if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah

She wears t-shirts of the Beatles

And she loves the Rolling Stones

She wakes up to David Bowie

And she dreams of the Ramones

She goes out to dance clubs nightly

Till her ear drums both get blown

But, she has a deep dark secret

That her friends will never know



At night when she is by herself

When the room is nice and dark

She slips beneath the covers

With Johann Sebastian Bach

She's a closet classic ******

And her name is Amber Clark

She just loves orchestral music

The rock and roll is just a lark

Her friends think something classical

Is something for your folks

They cannot play an instrument

They cannot read the notes

They think that  chamber music is

What people play on boats

But she has a deep dark secret

She loves the stuff that Chopin wrote

At night when she is by herself

And her friends have gotten ******

She slips beneath the covers

And she listens to some Liszt

She listens to it many times

In case there's things she's missed

She's a closet classic ******

She has "Baroque" upon her wrist

She listens to the music

That her friends like to be cool

If she told them what she listens to

They'd laugh her out of school

So, when they go out  clubbing

She will join them as a rule

But...ah that deep dark secret

This girl is no ones fool

She listens to Beethoven

And she knows each piece by heart

She knows where one bar ends

And another one will start

She can play most every instrument

And she knows most every part

She's a classic closet ******

But she still knows Boyce and Hart

She has cds in her library

And most sit there untouched

When her friends are gone they don't get played

She doesn't like them much

She would rather hear a symphony

By a composter who was Dutch

But there's that deep dark secret

And she won't use it a crutch

At night when she is warm in bed

She listens to Mozart

She needs a little Nacht Musique

To open up her heart

It's a piece that sets her mind a blaze

It hits her like a dart

She's a closet classic ******

And she keeps her worlds apart

By day she sings Bruce Springsteen

At night she listens to

Composers that her friends don't know

They're so old they're new

So she keeps her world a secret

For she knows what they would do

If they found she didn't know

Where were you in sixty two

But at night she is a ******

And she listens to Mozart

She needs that piece of music

To shoot an arrow through her heart

Eine Kleine Nachmusic

She conducts every part

She's our Closet Classic ******

shhh.....the song's about to start...

