stuck pig
injecting
in a tiny house
on a green island
raining
a jungle of
cable
internet a
septic
tank
I run a
maze
grow bananas
wait for delivery
departure
line up
for my plastic
sippy cup
eat
pancakes
stack
Bromantane
for breakfast
nootropics
family
replacement
new tropical
smoothie
maker
prime member
of the Amazon
got to stimulate
my work in the garden
see that
water feature
it’s a duck pond
no it’s
an empty kiddy pool
but on a tree
I’m over it
an antler bromeliad
hunting trophy
a certification
of my triumph
the plot
next to it
my head
in the mail
a miniature guillotine
to repatriate
my body
and tail
still moving

when i was a teenager i fancied myself an adult
even when i was younger than a teenager
11, 12, 13 years old, barely not a little girl,
i thought i was a grown up
because functionally i was an adult
i came home to empty house and cooked for myself, cleaned up after myself, did the dishes while i was still afraid of all the knives, did the laundry when i was barely tall enough to reach the bottom of the washer

And at the time, i thought this was a good thing
i talked about how mature i was, how together i was
in high school i was all about how well prepared i was for life because i already knew how to cook and clean for myself
i already knew how to care for myself

and then i went away to college
and at first i was fine, i was right, i could look after myself
i got good grades, i cleaned my dorm room, i cooked myself dinner
i was functionally and legally an adult
and then my mom got cancer
i was 400 miles from home and my mom got cancer and i didn't want to be an adult anymore

suddenly i was nine years old crying alone in my bed
except i couldn't cry alone in my bed because i had roommates
so it was one am and i sobbed on the porch being careful not to cry out too loudly because i was afraid of what the neighbors would think

when i started going to therapy one of the first things she said was that i was a parentalized child
that's someone who, as a child, was forced to act as their own or someone else's parent
a psychiatric diagnosis of 'she just grew up too fast'

i grew up too fast and now i'm twenty one years old and trying to remember how to be a child again
but i can't remember something i never was
i feel like i'm trying to hold onto water

there's a part of me that's young and scared and a part of me that's old and fakes being well adjusted
and for a long time they coexisted
not in harmony, just in separate parts of my brain where they couldn't see or speak to each other
but now someone's gone and introduced them and they won't stop fighting
the screaming in my head is loud and never ceases and i'm never sure which one of them is winning

i have to learn how to be a child and be okay with crying and asking for help with things i should know how to do
and i have to be an adult and be responsible and wake up on time
and i don't know how to do all those things at once
because as much as i like that shel silverstein poem, our ages are not pennies in a bandaid box
i can't be seven or twenty one based on when it suits me
i do not know how to reconcile the warring parts of me

my mother lived through cancer
and i haven't spoken to my father in almost two years
but i am still dealing with the shrapnel that's taken the place of the blood in my veins
and if anyone tells you that growing up quickly is a good thing
that it will make you well prepared for living alone
don't listen to them

i listened to them and now i'm twenty one years old and i can't go to the doctor without bringing a teddy bear
and i can't sleep without a nightlight
and sometimes i even drink from sippy cups because i find the familiarity soothing
because the little girl inside of me never learned to be an adult
and the adult that made itself my skin can't remember how to be a child because they never were one
i am two separate halves that cannot figure out how to be whole together

your life is a building with a hundred stories and no elevator
you have to go to each floor before you can reach the top
if you skip too many stairs you might just fall down to the bottom
and i promise
there is no shortcut worth dying for

She said "I think, I'd be coffee."
I had asked her:
if your personality was a beverage,
what beverage would it be?

I reply,
"No. You wouldn't be coffee.

I wake up to a cup of coffee every morning.

If you're going to be coffee you need to have somehing else to you.

Be sweet and cheap with tons of sugar if you have too.

Or more preferably, be locally roasted with high notes and low notes.

Or be dark, bold and roasty.

You can taste like anything!
bing cherry, citrus, earthy, chocolate.

You can't just say coffee.
Coffee deserves so much more explanation than that.

I had coffee brandy once.

