drift

sara left me on the 14th of may,
while my mentor laid dying,
while my debt went unpaid.

over routine coffee and cigarette,
she watched the flimsy fabric
of my flesh
catch flame.

she floated away
to ricochet off summer lions,
whose pride lies between their
worn thighs.

i planted heavy.
aged a century in a week of
wine, infomercials, and hospital
calls.

every mutual friend i asked
about sara's condition,
told me to leave her be,
cast me in creep status.

my beard grows gnarly.
my smoldered remnants
held together by cobwebs.
and everything i ever loved
is on its deathbed.

I've never felt more than half an hour:
Insomnia trickles down until the black-tar-ridden-sap oozes onto
My partially open eyes.
And, to say I've never been in love.
Emotions rise up and retreat-
A constant heaving of the battered
Chest- saving us from finding out
How frightening life is.

Murmuring our sordid laments to Lady Death,
Beneath the murky glow of hotel room bed sheets
And fluorescent dollar store night lights,
Too vacant to summon anything more than a whimper
From our submissive minds.

Nothing ends, here.
One upon another, words flow effortlessly
Out of our cavernous mouths,
Clogging our chests with empty syllables until
We forget why we ever tried to do something more
Than care.

Depression can be felt anywhere-
The air slowly seeps from the hissing
Caracas of a worn out tire,
Or the lungs of anyone
Still enough to remember.
Mindlessly chanting Hail Mary's,
We taunt time with our penchant for immortality
And hospital lobby greeting cards,
Until Aphrodite descends to sell her soul
To the highest bidder.

Mother, I have killed the world
With a time bomb that will never detonate:
Ceaselessly ticking on and on-
A reliant backdrop for something
Too harsh to exist in silence.

Our hearts have fallen from our sleeves
And into films, romance novels,
And 3am cooking infomercials.
Land of the living:
The walking dead,
The too-afraid-to-tell-you-how-I-really-feel,
The product of a broken people
Who traded silence
For a language full of mixed intention.

Children of the night,
Blindly parade around before noon,
Trying to buy redemption
At a corner store market
For half the price
Of the pulpit.

Afraid of hearing the latent echo of
Our own pulsing hearts,
We fill our lives with white noise
And intimacy, too stagnant
To exist without our 3am spirituals.
Anxiously arranging our feeble lives
Around minutes and hours-
Slaves to false agendas,
We battle the dark, secretly,
until soon
We lose sight of the purpose
And get caught up in the motion
Of a world too drugged out on
Redemption
That we forget our own names.

George Foreman



                               Never




Let me down



                                        With his fat-draining grill.

Infomercials drowned out by sirens serve to remind me of how low my income really is

I'm here to remind you that
Your life's a disaster
I'm here to remind you that
you can scrub and scrub,
but the mess you've made
will always remain
I'm here to remind you how
far back you've truly fallen
But I won't tell you
That you're dragging me back, too

Ash trays overflowing
Anger and sadness
Seeping through rotten teeth
Nonexistent work ethic,
But your eyes are still
So tired
And I can't understand

I hate that I find myself thinking,
"Maybe life just isn't meant for everyone"
But some people are just so bad at living

I want to say
"The system failed you"
But I am the system
And I am here to fail you too

They told me this work is ice cold
And I thought my warmth could melt it
Now my teeth always sting
And my hands are always shaking
From the bitterness

Watching failure build up
And pour out all around me,
Hands too weak to stop it

It’s Wednesday.
Some ungodly hour between
4:00 and 6:00. Maybe. I’m not sure.
My mind is soft, unfocused,
sleep-heavy.
Dawn’s greeting is gentle, loving.
A mother’s smile. A susurration, interrupted
by David Wolfe promoting the NutriBullet on an LED screen.
Avocado, kale, blueberries.
Pseudo-science babble stems from wild,
bright eyes, overflowing into bohemian curls. Overgrown and unruly.
Enthusiasm and conviction have
never been more entertaining.
Billy Mays and his dynamic personality pitch.
Stubborn stains shiver before the power of OxiClean.
In a parallel world, I have bought out
every kitchen appliance, every menial utensil
that will revolutionize my quotidian life.
Those ped eggs, the George Foreman grills, Shamwows.
And I am content,
as I sit on my throne of ShamWows,
draped in an oversized Snuggie.