“Are you sure about this? It seems kinda ******’ weird Mike…”
“No man, she’s totally cool. She likes it. I do this, at least, once a week.”
Bobby was hesitant, but Mike insisted he try it out. There had been a big fire in one of the apartment buildings a few weeks ago, the only part left untouched was a storage room under the stairs. She lived in there, he said.
“Usually, you gotta call her on the prepay first…like before you go over. But, for me…see I’m a regular, so she just gave me a key.”
“What so you just go inside?”
“Yeah, dude. Like I said, she likes it. Most of the time she’s all doped up and like, passed out. But like, as long as, like, I show her the money…she just like, tells me to stick it in. She likes it, says it helps wake her up and ****. Really gets her going.”
Mike was breathing hard, as he talked. They were getting close to the burned out building.
“I don’t know man, this seems ******. ******* a ******-******, that lives under some stairs, in a burned out building? I mean, what the **** man? Let’s just go home and **** our wives.”
Mike stopped walking and stood, staring at Bobby, in disbelief.
Slowly he spoke.
“That is...the stupidest thing...I have ever heard you say.”
“How? This is-“
“This…is a ******* adventure *******! A break from the day-to-day, a break from the norm, man. A taste of strange. Now c’mon already! We’re almost there”
They slowly started walking again.
“Well…do other guys in the complex do it?” Bobby asked, kicking a rock.
“Of course man! She’s got like six regulars a week. She’s got that and like, all the guys that just try her once for the hell of it. She does group deals too. The girl like, ****** a bunch of the high school boys before, she told me about that. The state champion on the wrestling team even gave it to her.”
It was amazing how the fire had blackened nearly every inch of the place. But that door beneath the stairs, was still faded blue & white. They walked up to the little door.
“Alright, now…do you wanna go first or second?” Mike asked, fumbling his keys into the door.
“I don’t know. We’ll see man.” Bobby didn’t know if he was really gonna do it.
Opening the door, they found her asleep in a small recliner, too small, it looked like it was made for a child. All miniature and ****. Bobby thought she was gonna look like the Crypt Keeper in a tube top and heels. But to his surprise, she didn’t look half bad, he thought. A real pretty little redhead, in flannel pajama pants, with painted black toenails and a Ramones t-shirt.
“What’s her name?” Bobby asked, nervously thumbing his Levi’s pocket.
“I dunno. Everyone just calls her ‘Easy’.
Mike shook her, trying to wake her up. It kinda worked. She opened her eyes a centimeter, nodded, and mumbled,
“….go ahead baby….zzzzzz...”
“Alright, buddy...I....am gonna go first.” Mike said, stripping down.
Bobby leaned against the wall, between that and the arms of the mini recliner.
Three Dole banana boxes were stacked in the corner. Lubes, condoms, and punched out cigarette butts, covered the top box. With his **** all shiny and lubed up, Mike put it in and got to it. It didn’t take long, two minutes into it and he blew his load. She didn’t move an inch.
“And don’t say anything man! I usually go a lot longer.”
“Hey, I wasn’t gonna-“
“It’s been a week since I ******, so just shut up.”
.She twitched and snored. Track marks on the tops of her feets. Mike reached down and spread apart her ***** lips, looking up and smiling at Bobby.
“Well? Come on dude...slip it in.”
Bobby unzipped his pants and pulled them down to his ankles.
Somehow, his **** was hard. He tore open a ribbed ******, from the pile of them, on the stacked Dole boxes. Bobby slid the ****** down his shaft. The room stunk like a can of expired tuna. Mike was still holding open her ***** lips.
“Mike. Move your hands. Come on, I got it man…”
He did like he was asked and stepped to the side. Stroking himself and grinning big. Bobby slid it in with ease, and began pumping away. Easy moaned with pleasure, at last waking up, her eyes finally open, and looking at who was ******* her.
“Give it to me, Daddy. Give it. **** me good.”
When Bobby finally came, five minutes later, Easy was wide awake. Bobby rolled the ****** off and held it in his hand.
“Do you have a garbage...Miss Easy?”
Mike and Easy both cracked up laughing.
“No. Just throw it behind something. Anywhere, I don’t give a ****.” She said.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, he quickly put his clothes back on. Mike stood, naked still, lighting a smoke for himself and one for Easy too. They were both smiling, rotten-toothed grins. All Bobby wanted was to get home to his wife, the guilt and shame, already eating him up. Easy laughed exhaling her cigarette.
“****. That was just what I needed. Thanks guys. Make him a copy of the key, would ya Mike?” She said, with a hearty, smoker’s cackle.
Bobby stood with his hand on the doorknob.
“See? I told you, Bobby…she likes it.”

Bare naked ladies and Lenin following an age of Aquarius idiosyncrasy

shitshow

I don't want to know no white album

I'm working my way towards the black album

Cause Alicia Keys can resonate in many keys ...

... Says Dylan in his Chonicles

--> my authenticity lies in the between

620 nm or is it 770 nm

Whatever,  it's a sliding scale, a slippery *****, is what I use to shed my skin

Follow the pheromones, or the Ramones, says Bono and the Edge

As I wait, I see on an uncomfortably high stool
the grandmother perching opposite
the comfortably bored teenager
replete in his distressed Ramones tee shirt
and ripped white jeans.

She holds her black coffee with both hands, while he plays
with the long spoon in his tall glass of hot chocolate,
her eyes focused on the top of his head,
his engrossed in the puddle of brown milk around his saucer.

Below the music, she pleads for a friendship that he
shows no interest in until she reaches into her bag
and emerges with perhaps something that he’s been waiting for –

And beyond the counter, shielded by formica, the percolators and stacked cups, the apprentice barista drops his tray and from the back two men in ill-fitting suits give a half-hearted cheer, while his boss withholds her anger in front of the paying customers, but judging by her face she would gladly take her protégé by his stained apron and string him up – I think this isn’t the first time she’s taken the cost of breakages out of his salary.

