for Patrick,
                    if he can still hear me

Rise, every neighbor!
Hear the cacophony of dragon fire
BANG, BANG
and the pitter patter rain fall of disease
T T T T
pouring over your households this evening.

Catch that butterfly, there, boy!
And know that in your future you will be begging
to look as hideous as a moth
banging your skull against the roof of my trunk
as I drive away with your body.

You beg me
give me reason!
and I try, but it's so difficult
I don't want to live!
and what am I supposed to do to help
when you don't want the help I give?

And we plead to gaze at stars over the Causeway
going seventy in the sunroof as off in Norco
the refineries let go a blaze jealous of the sun.

The moon doesn't shine as brightly as I remember.
Maybe I was too young to understand light pollution
or maybe it's the gnawing away of the ozone
as my skin tightens and ages over my teeth.

Do you understand how permanent
death
is?

Let me show you, this:
the vision you are trying to make me live through;
I will not let you force me into folding
your hands over your chest
while the embalming fluid grows stiff
beneath your cold hands.

I *will not cry for you, if you bleed out your sorrows on a tile floor
or over a dark carpet
or crushed against the wall in your blue Mustang.

I will not cry for you,
but for the life you left behind,
the life you took, the life you stole
from me.

ME.

I have faced death with weakening knees;
I have knelt before the toilet whispering
please someone anyone
when it was too early in the morning for anyone to hear.

I have emptied the medicine cabinet of its promising contents
to find that nothing but
nothing
waited for me on the other side of ignorance.

Pain;
and it rains lightly on Tuesday evenings.

Somewhere behind the doorjamb is a flute
being played by a breeze
through the window you left open.

The note you will never write is tickled by the wind
and a thousand sunsets later--
I do not forget you.

Inside, Your cancer's beating heart
My ******* shakes, dirt dust gone
I swipe the sand away. For every ounce of ****
Laughing out meaty red raw steaks and size zero thighs.

     - For everythingsobad. You rattle my dream box with your sweet blue face and your gauges for neither being an idiot or being human. Too cute of you booboo. Captivity claws at you, you big bafoon, intolerant, shuffling your predicates back and forth during your 12am nonsensical *******. So long as it doesn't interfere with your curfew.

Like soggy altered-state popcorn. Your butter catches more flies than knives, the inauthentic gestures spattering over the rhythms and rolls of your fingertips is torture to watch. Kitchen countertop influenza. A tired dictionary of sad words, poor misfortunes, tired eyelids, silty and sandy crusty inside corners of the eyes

                           .rearing privilege

countertop crawlers. inaudible coos used by muses who can't keep their musings from tangling the long distance dial tone soaring through the ears like an Italian operatic melodrama. A horse, three brides, and a funeral. One woman, a sick child, blindness, blinding caused by toxins of the body stuck inside your gelatinous fishlike eyelids. Where's there an eye bib and a lance when you need one? A nifty electric toothbrush shank with extra reach and plaque protection. You're the kitchen sink they threw in, a budget meeting with a data analysis staph infection. A government where nobody wins. All the kids grow up with thin skin and an aorta with no ventricles in it. It's like the cynical prison system that we had to survive in our 8th grade basement dungeon. Thundering, curmudgeons drugging sluggishly, **** teen thugs. Preteen pornstars sluicing cash through their meaty canals, ******* the ******* and ******* the back bare in a messy afternoon of **** *******. Crusty infectious rumors made worse by brothers and moms, eating handfuls of Norco just to keep the family strong.

Doctors said,
"Kid, you've got problems.
Not to worry,
We can solve them.
Take this pill twice,
Every morning.
Here's two more for
When you crash. "

I was stupid,
What did I know?
Fresh in high school
Fourteen years old.
Life just seemed to
Pass me by,
Then I took one
And got high.

Freshman year,
In ROTC,
So on point, no one
Could beat me.
Then one day,
They caught my eye;
"You should probably
Meet this guy. "

Fifteen kids stuffed
In a closet,
Huddled around our
Technical sergeant,
In his hands,
Like shining diamonds,
"I've got stuff that you
Should try, man. "

Lortab, norco,
I'd heard stories.
Ritalin just didn't
Do much for me.
Tylenol 4 and xanax bars
Made me picture
Crashing  cars.

Everyone knew that
I had Addy, I drank beer,
And I smoked fatties.
They said,
"What do you want for go-pills?"
I said,
"I'll take ALL of THOSE pills. "

From that day,
My life was over.
Never again would I
Be sober.
Still I pulled through,
In the end,
With some help from
My 'new friends. '

Let's fast forward,
On to college,
Rich kids with their
Parents' wallets.
Track me down with
Midterm chills,
"Hey man, can I maybe
Score some pills? "

Hydrocodone, my
Best friend,
Stays with me until
The end.
Empty bliss that's
Like no other,
Gifted by my
Lovely mother.

Every month, I'd
Throw a party,
Young and stupid,
All invited.
Smoke some ****
And drink and chill,
Waiting for those
Luscious pills.

Talking smack and
Starting drama, waiting
Till we hear my mama,
Twist the **** and
Step inside,
Bongs and blunts were quick
To hide.