The sloppy rain slips and slides down the fogged-up windows,
and this lets me know that I am not as small as I think I am.
In a city of three million plus, I feel like the soul of a nation,
even though I'm just a twenty-one year-old piece of plastic, drinking a hipster beer.

The waitress has frizzy hair and oily skin.
She's holding in late-night infomercials and missed ballet recitals, behind her words.
She looks at my luggage and asks where I came from or where I'm going,
and I tell her that the fun thing is that I have no idea where I'm going --
and that I still haven't decided where I've came from.

This city allows new-found anonymity, and I want that to be my cause.
With each passing glance, I know they don't see me, and, to me, that's the slumber-kissed throat-slit I've always dreamt of...

...the streets play music that I only hear -- and I know that's not fair, but I don't care.

And the homeless represent the bowels of the city.
And the businessmen are the ghost-filled engine.
And the middle class is the defense-mechanism I always wanted for Christmas.
And I am the empty delusion, desperately seeking a new pollution.

Let me go in the Dark

I want to be in there
In the space of corpulent, infectious glands
Swallowing innocence with labyrinthine hands

Let me be one with the Night

My home is over there
In a place of ubiquitous fears
And a plethora of basking tears

Let me soak in the abyss

The void is so near
A comely figure,
an evocative sadist and protégé
Dripping candle wax on me
in San Lorenzo, Paraguay

Let me walk among ghosts

In the Portal Del So hotel
Tossing back Xanax;
Vicodin with a liquor chaser
Gin and vermouth, *****,
anything to forget her.

Let me wait in living purgatory

With other pods of skin
When the wind shakes the barley,
back home
Where a wife and son
never left me alone.

Let me go in the dark

Past the tortured guilt and sorrow
Where a family is made of flesh
and not ash
Where a house remains
and the fires don’t last

Let me cry and weep in silence

In a room with rotting drapes
A static-channel TV,
a two blade ceiling fan
People engulfed in one another,
A demon  for a man

Let me shower in cold, thickening blood

Standing atop broken medicine cabinet glass
So many packs a day of cheap cigarettes
and loose women
None ease the pain
like the morphine in the kitchen.

Let me go into the chasm

The vein snake is thirsty.
I take a little more each time it feeds
But maybe not waking up
is what the snake needs

Let me sleep in the dark

While infomercials for prayer play
Juxtaposed to a zealous vagabond
and father
The last serpentine dosage
for a broken martyr  
Let me go in the dark

Let me see them again

I’ll wait and watch the room shrink
And hope my eyes
never dilatorily blink.

Cossack Cowboys
Riding Llamas
That they dress
In pink pajamas
Teeny boppers
Blowing bubbles
Biker chicks
Causing trouble
Nuns in Habits
Punks in chains
One or two
Of the deranged
Rubbing Buddha belly
Cravers
And the band
Harvey Danger
David Bowie
Elton John
Both of them
With Spacesuits on
Vegetarians
Eating chicken
Love it fried
Finger licking
In a line to
Meet and greet Obama
Now I wish
I'd brought my Mama
On the T.V.
Slicing, Dicing
Infomercials
Are enlightening
Lindsey Lohan
There's more trouble
Send the Police
On the double
Michael Jackson
With his monkey
Chandelier
Swinging junkies
Bottle Rocket
Ridding crickets
Dolly Parton
Doing dishes
Tubs of Crisco
Set for wrestling
Bee Gees do be
Disco dancing
With Bruce Jenner
Wearing makeup
Dolly's kitchen
Filled with soap suds
Rubber band
Bumper babies
Call me odd
Don't call me crazy
Shooting stars
Carry Uzis
Washed up stars
Drink beer in Koozies
Donnie Osmond
Singing show tunes
As Marie blows
Animal balloons
Circus Barkers
And their Minions
Waylon left us
Shooter Jennings
Heidi Klum
Without makeup
To say the least
She looks a bit rough
American flags
As rainbow banners
Peal, scratch, and sniff
Talking bananas
Hookha smoking
Manatees
Oh yea...
and then there's me
These are just a few of the things that lean
On the lamp post of my dreams

You said you wanted me to come over, and even though it was nearly midnight, I agreed.
I hit every red light between here and your house: start stop wait and wait and wait and start just to stop and wait again, stuck listening to weight-loss infomercials,right-wing talk radio,that god-awful jingle for the lawyer that tries to sound like a wild-west cowboy.
Idling under these red cyclops eyes, I wanted
to tell you that this had to stop, that I was going home, that I’d see you tomorrow, maybe,but I finished the drive and remembered why:
the red scent of your hair;your lips against my neck, saying,“I’m glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re here.”

