Throughout our childhood, our grandmother would turn to us,
in her yellow-lit kitchen, brandishing a rubber spatula or meat
tenderizer to warn us against falling to temptation. She’d witnessed
too many good people disappear into what she called
a consumption of the soul,

              and as my cousins licked sugary batter off their spoons,
no one could have known that one day the candy-coating
would melt from their eyes to see their mother
for what she had done the last six years that now showed in her trembling hands, glossed vision, and a temperament that splashed into anger, flowed into melancholy as easily as she had found herself downing bleary bubbles at the brim of a precipiced fountain.
She was promised her very own message in a bottle, and this keep-sake

manifested in cousin Libby’s dreams, floating down a wine river
that gushed from the slashes in her mother’s wrists. Somehow I knew
these nightmares were born from warm and heady “sleep well”s
mumbled from across the darkest of rooms which held so many glass
ghouls with names and strengths so real, they even scared

my grandmother into silence as she stirred the pecan pie for Easter dinner. She offered to let me lick the spoon clean, but I simply
asked for straight sugar instead.

in afternoons i drive through tolls and
smash chicken with a tenderizer, spoon
fed and clean. this isn’t
thailand tropics, not on a scuba dive.
writing’s old, rusty, sick, but ‘oh i
wake and reach out.’
now i live in boston, my sheets smell of
flowers, night bodies, your breath. even when
my frame folds into your side- and you push-
it’s not away, it’s ok. i can fog glasses with my
fingers. i can say hello, goodbye.
once, i combed hair off bath tile(not my own),
searched a loft for reasons to leave
there had to be something, someone
else (you). and now, i’ve stopped—
we watch puppies, magnolias, moon rising
in the park. i fall asleep to a podcast. i smile
in the dark.

Stick a fork in me and tell me I'm done.
Tell me my only purpose now is to be
carved open and served on fine china,
Tell me now is my time.
They plan to eat me alive.
I can already feel them
gnawing on my bones like toothpicks
after the first course,
and washing down their disgust
with my blood, still warm,
like sun tea sitting in the window
on a hot August day,
except maybe a little thicker
in consistency and a little more
bitter in taste.
Old soul, flesh and blood
doesn't stay fresh long, eat me.
Smile and nod at dinner table conversation
as you choke down every headache,
every bad decision I've ever made.
Things like that call for a little extra meat tenderizer, don't they?
Spending hours making me more appealing to the pallet
only to make me look like roadkill.
Sunken in, glazed over highway eyes,
always staring straight ahead,
never to change.
Served on a sliver platter with a puddle of blood under me,
make sure to serve bread to sop up all the mistakes, imperfections, monotony.

You have been through this before, the very same old song is playing and you are dancing the same moves

The same words have been spoken, you are still reacting the same old way

Yes you have been through this before, and nothing has changed.

They looked at your helplessness, they saw the waters gather speed in your eyes making ready

As they rushed down your cheeks, they looked away and washed then not away

Naked as you were, no one dared to cover you up.

Words were spoken, promises made, hope given, faith instilled, a better tomorrow promised

Yes, they heard them, they watched as you delved deeper into their web of lies

And smiled at their expertise in the ways of the tongue.

Showers of love they seemed, yet only a tenderizer for the next hard landing

Never softer, nor sweeter, ever damaging, heart breaking

But

You have been through this before, the very same old song is playing and you are dancing the same moves.

The games
The small-fry
Ketchup she squirt's

Talking heads
sugar on my
miniature flirt
tongue

Burger bands

Gimme_ Gimme
((Mini Macaroons))
Don't big change me
My eyes like
((Rocky Racoons))

Movie Mania
Beatles miniature
I want to hold
your hand
Lucy in the sky
No chip diamonds
Cool Hand Luke

American girl doll
Exchange for
my red bike
Twilight zone
dimension I_
Cannot read
the numbers!!!