I said,  "chill, guys,
She's not stupid.
My mom's cool with how
I do ****;
Sure she likes to take my pills,
Still, she's brought me
All my thrills. "

"Twenty norco, fifteen xanax,
Pill for pill,
Understand that? "
Then she sat,
And smoked our joints,
"Oh my adorable
****** boys! "

Travis said,
"Dude, that's your MOM? "
I said,  "why, man?
Is there a problem? "
He said,  "nah, but ****,
She's cool! "
I said,
"Only since I've been in school. "

Babe tell what's wrong with me
Voices pierce my skull
I pray to god that hell help me
I guess I'm wrong
They say gods actually helping me
What's going on
Seems like the devils on my shoulder while gods in my mental
Used to be a opioid adduct used **** with Norco
Hearing voices at night telling me wrong not right
But its right to be wrong but wrong to be right But that's all too political right
Whites killing blacks than  blacks killing whites
School shootings Got parents paranoid when they say
Mom i promise I'll be fine

Were all god's children why do we got to fight
Another topic why do women not have rights
School taught us from a early age
My body my rights
So why are politics
Saying abortions' are just no right
When a parent isn't ready they are not ready
Save the child abuse, emotion abuse
The therapy and pills that consume
Otherwise there be more caskets
Than baby shower baskets
In our life

I'm sorry for every one struggling with abuse/racism/sexisms'/and to all the parents that lost their children in the school shootings. My condolences go to you… I'm sorry

It was the way the branches were shaped. I have lived in this house for exactly a year and seven months. I have sat in this exact chair and observed my surroundings. I have studied the positions of the trees, the way their leaves are shaped. I have sat here and talked about life with the greatest man I've ever known. Watched the snow fall, filled with anxiety, I thought I was trapped forever. Seasons passed and I grew with the changes. Tonight I sat here, blood soaked in *****, norco dissolving in nasal passages, Mary Jane dancing in the wind... I felt the frightful chill of October. It was like death and despair had arrived and taken hold of my soul. They reached out their ghostly arms and embraced me, filled me with dark cavernous thoughts. I was numb and the weight of a thousand worlds fell upon my shoulders once again. I saw his face, I longed for the chance of laying upon his bed and breathing him in. Breathing in the nights when he said he had my back forever, inhaling the bittersweet sting of a love rejected. I missed his laugh, his temper. I saw his name written in the trees and I knew his voice. The wind whispered through the leaves and played a song like Mary Elizabeth Frye once described. I heard his song, crying out for me to live, to make this existence matter. Cheeks turned, I blamed the higher being, "why such a beautiful soul? Why?" I am so cold and I can't feel my limbs, frozen in yesterday, frozen in the October wind. I sit here and I read it in the trees, it tells me to live but I think I've forgotten how.

Addiction is a battle

But in me it was more so

Much like a war

I had a love triangle

With whiskey and Norco

And god I knew it was bad

But still it’s so

My will was so…

No.

My soul was still hurtin’

Man when this pain

Gets inside you

It eats you up

And alive you

Can’t help but to scream

And tears pour down

Like the rain

And you’re

Not at once safe

Not even in dreams

I fiend

For the bottle again

For the pills

Just one win

Not again

But ****

How I loved to sin

Colorful and tempting,
Convincing me of need;
Your evil calls me closer;
Justifies the feed.

Pain teams to join the wanting
Convincing trails you leave
Fueled with my desire
I gently follow thee.

Momentary satisfaction
Relieved, relaxed, and strong.
Your love I now desire
Caught up in magic for too long.

Soon the joy deserts me
Inside I’d always known
You’d make your stay a short one
Your true intent now shown

Now Fear joins Pain to haunt me
How foolish I have been
To trust, to want, to live for
The satisfaction from within.

You beg my heart for mercy
Envelope me with love
Seductive, proud and tempting
Like legends I’ve heard of

I want you, deeply.  Badly.
Take away my pain
Your lies began to fade, now
Light now turns into shade.

I feel you, know you, sense you
Like part of me, you are.
Do I need you for existence?
Is the need, too much, bizarre?

No, something is not right, here.
I’ve lost now who I am
You almost got me this time,
Norco, you almost did me in.

To the man with the black hair and dark mean skin
you told me that after your children learned their ABC’s
they were taught how to pray for people like me.
To sit at the edge of their bed
look up at the stars and hope we regain our sanity.
But you might as well pray to a mirror
because I do the same.
I ask that heavenly being that is said to look over us
I ask God to find you
to find you in the forest and bring you back to my world:
a world of equality.

To the man with a big sign
beating down my self-confidence by the second:
Do not bring your child into a world of animosity
where they are only shown one side.
Tell your son that the words he is saying
are tying a knot from the ceiling of a bedroom.
Tell him that those words are stuffing excess amounts of Norco down teenager’s throats
And let him know that the only reason his words are true is because he made them so.

To the anonymous woman sitting at her dining table
eating bacon;
the grease dripping off that dead animal and onto your sacred bible
Tell me to my face that you abide by all the laws of Christianity.
Look into my eyes and say that tomorrow,
you will go down to the black market and sell your daughter into slavery.
That you follow the laws shown by Jesus
who promised and preached love.
Because anonymous woman,
I think we both know the truth:
That you are no more open-minded than a horse with blinders.
That you follow what you want and disregard everything else.
Heart beating fast;
your hands the clammiest that they’ll ever be
tell me that you only eat “holy bacon.”

To the secret ally who thought that they could call their church home
until they learned the difference between expression and oppression.
This Sunday, go to church and pray; and sing.
But this time secret ally,
preach a different prayer and sing a different song.
Sit in that pew with your hands clasped and your eyes closed
and pray that everyone sitting around you is found.
That your mother is no longer afraid of people like us
and that your father removes the word f**got from his vocabulary
And that someday
you will realize
you don’t have to be secret anymore

To the secret ally who wants to start a GSA in their school.
I dare you to see the pleading in Jesus’ eyes not because he is dying,
but because his message has been obscured.
I dare you to break down every wall of enclosure that anyone has ever put in your way.
And secret ally I dare you
to tell those people at your church...
to do the same
because secret ally I can’t tell you exactly how long we will last
In a world where hatred is hidden in plain sight behind every alleyway;
But I can tell you this:
It won’t be long