I’m bleeding tremendously down my face
I almost escaped.

It’s 5am, we walked the streets and had a cigarette
You tell me about yourself, “God”
It seemed so innocent, only walking

We left with no words
Such harmless individuals with no intentions
We were just happy and free

That’s not my name- I lied.
Cause you pigs are just trying to make bank  
at the end of the month.
So close to making it.
I’ve got dirt grinding between my teeth
And my face is
soaked a crimson red
pooling under my eye
dripping into my mouth
“Call paramedics!”
“but I’m fine, I’m fine.”
I’m trying to cooperate now.
You must think I’m ******* insane

There’s no panic in me
only sorrow.
Up against the car
ambulance head lights
******* blinding me.
You’re already in the back of the car
the overhead light casting onto your face
you mouthed the words so calmly
“It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay”
I tried to believe, I tried to cry.

Back up arrives
******* ******* are having
a ******* fiesta.
But the paramedics are nice
just stop taking pictures of me, please.

I collapse onto the ground
against the vehicle
with my vision spotted
so close to passing out.

They decide we can ride in the same vehicle.
“You like to swim, God?” you asked.
“When I was a kid.” he’s blunt.
“Why not now? It feels just as good as it did
when you were 10.”
But he didn’t answer.
And the sun is lighting the city that I love

There’s massive sliding doors
they crash so loudly
the sound ricochets off the cement walls.

We’re escorted inside
I still haven’t shed any tears.
We remove all jewelry
un-weave  all that’s tangled in our dreads
“They want everything in this ******* bag.”
the policeman said.
they cut the strings from my ******
christmas tree shorts

I’m given beige sandals
my soiled feet are too small.
I take a seat on the cement bench
filthy old ***** eyeing me up and down
grinning freakishly.
I look ******* haggard.

I see the counselor
then attempt to use the bathroom
to open the door on
some old **** ****
taking a ****.

Infomercials drone
obnoxiously.
I hate television.

You take a seat next to me
wearing the hideous sandals as well.
So cold, the alcohol is wearing off
you hand me your paisley flannel.
I bleed on it.

If only we had stayed behind that building
smoking our cigarettes
sharing our minds.
Only 4 more minutes till
the paper would have burned to the filter
would have made all the difference.

I see the nurse.
I’m re-bandaged trying to hold back
my shutters of pain.
His kind words and soft speak
bring me to my first tears
“I’m not like this, I just want to sleep…
in my bed… with my cat.
And my family… Oh my Godddd!”
I’m bellowing as quietly as I can.
And he tells me stories.

I’m allowed to make my phone call
and it’s your turn with the nurse.
Mother.
I’m wallowing into the phone to her
I’m frantic and self-loathing
And she’s coming to save me.

Escorted to your waiting cell
I’m alone now
I feel completely alone.
I’ve lost myself somewhere
between bottles and spent cigarettes.

Taken to the waiting cell
it smells putrid like a public bathroom
which jolts me.
I take my seat on the repulsive floor.

There’s an older obese woman
curled into a ball in the back corner
sobbing.
And everyone looks ******.

The clock is creeping to 8am
******* let me out.
I watch the lazy pigs
******* cackle and stand so proudly
like they earned another
notch in their belts.

Close to 10am I receive my “blues”
and yet another photograph
You in your cell,
give me comforting smiles.
******* **** hollers,
“Awh **** baby! You tried to run!
I’ll bond you out!
I gotcha baby!”
****. Off.

The blond woman takes us upstairs
through metal detectors, crashing doors,
coded rooms, surveillance cameras.
And I’ll never forget
her spidery eyelashes.