I-phone oranges
compared to
small apples
That's me
Mini Cooper
Car drinking Snapple

The shooting
star
Just gas up
  V-Wagon
mini car

(Mini Bow)
ladybug
kissed her
Coffee mug
The red and
black dots
treat her
like a lady
Small bits of aroma

The smaller sticky
yellow
notes what votes
Mini-me camera
Mini hot_  Hollywood
dog dachshund
*    *    *    
It's mini
mealtime__

Adorable
Presentable
The Dollhouse
lodge Mini
Disneyland_*
No copying to
resemble

Mini Fruit
salad merger
Red Robin's Burger
were overly generous
Mr. Big
imaginable
so small
Superman's
flight of rage
So-Huge_ and long_
turned him if I only
had a brain
((The Tinman))
mentally touched him
Sprayed his oil can
in mini heart size

Hello Dollie
collector
magnifying glass
Handcrafted
Pleasurable kind
and small
Broomstick
Witchcraft

Miniature leader
Knock on
heavens door

The Doorman
The Penthouse
Mini Bavarian
creme
Me doughnut

The cool breeze
off her fan
Big thumb
((Thumbelina))
The mini frog
Hit too many
London fogs

Mini White castle
burger  chips off the
miniature block party
Meat tenderizer like trolls

Las Vegas
money slot machines
Those miniature dolls

((Minerals Top Ranks))

Gemology
produce
more blues
******
Adolf ******
generals
Cereal boxes
Sly Foxes Attention
How her
features met
his smaller
side_
Royal hot blues singer
Mini He pops dishes
All Banana nut's
When it
comes to
Monkeying
around

With_?
miniature swingers
cereal_

I was almost unconscious
wondering how long it would take for you
to strip every strand of 'go back to sleep'
from your skin
like a cheese stick
and I fell asleep
to the hum of milk curdling.

It felt like I hadn't slept in days.

I swore not to have an opinion
but when you pushed me to speak needle to skin,
I said I thought butterflies should
make cocoons in the spaces between your ribs.

I said I wondered how your skin got so thick, bones so strong,
how your heart pumps so fast,
you told me you were used to it-

and I momentarily pictured you in a meat tenderizer.

With your head draped apathetically over the edge of the counter,
I never told you I loved you
and lied,
but it was never the truth.

We poured ourselves into crystal glasses to tempt each other
with never a doubt in our minds that the poison would start to eat away at our insides.
We liked the sensation of acid on flesh,
of truth burning holes in the things
we were so **** sure we could get away with forever.

I wanted to be more than unconscious when you told me
these hands of ours aren’t made to sculpt masterpieces from each other’s skin.
That we're all unbreakable next to the razor's edge.
I hummed myself a lullaby and wondered where the razor went.

Perhaps it will be there for you as well as I wasn’t and perhaps
you can learn to love it as well as I didn’t.
I wanted to be more than unconscious
when you told me you already had.

This blood sport love is not sustainable.

Many of the world's greatest Leaders throughout our tumultuous history have;
Many of  the insightful Revolutionaries in stink hole and glory hole countries have;
Many of the oppressed, disenfranchised and cheated also have.
Look to Lenin, Mandela, Gandi, Nehru, Havel, Bhutto, Ceausescu, Charles I, Papadopoulos, Lady Jane Grey, Louis XVI, Marcos, Milosevic, a pile of Mohameds, Mussolini, Nicholas II, Pinochet, Saddam, Marie Antoinette, Pope Clement V, Selassie, Baghdadi, Duvalier, and, let's not forget the author of Mien Kampf, Adolph the Tenderizer.
And what do they all have in common?
Some, before they became boldly notorious, and others, after they became criminally notorious.
Some, looked out their window and saw platforms being erected.
Others witnessed gallows, guillotines. posts and walls.
They all got some time in:
PRISON. GAOL. JAIL. COOLER. LOCKUP.  DUNGEON. KEEP. PEN. BASTILLE. CLINK. STATESVILLE. SLAMMER. STOCKADE. THE BIG HOUSE.
You get the idea.
His time will come.