And I’ve missed what it is grandma has presented to her grandson
– all I can see is a suggestion of his fingers playing with silver,
a ring perhaps? The hot chocolate is pushed aside and his shoulders straighten.  
She still looks uncertain, and the seconds drag until his face seems to soften.
He looks up and mouths what might be a thank you.  

And he doesn’t withdraw his hand when she covers it with her own.

our parents were starting to worry
about what the future had in store
for the kids like us-
with after midnight blue Manic Panic
streaked through our hair and
our after midnight curfew.

we look at our friends, and
follow their lead, even though we
think we are anti-conformity.

pierce your nose, rip your jeans,
just buy a ramones shirt,
don't say please.

our parents says it's just a phase
oh, we will see.

-e.k. fm

She was a friend of Amber Clark
You know, you've met her before
She's the girl who listens secretly
To Bach behind the door
The Closet Classic ******
Who wears shirts of the Ramones
But listens to Rachmaninov
whenever she's alone

Jennifer McSweeney
known by all upon the street
She had kind words for everyone
She liked everyone she'd meet
She ate meals at Giannis
Knew the Pawnbroker, Old Cy
She listened to the bluesman
Whenever she came by

Like all the folks upon the street
Jennifer was dark
Not gothic, but you could say grey
She was set to make her mark
She was going to be famous
Her face upon the Silver Screen
She was going to be a movie star
Like The Truck Stop Beauty Queen

Jennifer loved movies
Not the ones that can be found
At the local dvd store
She liked the movies without sound
Her little quirk was that she
Liked the movies from the start
They told tales in black and white
These were strong in Jenni's heart

Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd
Fatty Arbuckle, and more
Zasu Pitts, Charlie Chase
They struck her to her core
L and H, The Keystone Kops
She loved to see them grapplin'
But none of these compared to her
deep love for Charlie Chaplin

The Cineplex would show a film
They would host a special week
When silent movies were the shows
When nobody did speak
Jennifer would take the time
To watch each film they showed
She was so happy when the week came round
She positively glowed

The kids she knew, all thought her odd
Because of what she liked
But, when the silent week was here
Jennifer was psyched
One year she went to the next town
To get a small tattoo
It was all done up in black and grey
It was what she had to do

Like other girls who have been inked
It was in the same place
But, it was little, very non descript
Of her favorite actors face
She told few friends about it
And though she never did get violent
If you laughed at her tattoo
Like Chaplin, she'd be silent

She kept it to herself most times
Her little bit of ink
As she aged she'd show it more
For the cost of just one drink
She would take them to her bedroom
And by the light of her small lamp
She would show her tattoo proudly
Chaplin....her little ***** stamp

It's the thing that she is known for
She's the girls with Charlie's face
Where others all have Chinese Words
She has Chaplin in this place
She is known for loving movies
In black and white, and though it's camp
She gives a whole new meaning to
Having a ***** stamp.

this ain't no art, man,
this is just a careless whisper
this is just George Michael
singing in your stereo
this is just your bourgeois-blues
this is merely a bewilderment
this is not the art, you know it,
you ******
you ****
you chronic masturbator
you who dare to write on the internet
dancing with yo papa' shoes
and in yo mama' lingerie
ah, look at yourself, a human miracle
Angel of a foreign Harlem,
you who wasted all away,
speaking in foreign tongues
inside the thighs of a british stripper,
you idiot
you *****.

and when i'm done i'll come for you,
like a ****
like a dog
sniffin' and slidin' in your park
in your ***** trailer park
there with your fat-****-husband
stalkin' yo every move
you *****
you ****
and when i'm done i'll look for you,
simple as that
simple as an Einstein formula
served to you on exotic dishes
by Norma from Twin Peaks,
cars for the missus and furs for the mistress
and when you'll die you'll ****
between all your champagne wishes
and it'll be ******* ridiculous.