I drag my mesh bag on the floor
it contains my blankets and toothbrush…
#36.

I’m lost, everyone there
has been there before.

I just disappeared
no one knows
what happened to me
when they awake.
I let everyone down,
including myself.

The lunch food is served
I want to *****
I’ve been awake for
23hrs and the alcohol is
wearing off completely
I feel like a walking corpse.

#36…
Through the slit of window
I can see you, mother
oh, mother.
please don’t leave me here

I try not to fall asleep
because I could miss the intercom
announcement to release me.

That steel door clicked
and opened
my mother and father stood up
and I had never been happier to see them
It was silent other than my sobbing
and everyone stared
wild-eyed and confused
as I exited to false freedom
and sunshine

I know how you feel
At 4am when everything should be
Quiet; eyes closed,
Breath steady at an even pace,
Keeping pace with the subtle rhythm
Of your pulsing heart.
Nothing stirs, here,
Besides your afflicted mind,
A testament to all the
Late night infomercials
And dimly lit gas station windows:
Dutifully droning on
Amidst the sleepy silhouette
Of normalcy and a good eight hour rest.
There's no use fooling yourself,
Closing your eyes and heavily counting off
Sheep, in a vain attempt to assimilate
Something like sleep-
There's no point trying, here,
When a sliver of sky outside your window
Starts to turn a subtle shade lighter
Than 2am darkness.
Being alone is never as poignant
As when you're woken up in the middle
Of the night,
Surrounded by dark space
And stagnant memories, impartial
To the emptiness of a moment.
I know how you feel,
Restlessly turning your body
To face the wall,
Adjusting your lumpy feather pillow,
Peeling off your socks:
Routine can cure the coldest hearts,
But sleep will always elude it.
Stuck within your impetuous rituals,
Solitude seeps in
Through your open eyelids;
4am drips into 5am,
And before you know it,
Everything is gone.

Life is the flat side of a butter knife-
Relentlessly turned upwards, upon a
Battered cedar coffee table. His muffled
Silver skin glistens amidst the two week
Old newspaper and hardened crumbs of
Sourdough toast, catching the reflection
Of his  weary hosts, as loud voices and silence
Rapidly bounce off the walls and onto his
Credit card-thin body:
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Purposeless, he waits for someone to rescue him-
Pick him up from his five foot grave
Covered in peeling wood and sentimental scratches,
And slowly slide his cold, frame across the counter-
Anything to remind him of his relevance.
As the rusty butter knife lays, abandoned,
So life carries on- oblivious to his melancholy
Wails that fall dormant to the loud, blaring stereo,
And shifting feet that tread so softly
As to keep the monster from waking from her slumber.
Thus, the routine drones on and on,
To the soundtrack of 2am infomercials
Claiming indestructible silverware sets:
Oh, but they have yet to enter the finite world of Father Time.
As he sets his place at the table, wearily awaiting what's to come,
The butter knife exhales hope, and suffocates in an air of subtle indifference,
Claiming his stake as a hollow prop, within an afflicted stage.

Treasury  Casino - 2:30 am

From my seat in the smokers section
I can see the Brisbane eye,
the river,
and the  performing arts center.
Streetlights  are mans answer  to the cosmos

"Everything you can do,
I can make better."

Once it was said that we were made in God's image.
Now we can safely say that God was  made in our image.

I am in a quiet place of the universe, the night stretches on
visible through the stately
wonderous
walls
carved of old wood  and sandstone.

I am in a suede armchair, winged for pleasure.
The ceiling in this room is twice as high as an ordinary room.
Circular steel ***** hang down like a path of bubbles
left  by a leviathan.

My water was poured  with panache.

Let me set  the scene for you:
I'm in the  Treasury Casino, this building was once the QLD state treasury, it never changed really.
Sitting next to  window that overlooks the river, a glass of water sits to my left. The room is the size of a double garage, maybe bigger. The floor and ceilings are made of old wood, the walls are decorated with a transparent gray fabric that remindsme of smoke. An old marble fireplace sits in a wall studded with tiny lights that resemble stars or candles. Above me is a series of hanging circular light fixtures that resemble a trail of bubbles left by a leviathan.