I woke up to her every morning and I got drunk off of her.
If I ever stopped drinking water i'd throw her all up and feel sick.
but I would never drink water.

Every morning After I drank her I'd walk down the hall and find a sippy cup full of milk.

Even she was not just milk.
She was strawberry milk.
She was coffee milk.
She was my little coffee milk.

You are not coffee.

I had coffee before and it's gone.
You are water.

I don't wake up to you every morning.
I don't need you to get through my day, yet.

But run you through my filter enough times.
Soak up all my grounds.

Maybe one day,
You can be my coffee.

ching, ching*
Two men walk into a local cafe.
A city boy, and a Townsman

The cityboy sports
Slicked up hair.
Blue button up shirt,
Grey slacks.
Dress shoes.

The townsman simpler.
Brown hair.
Orange T-shirt,
cargo pants.
Work boots.

"Hey there!" Says the city boy.
walking up to the counter.
"Do you ladies have different roasts of coffee?
Or do you have just one kind?"

The Register girl looks at him sideways.
"What are you talking about?"

"I want a black light roast if you have it. Also, two shots over ice."
He hands her his travel mug.
"What's this for?"
The girl fondles the travel mug.
"I'd like my coffee in that please."
The manager puts a hand to the girls shoulder.
"The house coffee is a light roast doll, give him that."

"Cream and sugar?" Asks the register girl.
"Oh god, please no." Laughs the city boy "Thank you."
Handing over a credit card.
The register girl does not understand
what is so funny about cream and sugar.
"Cash?" Says the manager.
"Is there an atm? I can only offer this, but I know how to change that if you point me in the right direction."
"No ATM. We just Offer a discount for cash, we'll take your card." Says the manager.
The city boy waits for his drinks.

The townsman, walks up and says
"Coffee, please"
The manager hands him a paper cup with coffee, cream, and sugar.
He pays them in cash.
smiles, nods. Says: "Thank you"
Then waits for the city boy.

"Here's your sippy cup."
Says the register girl.
Handing over his travel mug.
The city boy stands there waiting patiently.

"Are you waiting for something?"
"Yes. my two shots over ice?"

"Oh I put it in there."
"Could I have two shots over ice please? I'll pay for it again if you forgot."
"Oh we don't have an espresso machine.
Our shots are like a syrup."

"Oh... Is there syrup in here?
I just wanted two shots over ice."

"Well like... I mean our prices are so low anyway, it's no big deal, but we don't have an espresso machine so..."

"Sorry" says the manager.
"Thank you ladies." Says the townsman.

The cityboy grabs the townsmans hand.
They leave the Cafe.

The city boy sips his
Botched coffee.
"I've had good, bad, and know what I want.
I don't want to be seen as difficult because I'm educated."
He tolerates it.

The townsman sips his
Familiar Coffee.
"Sometimes ignorance is bliss."
He enjoys it.

All the makeup in the world
Won't make you feel
Less INSECURE.

girls in high school wear infinity scarves
and expect their love to last as long.
their hearts are hidden under
mounds of dyed wool, and I'm sitting in
U.S. History learning about slavery.

this is what I know.

we are all slaves to our own hearts.
we pick fields of lust
and try to sew it into love.
we wear combat boots because we feel threatened
by our own bodies.
like we are at war in our flesh, and need the extra protection;
the leather safety net with laces.

we walk down those black, salt-licked stairs
with our heads down because we have trust issues,
but when we trip we never forgive our clumsiness.
we swallow bitter tears like sugar after medicine,
and we pump hate through our tumblr blogs like gasoline.

we pay for affection with skin.
we accept the words *****, ****, *****, ugly, MAN, as nicknames.
a wave to the opposite gender is now thirst.
we need to grow up; put down the sippy cup.

this is high school.
cut your hair. dye it purple, and then regret it automatically. dye it black,
and then spend five months and $597.00 getting it back to your natural color.
mismatch your socks. eat almonds when you feel like you should starve your insides.
paint your nails, mess them up, and paint them again;
paint your soul the same way.
we are moving at the speed of light.

slow down your mind.
you are in high school.

you are still growing love in fields, you just need to find the right soil.