But that's life, babe.
Get down on thursday,
drains you in May.
You *****.

so be-my-babe
i say be-my-babe
in black and white
like the Ramones
or the Ronettes or
the Rolling Stone
- i still want to know
how your insides look like,
- i still want to save
your capitalist nature
in my mother's fridge,
- i still want to fly
high on a jet plane with you,
alone,
with or without needs,
crashing on our bridge.

I love you-
love me!

I put my gun in your hands.
I push it. I shovel it.
My bones are broken
bound by all the words
i never dared to say
- and here, my love, right here,
i put IT in my mouth,
i feel the cold steel in my tongue,
-- how much blood from
such a tiny hole, Lizaveta!--
and this, and so much more.

but please, i say please,
would you feed me?
would you need me?
i'm a little angel drowning in candies
who's eating his heart out and ******* his candy
ah, would you say this? Would you?
Just because it ain't cool?


Well if i'm not cool i'll drive my kite all night
and take my lunchbox and
shoot Panama down and
shoot Mexico down and
shoot a *** smoker down
and shoot a crack dealer down
and shoot a beer dealer down and
shoot Mexico down
shoot Osaka down
Kabrula kaysay Brula Amal
amala senda Kumahn Brendhaa!
Kabrula kaysay Brula Amal
amala senda Kumahn Brendhaa!
my love will gun down all your school
Look at me - i say, look at me!
Kabrula kaysay Brula Amal
amala senda Kumahn Brendhaa!
Kabrula kaysay Brula Amal
amala senda Kumahn Brendhaa!
and don't you forget to say my name,
as i'll

****

YOUR

SKULL

Hey, Superstar!

Yeah, you - Indie Kid! Sure you are. You strut around as though all

                                                            ­ ­                                                    it takes

                                                          ­      is

a few too many Wombats Badges,

Converse, Ripped Jeans (Add one addiction to New York, and, of course, the necessary)

          Stupid f#cking Nose Rings and a Drop-Dead-*** exterior. Name three songs the Ramones wrote and I might not rip that shirt right off your back.
You pretend to love festivals but really, you’re just Keeping Up Appearances; we all know that - like you’re some bad reality show. (Even MTV wouldn’t touch you. There. I said it.)

And then

               There is her: a carbon copy eyeliner addict in her

       Stupid stupid stupid! boyfriend’s

F#CKING C-H-E-C-K-E-R-E-D SHIRT

(And the tunnel she stole from the girl that started this.)

Don’t even chat to me about red-head and dip-dye.
And when did AC/DC become your social suicide?

          You harp on about individual, rap on about original, well excuse-me-SIR-ever-so-sorry-MISS-but-dress-yourself-in-sheepskin-­­because MY GOD IT SUITS YOU BETTER THAN ANY PAIR OF VANS.

Haha. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Baa baa, Indie Sheep, have you lost your mind?

‘Cause your personality at least seems to have gone for a wander.

          And come back, in a FASHION -

Tarred in fake love for Nirvana and feathered with the only fatefellshortthistimeblink-182yoursmilefadesinthesummer song you know.

*Feathers? Really? I just told you that you ought to be woolly!

The Night hosts her socials for the monsters inside and out
In the moonlight we come dancing, clinking bottles, wandering about
We are goblins, ghouls, mummies, witches, zombies and misfits alike
Dressed up in our finest tuxedos, pearls, lace, bloodstains and the like

The Daylight wont have us, but the Night plays hostess to our monster bones
She slips into her midnight blue party dress and she puts on the Ramones
And we dance
we dance
we dance

O, we are the dark psychopaths, the feared, the soulless creatures
We companions by the moonlight are shaking, stammering vultures
We are friends in wayward trudges, we are spitting, foaming vermin
We are in love       We are the World's rejected kin

The ghouls and the witches and our old zombie friends,
The World's most dark and repulsive in clear-cut diamonds,
We monsters aren't alone in the night, drunken, broke and hideous,
Charming and disgusting, we are the Night's beloved insidious