This room was designed for,  and houses opulence.  
The TV plays Eminem.

Peter Garrett dances like a Parkinson's sufferer.
And looks like Disco-Nosferatu.

We have  killed the night
and neon power
and infomercials
**** the romance
once held
by late night solitude.

Last night
I picked up a self help book
I drank some "meditation tea" whatever the hell that is
I listened to an awful song
that wouldn't remind me of you
I tried yoga
I even prayed to God
God knows it's been awhile
since I felt existential
I went to my favorite grocer
and talked to the most inviting cashier
I thought it might help
I "channeled" my energy
I lifted weights
I flirted with my trainer
I put on red lipstick
I weeped.
I blogged
I analyzed myself
and my family
and mostly my dad
I "ate my feelings"
I googled "how to get over someone"
I ripped your love letter
in a million pieces
I reminded myself of all my "blessings"
I drove an extra time around my block
I stayed up way too late
watching infomercials about beauty
and vapid mind numbing consumerism
I tried to learn the guitar
I called my brother
just to hear his voice
before the beep
and just to hear mine
after it
I smiled and stared out the window
and pretended I was in a Hitchcock film
I went outside to smoke a cigarette
and I don't even smoke
I just wanted to feel the biting cold
against my hidden skin
I went shopping and bought an overly
expensive sweater
that won't fit me
unless I grew about ten inches
I read the Catcher in the Rye eight times

And I made this ******* list
that makes me feel so utterly hopeless
and chaotic catharticism

what a messy heart
staining my perfectly
neat life.

I like my poems medium rare
I like my clothes to look like couches
I like my thoughts to be deep, even though they make me scream.
I like my music meaningful
I like my dancing naked
I like my people whether they hate me or love me.
I like my romance movies
I like my speeches to move me
I like my infomercials even though I don't buy anything.
I like my flowers petted
I like my animals kissed
I like my coffee strong even though my thoughts make me crazy.
I like my boys sappy
I like my girls happy
I like myself, because I am the things I like.

Now, we find needs just so we can fill them. We go insane so we can buy the meds. Soccer moms popping children’s pills. Everyone dreaming suicide and depression. No how. No why. No reason.
We want inventions so we can make infomercials. Who cares about shipping and handling? **** the national debt. I’ll give you my credit card number, and you’ll send me a pet nail trimmer, even though Max (the dog) died four years ago, you never know what you’ll need right?
We find government just to have politicians. Everyone promises a solution to the problem. No one ever expects it to pan out. Instead, we vote on name recognition, parties, and skin color. Who cares about platforms or empty promises?
We wage wars just to make video games. I’ll shoot you now, your brother will shoot me later, but don’t worry, when we’re all in the ground. Someone, somewhere, will design a kickass, strategic, lifelike game, where dying only means regenerating and less ammo.
We all want something, or nothing. We all work to live, live to die.
Try just to fail, fail to try.
We want anonymity, just to forget the tragedy of our minds.

Stay up late with me
and we can watch infomercials
about vacuum cleaners and miracle cures
and holy water.
And maybe if we are lucky we can
catch reruns of I Love Lucy and Happy Days
because those seem like better times.
Or just talk to me.
even if it is just nonesense.
I want to hear you talk
until I fall asleep.
Tomorrow we can go to the park and sit on a bench
in front of the lake and feed the ducks with
stale bread.
I like the picturesque and the late day sun
and the small things
because they aren't so small after all.
Not when you are with me.
How about we take a ride my old rusty car and
tune into the AM channels about politics
and ancient jazz and opera.
Let's brush off the cobwebs
and find what we are looking for.
It's the small things that are the biggest things.
Those moments in time that seem
like nothing.
They mean everything.
We gotta make it last because
forever isn't a thing.