"I go to type the URL of this site into the search-bar-typey thing (I'm so great with words.), and I type hope instead, and stare at if for a second trying not to laugh."

You asked today how many poems you'll come back to,
When you finally reach home,
Where you probably won't reach until midnight,
And I hope to God you drive safely,
And that other drivers aren't idiots.

And I'm sitting here,
And you don't know this,
But I'm scared.
Because you don't know
Exactly how many years I've laid in bed,
Bandaged hands/wrists/arms,
Regretting things beyond my control,
Myself when I was beyond my control,
Wishing someone had been there
To calm me down before I very literally
Lost my head (or more of left my head).

Wishing someone could have stayed,
'Cause when you start bleeding out at nine years old,
And coming to and having to figure out that
Meat tenderizer and coriander gets blood off shirts, carpet, and sheets.
Otherwise you need to wear red or black.
And the one person you want to tell you can't tell,
Because at ten years old you still don't know how or why it happens.

And it hit me hard today
At ******* Barrel.
When we sat outside and you touched my scars.
Because in a way you were touching a part of me
No one else has had the unfortunate circumstances
To come up upon
Besides myself.

The part of me that knew all along
That all of that sickening regret that would
Sit like a blade in my stomach,
Sinking and twisting,
Was because my scars would hurt someone else
Who never deserved to be hurt at all.

And for all my talk,
I'd never hurt anyone
Without a reason.
So to think that maybe
My scars,
Or the fact that I got that bad,
Has somehow made you feel
In a way that is painful
Or fearful
Or something,
It makes me want to *****.

This isn't self hatred.
I wasn't there.
I can't control myself if I'm not there to control myself.
I had a reason.
I was fifteen when the worst scar happened,
And very early in the year of being twenty when the worst wound happened.

Maybe I feel too much guilt.
Maybe I apologize too much.
Maybe I'm too afraid of giving in to this feeling of you and me, and us.
Maybe I'm not proper,
And I don't know how to explain myself correctly
And articulate myself very well,
But this is who I am right now.

As Soupy Campbell from the Wonder Years once said:
"I'm getting better, but it's in small steps."

And I'm so much better.
I don't think you understand.
Who I used to be
Is someone I hope you never encounter.

The tears,
The rage,
The pain.

I never want you to see me that way.

And while I do care
If you like my parents
Or if they like you,
I want you to know
I've been doing this whole life thing
Mostly on my own
For a very long time.
Support systems don't really happen for me.

It's not like being alone scares me,
It's letting someone in
So entirely
That terrifies me.

And yet it's happening anyway.

These convenient 16-ounce squeeze bottles are perfect for picnics, duck-shoots & waiting in the abortion clinic parking lot for something big to happen.

Our Big Kmart closed suddenly & then manly Bruce Jenner died of
type-2 diabetes while eating a 1976 Olympic-sized box of Wheaties
Tiffany sleeps through cold-hearted darkness that creeps seamlessly
& Tiffany cries sadly in a motel room where she sleeps dreamlessly
Rotten grasses tickled the ***** of grass-growers who rented & sold
old gas mowers while illegally *******' hoes wearin' ragged clothes
in the Taiwan of '45 when hula hags were shot dead in hagged rows
Citified ******* track gentrified binarization after they crap, pop off
the clap, pick a ***, track corn sap, **** a lap-trap, crack a *****-slap
Vietnam succeeded in growing 3 yearly crops of *****-saving rices,
a dozen years after the Fourth Republic of France's May 1958 crisis
I asked, “Hey, Bill, what's hot love all about?” and he replied, “Hot
love is ****-******* Hillary over the sink with her **** hanging out.”

These convenient 16-ounce squeeze bottles are perfect for picnics, duck-shoots & waiting in the abortion clinic parking lot for something big to happen.

missed with pop for plants   
tenderizer for cooking
known to **** slugs, beer

benefits the eyes
it is a tenderizer
can turn milk, kiwi