In the night, we are happy, giddy, wasted children
We are the Fiend Club, we are the monster brethren
Until we are caught, disfigured, drunk and red-handed        by the Daylight
And we make our way home, to crawl under the floorboards        and sleep until twilight
Until the Night's long fingers slip an invitation under the door
And we will put our party dresses and our tuxedos on once more

*O, the moon is out and the Fiend Club has woken
The Night is young and we are broken

For gory guys and glamour ghouls

The Night hosts her socials for the monsters inside and out
In the moonlight we come dancing, clinking bottles, wandering about
We are goblins, ghouls, mummies, witches, zombies and misfits alike
Dressed up in our finest tuxedos, pearls, lace, bloodstains and the like

The Daylight wont have us, but the Night plays hostess to our monster bones
She slips into her midnight blue party dress and she puts on the Ramones
And we dance
we dance
we dance

O, we are the dark psychopaths, the feared, the soulless creatures
We companions by the moonlight are shaking, stammering vultures
We are friends in wayward trudges, we are spitting, foaming vermin
We are in love       We are the World's rejected kin

The ghouls and the witches and our old zombie friends,
The World's most dark and repulsive in clear-cut diamonds,
We monsters aren't alone in the night, drunken, broke and hideous,
Charming and disgusting, we are the Night's beloved insidious

In the night, we are happy, giddy, wasted children
We are the Fiend Club, we are the monster brethren
Until we are caught, disfigured, drunken, red-handed        by the Daylight
And we make our way home, to crawl under the floorboards        and sleep until twilight
Until the Night's long fingers slip an invitation under the door
And we will put our party dresses and our tuxedos on once more

*O, the moon is out and the Fiend Club has woken
The Night is young and we are broken

packing my bag for the beach
all my clothes slung into the big suit case
with Mom's and Dad's and Ethan's
nothing left to do
but to pack my leisure luxury items.

In my threadbare Ramones bag
with the *** Pistols and Gogol Bordello pins
the Arvo Part patches
(he is a lovely composer)
I pack all of my real essentials:
Three writing journals
one sketch book
a comic I'm writing
the Grapes of Wrath
some Japanese homework
and pens.

I can't just have them ***** nilly
so I open up the secret pouch
the one for wonderful secret things
like the MP3 players I used to hide from my mom
because she'd break them when she was mad at me
it was so black,
no one ever knew what was in there
but me.

I pushed my fingers in
and I pulled back something red
slit on my fingers
from a razor blade I had hidden
so, so long ago.

It is heavy in my hand.
Funny, I haven't used one for a year
and the glinting silver teases me
even on the verge of joy.

I will hide it
for another day
that I hope isn't going to come.

Well, the kids are all hopped up and ready to go, they're ready to go now
They got their surfboards and they're going to the discotheque A-Go-Go
But she just couldn't stay, she had to break away
Well New York City really has it all, oh yeah, oh yeah
Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker
Sheena is a Punk rocker now
Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker
Sheena is a Punk rocker now
Well she's a Punk-Punk, a Punk rocker
Punk-Punk, a Punk rocker, Punk-Punk, a Punk rocker
Punk-Punk, a Punk rocker
Well, the kids are all hopped up and ready to go, they're ready to go now
They got their surfboards and they're going to the discotheque A-Go-Go
But she just couldn't stay, she had to break away
Well, New York City really has it all, oh yeah, oh yeah
Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker
Sheena is a Punk rocker now
Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker
Sheena is a Punk rocker now
Well, she's a Punk-Punk, a Punk rocker
Punk-Punk, a Punk rocker, Punk-Punk, a Punk rocker
Punk-Punk, a Punk rocker
Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker now
Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker now
Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker, Sheena is a Punk rocker now

Elementary days colored in sunshine, filled in its rosy shades. We were just two kids, you and I, running around the playground. Playing tag and soccer and more so often, sitting underneath our favorite tree in the graveyard, picking the wildflowers that grew around the cracked exterior of the headstones. We were just kids, inductees into this crazy role of life. It had just begun for us. Two young kids laying underneath the shade of elders, cozy in the resting place of those much older than we.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.