You wake up early already feeling an itch behind your eyes and at the base of your spine.
behind your throat. Sweating but **** - it's November and you had the window open. Four cups of coffee and seven cigarettes to start the day. A tip: if you put your hands in your pockets then nobody can see them shaking.
"You look hungry. Eat something."
force down a McMuffin or two at noon and a ham sandwich before work. Drive the car.
that night work is noise.  The shift ends with a paycheck.
Go withdraw thirty bucks. Find some *****.
"A guy's gotta cut loose."
a guy's gotta be cut off.
***** this ***** that
twisted up so tight. wound around the bend. coffee and the dashboard lights. Radiation.
three AM fumbling with the keys - alone under a street light at the bus stop
wake up to the tv playing infomercials. Shower. Now repeat.

Cutting, like rings in a fist-fight.
Jumping, flying, drowning, floating

She said trying to fall asleep was like jumping.

Promises like traps:
with bills
and utilities
and watering bans
and road construction
and mixed district schools
and mall-fires
and field trips
and infomercials
and unaffordable abortions
and MTV
and Show and Tell
and homeless people
and freemason bolo ties.

You’re sick
You’re sick

She said she just wanted to know what it felt like.

no one wants to be
the seats at the
front of the movie theater
where you only sit
if all the other seats are taken

no one wants to be
late night television
which you only flip to
cause it's better than
infomercials on QVC

no one wants to be
that t-shirt at the bottom
of the drawer, that you
only wear because all
your other clothes are *****

no one wants to be
wanted at three AM
when you're bored
and lonely cause everyone
else is asleep

no one wants to be
used.

i look for you
in the faces of strangers
they have your eyes,
eager and sad,
the eyes of instability,
the same brown as an old bruise.

i often wonder why i didn't
inherit your eyes.
perhaps it's a metaphor for all the differences between us?
there must be a reason
more significant than the obvious.

it's easier in the daytime,
when i don't have to think of you.
when there is enough light to keep me concentrated
on the endless distractions
that keep me smiling,
for there is always something to
smile about.

but nighttime is a different universe,
the moon, a lonely thumbnail.
it reminds me of how you used to chew your cuticles
and place them neatly in a little white pile
while we would watch an endless stream
of ****** infomercials.

sometimes you don't realize how much you were in love
with someone's naked habits
until they're gone.

when i was sick,
you would always make sure the washcloth on my forehead
stayed warm.

i miss that.

The edge is what the words meant to our juvenile minds
You came like a milkman of crazy like I paid you a subscription
Because the married voice of our desperation may be rocka fella
Don't mean we are gucci chanel postes of imatation handbags
But I sit at the end of a dinner plate admiring your constant behavior
And wondering how a high school misfit still views a. Past excuse as a comment for hate
Might be strong and smile but worried actions equal a cold shiver
A snuggie is the present warmth left by infomercials
I won't say ur the crest of a ohs blue...
But I still appreciate a ******* like you....

Paint left, humidity purgatory,
Sticky but practically peeled off, while

Water and lime, the kind you hear about
On infomercials promising to rid
You of Built Up ****, is trapped between the
Panes they said they replaced but I don’t know.

Clothes piled with invisible coatings of
Dust from the floor last swept ten years ago,

And sweat from leaving the AC off
(Because saving a few bucks is worth it),

And sweat in stained dresses when you touched me,
And sweat in damp briefs when I touched myself.

Paper stacks, three years, busy work
And scholastic articles I should
Have read, say I will, but won’t pick up,

And verses I wrote that go nowhere but
Here and to a real poet, happily
Trapped at an average liberal arts college.

So instead of dressing or cleaning I
Call you, naked, a fattened odalisque,
Silent for hours, my thin mouth, a suture.

A fit black girl cut across the dog park,
She saw my bare shoulders, sloped pudgy pale,
We gazed in the other’s faces, but now

I can’t think what she wore, and she knows
I’m just sad, still: a ghost in the windows.

~What A Smile Can Do~

These days any smile could make me happy.

You could call it opening up or closing it all off. Closing up shop, come one come all. Sometimes it feels as if I'm not even there, but you are. I can't help but think as I feel this way at the bottom of my body, like some mechanical gear is flaking off its rust.

I'm watching my dad smile while he speaks to me and there's this similarity between he and I. I think there's a Mona Lisa Effect in effect. He loses track and so do I. I was thinking of you and your hair and how it used to smell and then I saw a picture of you and it was short and lighter and I thought of someone else, even though you are still beautiful.

That other person smiles like a friend I never knew.