She stands on a chair
Looking out the window
Above the kitchen sink,
Scrubbing baby bottles,
Sippy cups, and baby
Food jars.

She sees her entire
Second grade class
Playing a game of
Tag without her.

The baby cries from
The bedroom.
She jumps down
And runs to the
Back of the house,
Dragging the chair
With her.

She jumps on the chair
And lifts the baby out
Of the crib.
She reminds herself
To support his head
While she walks to
Their mother’s door.

Her mother is asleep
In the arms of a different
Man than last week,
She smells the all-too
Familiar mixture of
*** and Wine.

The man opens his
Eyes and barks at
Her to get out.

She carries the baby
To the ratty couch
And feeds him
As they sit with the
Two other children,
Listening to her
Peers laughter through the
Window above the sink.

Sippy cups to shot glasses
Skinned knees to broken hearts
Puppy love to marriage*

Why must the bliss be replaced with
Remorse and sorrow?
What ever happened to the time of cooties and boys being “icky”?

Soon baby dolls will be replaced with infants,
And sports cars will take the place of your hot wheels.

Sleepovers turn into obscene rumors.
Chubby cheeks turn into eating disorders.

I’m not ready to grow up yet.
I want to stay naive to reality,
Let me stay ignorant.

It’s inevitable that we have to grow up sooner or later
But why sooner than later?

We pulled up in the drive way
If it weren't for my hello kitty flip flops, my feet would've melted into the cracks of the pavement.
Running up to ring the doorbell, and the smell of home rushing through my nose as I am greeted by hugs.
Kicking off my kicks, and letting the beige colored carpet mingle with the bottoms of my feet.
Leaping on to a couch that was stained with strawberry ice cream and memories.
The lace that trailed off the ends of the curtains danced as the breeze from an open winow came to say, "hello."
Splashing in a wading pool while grandma looked through Avon catalouges
sipping lemonade that we made prior, in a Disney Princess Sippy Cup.
I run up the stair into my room; sparkly purple bed sheets cover my bed and I crash.
All snuggled up in an ocean of blankets while everyone else watches the Steelers game downstairs.
As I dose off, half way through a dream filled with pink, grandpa woke me up; he said we were going out for ice cream!
I put on my favorite Little Mermaid shirt on and ran downstairs.
We all pile into an old BMW and start our journey to Sarris.
Nostalgia and city lights fill my eyes with wanderlust.
We park the car and rush to hop in line. When we order our ice cream we sit down in a red diner-hop booth.
Everyone together, MiMi, Papap, Mom, Dad, Victoria, Patty, G-G, and me.
And I don't know if it was eating powdered donuts on Sunday mornings
Or the way that Fresca tasted after eating a happy meal,
but visiting your house
in that small town in Pittsburgh
Is the only way that I can describe "home."

Don’t wanna be restrained to,
Allow for the politicians abuse,
Freedom from the celebrity ruse,
As I struggle with these hues,
Red, White, and Blue.

We’re like toys,
We make noise,
Bring them joy,
We’re easy to poise.

Grab me by my hair,
Throw me in the chair,
Scream at me, “It’s not fair!,”
You say, “You’re a burden I can’t bare.”
I’ll kick your teeth out, it’s only fair.

Life couldn’t give you a more silver spoon,
Sat up in your high chair, tightening our noose,
Drinking from a sippy cup, it’s alcohol abuse,
I hope you forget that karma is on the loose.
Cause we’re coming for you.

Half-dead brutes,
***** of dried prunes,
Master of child abuse,
You are the fake news.

Others will avoid,
You will destroy,
The bombs you deploy,
For the middle east oil,
Brainwashed toys are easy to exploit.

