You ruined my perception
Of lights on the highway,
Drinks alone,
And steak dinners.

You ruined the smell
Of expensive Italian cologne,
New cars,
And escargot.

You ruined the sensation
Of fingers entwined in mine,
Car makeouts,
Opulence, and luxury.

You ruined everything,
From roads to white Subarus,
Black Chevies,
And radio music.

But I thank my lucky stars
That he restored everything
You destroyed
And I am complete again.

you could say,
are long dirt roads that never end
trotted on by horses
(you can call them men)

Women

you could say,
are cobble stone streets
constantly impaled by stilettoed friends
(you could call them men)

Women

you could say,
are black tar roads
riddled with curves and bends
plowed on by Subarus
(otherwise known as men)

Women

you could say,
are nice footpaths in the park
run on by children
around the age of ten
(often boys that grow up to be men)

i'm
spitting blood into the sink
because I brushed my teeth six times
in an hour
today
what must that be like?

to dream without drowning
beneath black water
snakes turning themselves inside out
without ghost haunted sheets of the past
hanging over me like witches feet and nooses
so i’ll dream about black water and snakes
and creatures with holes in their chests as large as oaks
and maybe  i’ll wake up different

i’m searching the backs
of subarus for your stickers.
feeling sick in the soul
but this can’t be exorcised
or driven out with iron
prayer
and holly stakes.

dried scale snakes
twist in my stomach tearing the
lining to bits while i swallow down
more blood. brush
rip gums and smile
a hyena grin
as it comes over cigarette yellowed porcelain
and shiver.

If you could only let it drop
we would not need to bear it:
that holy hoity-toity
illiberal burden you announce
from where you wear it.

Would you then be able to live
with your fellow citizens:
fellow toilers in rhyme
buying gluten-free time
at Whole Foods
US; your citizen-neighbors
online cloud of witnesses
Looking at used Subarus
and paying our dues
with you
at the dealership.

Could you only see
through deplorable eyes
and love with a deplorable heart
you would appreciate the art
of the real deal,
loose the seal
of your own apocalypse;
let love reveal
landscapes your pride
has kept hidden for too long.

If you could let your hatred drop,
Slough off the smug and the sneer
If you could stop
signaling to your own
long enough to know REAL diversity, and live
perhaps you’d give
a thought to your own fallibility
lost in a forest of woulds, failing to see
Your neighbor’s Tree of Life. . .
But you are busy perfecting strife,
screaming Timber!
before the axe has even been laid
at the root of your poetry.

If you knew, as the rest of us
how often you have shouted thus
you could understand why
we tend to ignore your warning cry.

Perhaps it could be feasible
to stop blaming
that orange source of all unreasonable
derangement, cease from naming
your neurotic projections
as they are unscrewed
to reveal another inside:
crazed conspiratorial Russian doll
of your own
discredited obsessive offended perpetual alarm.