I hold for a moment and something changes again. I ain't feelin' it.

But I could feel anything, if I remember right. My eyes roll back further and they trip over themselves.
I could totally feel you and me in the bathroom, specifically you nearly dipping into the sink and me with my eyes half open staring at a pair of beautiful bucket lids over your own.

And her smile is goofy. Goofy *****. Happy for you. It makes me smile too.

I've been getting into this specific branch of chemistry recently. Really getting into how the science works in the vials of chemicals in my brain that are constantly mixing. He tells me oxygen isn't good for the chemicals and that I'm ruining things. "Stitch it back up and leave it alone." He's my lab assistant but we get separate grades, so I don't give a **** what he says and I let him know. I give him a handshake now and after the forty five minutes are up and the bell rings. We'll get a good grade together, I know.

And your teeth are really straight and I remember telling you that once. I've got ****** up teeth even though they make a great grin. I've got some cavities, but they don't hurt anymore, in fact, the dentists say they're looking fine, go home, take a toy with you on your walk out the door and play with it in the car all the way back home. It's a forty five minute drive so I give him a handshake as I leave. It's a nice smile you've got, like a Mona Lisa effect - so I avoid your eyes.

And there was this smile the other day when God was whispering little miracles in the weather clouds and in the timing of things, even though it was the briefest grin I'd ever seen. Her eyes are like deep dug out trenches, ready for World War III. I might not see her again like I did that day, but that's just how God works sometimes.

My eyes wander a lot these days. They remind me of my dad wandering back home from the bar in his car. He wanders into the house and tells me a story about cutting another man's wedding ring off after he got a divorce with a pair of pliers, but he brought the sledgehammer for an effect, what do you want for dinner? His eyes still wander at the fish on the counter at five am, to television at six, to a king size bed. His face deconstructs and the wandering halts over the sound of infomercials blaring from his room.

But that's not true. My eyes are becoming more like yours. I'm letting them open up, close them all off, come one come all, with diligence. Your smile and eyes are like waves in constructive interference. Everything returns to the sea once the water comes over and all the spearheads, spoiled meat and negligent treaties sink to the bottom. It's a cool little party down there. Everyone gets along and they smile just like you do.

I'd like to think my smile can do that too.

Things between us have changed.
Pretending only presents the underlying problem.
We spend our time in seperate rooms.
The television on two seperate channels.
Still unable to find what we're looking for.
Demanding peace unwilling to press for change.
The thing's we said we'd never do.
Complete faith that we'd never walk pass each other.
So much as a single word.
Strangers in wait that it will get better.
If it isn't you, I can't go on.
Good or bad.
Being forced to pretend that everything is alright.
Another show airs.
Demanding attention else where.
I am trying,
But can't keep flipping past the infomercials without being tempted.
Searching for a happy ending

have I been here before
lying under sheets I have covered our bodies with
when the midnights have been chills
our naked feet relying on the warmth of corners and limbs
listening to airplane skies
and the echoes of infomercials sending radio waves through my thin walls
the sound of you breathing
as trees sway along my blinds
if I compared you sleeping to music
will it be harder to let go

the nights have always been the same
airport schedules have always followed routine
the trees and the cars passing by will always be stuck between my shades

all has happened
before and after you
and my poetry will never save me

frosted upon my bed
I am gazing the ceiling
an absence of stars
nothing but sky

and I think of a time
when inside your arms
it way okay

To adolescent girls
We know infatuation as love.
A cute boy, paying attention and being kind
Unlike our mothers and fathers.
Or a handsome young man
Showing just enough distance, and disinterest,
That it is familiar, but we do not yet know why…
So the starving soul craves more, more, more.
So our stupid hearts say love, love, love.
I do not know about you,
But in retrospect I do not think that I loved these boys.

I would sit up late, plagued with an insomniac’s depression.
Thinking of these boys that had left me in the dust,
Commercials playing loudly over an old box television.
My impressionable brain unaware of the absorption of utter *******.
But the logical fallacies of consumerism and capital leaked into my psyche,
As I begged to be noticed.
Rebranding myself every so often
Once even under a different name.  Always new labels;
A cheerleader, an emo, a stoner, a scholar
Trying to find some sense of self,
Trying to sell my soul (subconsciously) for acceptance.