The boy walking in front of me
With a slight limp on his left leg
A backwards astro hat
And dark skin underneath darker clothes
Smelled of coffee
And the humid breeze lifted axe from his neck
Backwards and up my nose

He smelled of trouble
Of seventh grade solitude
And looked as if  he walked out of my fifth grade memories

Still I thought of you

***** and dark
Dope across your tee shirt
Freckles spotting your smile that press into your dimples
Lifting the corners of my mouth

I'd like to lick cologne from your neck
Made of sweat and ****** solitude

You made none of my memories
Smelled and looked of nothing familiar
Only past daydreams

Maybe I'm just tired

I was up all night thinking of Ma
She has always smelled of Ck perfume
No matter how much money we had

She looks like all of my memories

Her short boy haircut
Her androgynous women's work suit
I remember her younger

Still loving women

Made of muscle, teaching me how to run
After soccer and before the gym

At night
She went out in slinky tank tops
Made of sparkles or silk, and sometimes both

Leaving, she'd kiss my forehead as she left me with father and my 101 Dalmatians sippy cup
I'd hug around her neck
And breathe in her Ck perfume

Thurston started off easy enough
With the simple slurping of Sippy cups
But soon enough moved on the the bigger stuff
When Sippy cups didn't do the job

He constructed a straw three feet long
Though Thurston was thirsty he wasn't that tall
So he could reach the kitchen sink
As Mom did the dishes Thurston could drink

Soon the sink was not enough
So Thurston moved on to the bathroom tub
You would think that that would be too much
As Thurston rub a dub dub'd and drank it all up

From there he moved to the aquarium
As he watched the fish around him swim
As they watched their world go sinking in
To the glass reflection of Thurston's grin

With an inch of water left he left them alone
As he spied outside the retention pond
That's when Thurston's thirst came on strong
And he dropped everything he had going on

Once he had the pond drunk dry
Thirsty Thurston heard the waves nearby
Dare he even give the ocean a try
His answer was yes to the question of why

Though Thurston did give a pause
Along with a bit of a thought  
Before he left he went out and bought
The makings for a longer straw

The Tie is a bib for men.
For different sorts of messes.
No longer exclusively dribble and bile.
Yes, we may use them for mornings
after our red solo sippy cups
time machine us neanderthal.
But men also have other messes to bib tie.

Like:
friendly faces at work.
not friendly faces at work.
faces on ex's at work.
Ex's faces on not friendly faces and other various places at work.

Men bib tie their feelings.
Or at least that's the media stressed norm.
Men can also not bib tie their feelings
Or bib tie the wrong feelings.
bib tie love when it's wrong to feel it.
Bib tie love when it hurts to feel it.
Bib tie their opinions
when speaking to people who disagree
Bib tie the need to look, only...
Touch, just...
Grab, just
Have, just
Use, just....
Put it in the bib tie.
Stuff it right in there.
That's where all your messes go now.

At a funeral, men do not use their bib Tie as Hankie
They let their tears fall.
Bib ties are not tissues.
You do not simply wipe up your mess with a bib tie.

Put the pain inside it
At the end of the day
You take it off.

Put the used up bib tie in patchwork briefcase under bed.
Passed down by fathers.
Full of generations of used up bib ties.
Like ***** dream catchers.

Knotted hands and looped desire.
fastened snuggly into their folds.

If only more men wore Ties.

no one is reading my **** anymore
it's not generic enough
not sad enough
not happy enough
not ******* insane enough
not sadistic enough
not self-deprecating enough
this is why the best writers always ******* **** themsleves
or drink themselves to death (because somehow it isn't considered suicide if it's done over a few decades instead of in an instant)
i'm not mad that people aren't reading
i'm just confused
what am i doing
they told me anyone could be a writer
and i've seen enough published ******* to believe that that is true
i'll write about cats
about cats ******* cats
is that crude enough for you
i'm screaming now, and you can't hear me
you're to busy with the spectacle-boy with a vape pen and brand new perfectly shredded shoes
this is why everyone hates themselves
and why everyone who doesn't always seem so unaware
is this how the world divides
the blissfully dumb
and the dying intellects
not intellects
pessimists
that's what we are
if i could live in your world i would
but i'm stuck with incessant thoughts
and loud, depressing music to make them sound less appealing

Oleander sips
Saturated leaves
Acid lake's disguised under oak
trees.
Sprinkling of cocoons
And fuzzy bumblebees.
Sugar magnolias like
freckled galaxies.
Sippy cups with rainbows
and an antique bucket
Tangerine trees and golden
lockets
Lynx spotted engines
of Chevrolets
Darted dandelions in a
Summer craze