In middle school you fell for me. And to this day, I am not sure whether that was good or bad. But we filled our days in classrooms of Catholic Schools, passing notes and mix CDs, filled with Green Day songs. Sneaking into PG-13 movies and playing guitar at your house. You were honestly one of the closest friends I’ve ever had because everything felt so natural with you. I remember my father driving me home from swim practice, American Idiot blaring from the radio. I still have that CD to this day.

So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

In eighth grade, you began missing school quite often and I found myself lost amongst the crowd. I had no one to sit with during lunch. No one to entertain me during Math and Reading. You said you had the stomach flu. How I wish that was so. A month later I received a phone call from your mother, informing me that you had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. My end of the phone was quiet, and she waited for a reaction, but all I could do was fall to the floor. Shocked. My dad caught me and answered the phone. She told him everything. I silently got up and walked to my room without a word. And so I laid in my bed that entire weekend, no emotion, just this terrible numbness freezing my veins and paralyzing my mind. Now that I think about it, that numbness never did leave.

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time

I didn’t see you for an entire year. You practically lived in Kansas City. You practically lived in that hospital. And the thought of you, confined in those four gray walls, assembled with wires and tubes, killed me. Because that wasn’t how you wanted to live. Every night I prayed for you and every night I cried. I begged for it to be me, because you did not deserve it. And when you came back to school, you came back with a victory and I was so happy to see you. But something had changed. You were not yourself and you didn’t want anything to do with me. Your parents told me it was natural for behavioral changes in your condition, going through as many surgeries as you had. I just wanted my friend back.

Three years later that ******* returned, trying to claim your life once again. And this time, it won. It succeed and I had to do something that horrified me for the past 4 years. I perfected my stoic facade. And I sat in the back row at your funeral. But then Mrs. Durbin, our Social Studies teacher, sat next to me. Embraced me, weeping, saying how sorry she was that I lost my childhood friend. And then your father came up to me and hugged me. He asked me how I was and I said “okay” because it would hurt too much to say the truth. But then he held me at arms length and looked into my eyes and knew. I crumbled, breaking the emotionless mask I had been hiding behind, and he held me as I sobbed.

Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial
through what it’s worth, it was worth all the while

That night, I had laid to rest one of my own. My childhood friend. My brother. And as you would like to know, they played your favorite songs, ranging from the Ramones to Green Day and I couldn’t help but to smile. I’m not a religious person, but because of you, I hope there is an afterlife. So hopefully I will be able to see you again.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end that’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

I'm here
In my house
By myself
I'm planning
Planning my escape
As I sit here
Listening to the Ramones
Drinking the night away
Im planning my escape
My escape from this town
My escape from my past
My escape from you
My escape from me

2/11/2015

"Never though, my mortal summers to
such length of years should come
As the many wintered crow that leads
the clanging rookery home.
... I remember one that perished
sweetly she did move, such a one I do remember
whom to look at was love.
Comfort? Comfort scorned of devils!
this is a truth that the poet sings,
that a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
- Alfred Tennyson, "Locksley Hall"

Something about the florid, languid grass that
cooed in place on the turfs and greens,
stagnant in their newfound summer discovery.

The malleability of the universe seems incredulous to me certain days
the days before future people, sanguine
nights in the weaver fields wherein blocks away or a mile

they slept, before prior meetings.
So with this i am curious as i write
what lies in the field of frozen prospect garden?

where agrimonias will soon sprout jaundiced hairs
and I will sit around alone as i do in town
maybe, publicly intoxicated, slurring

along to a Ramones song with my friends
as empty as campus after a year
**** it. **** it?

Downtown Long Beach....Fender's ballroom...what a bash...every weekend burn and crash.  Angry Samoans, The Germs, Ramones, Descendants, FEAR, UK Subs, Exploited, the ****** Vandals, DRI, Dead Kennedys....the Circle Jerks....I saw all these bands and many many more before i was 16.  Sporting a white mohawk or black liberty pulls pushing pulling shoving slamming....those were the days.