No one ever understood me like you,
And I dare to say, perhaps out of ego, that no one has ever understood you like me.
You've had friends for longer than me now,
You are happy, without me, clinging to your side.
Maybe you are understood once again
Maybe you are the chameleon that I once was.
Either way, I want you to be happy, do as you do.
Although I can no longer be the chameleon,
I cannot change my colors as life goes on around me, fitting in whatever life throws at me.
I feel old, I am deeply tired.  
I know that I am young, but I have seen too much.
I threw my life away for a self-titled happiness extract,
Isolation and degradation became all I knew.
Cynicism rose up inside of me, and when I heard the commercials I once fell asleep to
I decided that not only the advertisements,
But the world was *******.

I remember young adolescence,
I recall kisses and uncomfortable fondling in basement bathrooms and crawlspaces with these boys in which I thought that I loved,
That never cared for me like I cared for them,
Even so it was infatuation and not love.
I remember a kiss in your bed.
I remember the absolute terror when it occurred to me, years later.
I never loved anyone softly,
I loved viciously, desperately, and even loved just to cling on for life.
I loved you softly, I loved you dearly, I loved you deeply.
I always told myself it was platonic, but it was neither platonic or romantic.
I just loved you, like I had never loved anyone else.  Without fear, without sacrifice, without dereliction.
I did not realize this
Until a state-assigned therapist pointed out in the basement of the facility I resided
“When you speak of her, I see love in your eyes that I don't ever see.”
I hated her for that,
“Dumb *****, I love writing, I love music, I loved Xander, I love my family!”
“But Caidyn,” she said
“I have not ever seen this kind of love in your eyes.”
It occurred to me then, and not until then
That when I held you, as you slept
In a hotel room after a concert
As infomercials bellowed violently into my soul
That I will never feel that sense of warmth, happiness and belonging ever again.
Not to say I won't find love,
But the innocence and naïveté
The faith I had, that we would escape side by side
And always remain side by side.
I know now,
That your first love
Never works out like that.

I dream of days where ridiculous advertisements filled my sleepy brain without judgement,
Because for any glimpse of hope I get
I am devoured by longing.
I remember how “everything is *******”.
And feel guilty for my bitterness.
I realize I am no longer young in spirit
I am not the demographic for any meaningless advert.
I am a forgotten human, not an outcast, but a memory to those I cared for.
I can no longer avoid it.
I think of when I held you,
and didn't even think anything of it.

Cold..,so cold..
Snow falls in mid february
You'd think like any other winter day but no..
It falls sharp
it falls fast
it hurts me
a sting as if my skin is being cut into and making me simultaneously hot and cold making sure i don't know which or how to feel about it
that's when i realize snow is not sweet and fluffy like the memories of your childhood pet laying against you under the summer sun or in a cozy home with the fire burning as she's tucked under her fleece blankets
snow is nothing but ice
sharp thick and dangerous like the chef knifes of infomercials that you'd watch because it's the adult thing to do
That you'd buy because it was the adult thing to have
days as these are when we realize reality is not your childhood memory
Reality is the grinch whos heart was 2 sizes to small because the heart shrinks as the mind and body grow
It is cooties turning into kisses
Kisses into ***
*** into broken hearts and tattered bodies
Reality is school going from learning colors and 123s to trigonometry and stressing to the point of suicide
Yet they yell words of compromise thinking you're no big deal
Whether your words are littoral or figuratively speaking
Yet don't they kinda go hand in hand
Reality It is from your worse problems being if you had a nightmare at five to living a nightmare not that of monsters under your bed but of the monsters in and out of your head
That make every step harder like they wanna build you up with lead
And making every hour longer adding sand mans sand to your eyes instead of your hourglass
Wishing you could just wipe the weary out of your vision because you aren't getting any more time
Everyday working schooling caring to death
Reality is like snow.
It's a memory from your childhood thinking it'll be light and fluffy
When it's really ice piercing your skin making you realizes that childhood memories stay that way for a reason

I watch Magic Bullet infomercials and
fondly think of you
and how you would
laugh at every line
I recite
from memory.