She will be our daughter
with hair of finely woven copper
to match that of her father.
And as she drinks from her sippy cup.
Five feet off the ground.
I could never be so proud.
When she holds my hand with fingers the size of pencaps
I could never be so glad
When she wimpers in her sleep
I'll wonder what she's dreaming

He takes in a deep long breath
and billows out the flames
on all nine candles

His mother smiles
and remembers they day he was born
the only doctor in the sanctuary at the time
had been a dentist
he pulled him out of her
like a stubborn tooth

For those first few months
she stayed awake every night
watching him
terrified
hoping
and hating herself for hoping
that he would stop breathing
in the middle of the night

On his first birthday
218 had experienced a breach
nearly everyone was infected
no survivors
she thought about taking his life then

She poisoned his sippy-cup
with the stuff they used to **** the roaches
and in a fleeting moment of weakness
dumped it down the drain

When she does sleep
she relives her father changing
into a monster
and watches the man who raised her
chomp into the forearm of the man she was to marry

She remembers how much blood there was
and how much she hated them
and loved them
at the same time

The little boy
turns and shoots her a thank you smile
she smiles back
faint and almost fake

She makes a wish
but does not dare tell a soul
and continues to hate herself
for loving him too much

There once was a lady, who in a brown bag kept her baby, and never let
it see the light of day. But once when it rained, when outside both bag
and baby lay; paper dissolved to ash, and pale skin emerged unabashed.
Now, as well as unabashed the paper babe was unashamed, and fought his
way through the rain, in naked hide aflame. "Where fore art thou, thou
hedonist devil!! Where can i find thee and lick thou with shovel!!"
Harsh were his words and I'm sure you'd concur, when i say not harsh
enough,but then again, tis only baby stuff. Though minuscule were his
plans for he had only babies hands, he trudged along feeling all the
more brave for his life he'd now save. Seeing his shovel, he picked it
up, made out of plastic it weighed no more than his sippy' cup. Through
the doggy door he crawled on all four legs, through the door he went
sprawled like tossed eggs. Into the demons bedroom he silently tiptoed
only to find the horns of said beast had gone.

"if your personality was a beverage,
what beverage would it be?"

She said: "I think I'd be Coffee"

"No,
You can't be coffee."

You're too sweet
Cheap, With two shots of vanilla

COFFEE is bold, smokey,
Burns your throat.

I had coffee once,
Brandy

Woke up to her every morning,
For years I got drunk off of her
When I didn't drink enough water
She made me sick.
but I never drank water
Went down the hall
to a sippy cup full of milk.

Even she,
was not just milk.
She was strawberry milk.
My little Coffee milk.

You are not Coffee.
You are water.

But soak up all my grounds
***** yourself on the dead burnt cherries
I've left for you.

Maybe
you can be some quick
instant version.

Can you hear the
Cast bronze fireplace's
Flames melting iron snowmen?

Can you see the obelisk
Sitting in it's vacant lot?

The stone cold singe-marks
Sear varicose veins
Of wooden lamp posts.

Whiskey filled sippy cups
Preordain the raven's tears:
                               (Bullets)
I hear Nerudan love poems
Broadcasted through blue PA speakers
To no one
(But me)

Songs resonate through hollow walls:
                      Songs read from empty
                      Sheet music
                      From the fall of
                      1964.

Her granny Gaveth her granddaughter coffee in that infant's sippy,
I think granny could of been really cool....
Maby another gypsy hippy?
And granny Gaveth coke to
Wherein this young girl got addicted....

(As the girl Now)hanging out at Starbucks...
As the moon canst even feeleth that caffeine rush ...

She canst thank lovely granny for that...

-headline

          And how can man die better
          Than facing fearful odds,
          For the ashes of his fathers,
          And the temples of his gods

                         -Macauley, Lays of Ancient Rome

An argument over a parking space –
Lest all the pink Chinese flip-flops are gone
Triple-wide thongs in naughty, frothy lace
And a rhinestone case for a new MePhone

Cartoon shirts from the Vietnamese, sippy cups
Nicaraguan underwear and funny hats
Squeaky plastic toys for the little pups
And genuine autographed tee-ball bats -

There are causes for which a man might die
But “Ten Percent Off!” is no battle cry

What dispirited purpose cups to my ear
Or orifice sufficed at being a sense of the world
What hands can claim to be my lips
Speaking to the world they claim to feel

What broken envy feels
Those scattered ivy fields
Of hopeful grey sent on its way
Of years and months poured into the day?

What gotten fear keeps me
Chained cherish to the time I should
Be walking on to other things
That make me feel the good?

I found a barrow cut by the wheel
And ghoul-hands rotten roots a-reach
From smoothed walls cut to seem rough
And grief for spirits frothing at the ducts.

I found some feeling of myself
Sippy-cup filled with mediate dreams
I made up words to keep myself from gotten
I sank into quicksand on my back

I'll write poem that'll seep beneath your skin so deep you'll have to exfoliate for weeks just to get it out.
I'll write a poem that'll rattle your rib cage because your heart has laid dormant for too long confined between the bars of apathy and ignorance
I'll write a poem that'll plant seeds in your lungs so all you ever breathe out is tenderness and I'll watch the seeds sprout and take root in your heart, grow a vine around your veins so you can't move without beauty spreading across your entire nervous system
because maybe that's what you need- you need something that tells you you're worth the fight of that there's still plenty of hope to go around
because you see sunlight still dances on dead trees long after the last autumn leaf falls to the ground
you see,
I know how cold this world can be they mail you hate and slander
slip war and disease under your door; you sit in the 7th pew every Sunday morning but you haven't heard a sermon in months because all you can hear are the orphans crying
or the homeless dying
or the unemployed trying
everything they can to fill their child's empty tummy
but you just keep going to church
you've learned to auto tune the cries of all the broken people around you into background music while you fill your own head with lies and excuses for letting your brother suffer when we were never meant to even live apart from each other
my mother always told me if I want to grow I have to water my heart
this is gospel
wake up
it's time to start drinking your wine in glass not a sippy cup
you were never meant to ride through life with your training wheels locked tight to complacency
the inscription in your genetic code has been baffling people in white lab coats for centuries
nothing about you was made to be ordinary
wake up
this is @ America
and even though you are #blessed i suggest you log onto a new server because your follower count won't impress the oppressed
this is gospel don't you feel it in your chest
wake up grow up wake up I grew up in tulsa Oklahoma
where it seems most people have for their Bible Belt on too tight
it doesn't fit quiet right
so they spend their days and their nights
trying to readjust a buckle that was never meant to bend them out of shape, to make them buckle under pressure of a weight
but they're too occupied with do's and don'ts to escape the legalistic ways they've lost their faith
wake up
you can't breathe smoke rings into cold air and pretend you're old enough to shake cigarette butts out the window when plenty of people are already dying from lung cancer
you know growing up sounds a lot like self destruct these days
we're all just broken people looking for better ways to fill ourselves or **** ourselves faster
running towards the next
best thing that promises to stay
because if you take a look at your addictions you'll see your pain is self afflicted
be convicted
we were never meant to live in contradiction
saint on Sunday
sinner every other day of the week
and you can't catch your breathe because you're too weak to seek any help
your lungs are too small to carry anything but love
give God his breathe back
and He will wake you up

I took off...

As if I ever landed.

Like my landing gear actually deployed this time.

It was a crash.

A beautiful escape.

Directional disappearance into an oblivion of no regrets.

The smoke settled to reveal emergencies.

Love me like something tragic.

Stretch your arms across mountains to reach my heart so it will continue to palpitate.

I can't teach myself to feel the love you give me.

Let's have a show and tell.

Show me your love and I'll tell you all about how a universe of explanations won't relate how I feel.

We flew together.

In no specific direction.

But it was our exact path of destruction.

Destroying every falsified rumor ever fed to us in sippy cups made from our spilt past.

So we never really landed.

Let's never arrive.