THURSDAY MARKET

Motorway sign says:
"THIS SIGN IS NOT WORKING."

Sign coming into town says{
"THURSDAY MARKET."

Reality appears to be
broken.

And there they all are
long forgotten Thursdays

that nobody wants
no more.

So many used Thursdays to
choose from.

A much used Thursday
from 1963.

A forlorn Thursday
from 1863.

Thursdays come and
gone.

No one will want a Thursday
their dog died

or the wife
left them

or the Wi-fi
went off.

Rainy Thursdays
that nobody wanted

even as they were
happening.

But there's a big rush on
the Thursday to come.

Everyone wants to have
one.

We leave the Thursday
market

with the next Thursday
in the bag so to speak.

It's up to us
to make a good go of it.

It ticks away.
Time tickles.

Motorway sign says:
"THIS SIGN NOT WORKING."

I thought of how it seems like,
Oh let's make Chloe feel crap day.
Then I remembered that it's Thursday.
So yeah,
It really is.
It's always Thursdays.
Sometimes Thursdays have been fine.
But when a day of the week hasn't been fine,
It's been a Thursday.
I don't know why.
Thursdays should be good.
I have good lessons that day.
It just seems like,
Everything's against me then.
No, not people.
It's just feelings.
They appear from nowhere,
With no reason to be here.
No it's not very extreme,
But it's my less good days.
It's a Thursday.

threading the thin line of uncertainty,

you had told my closest guy friend ****, i think i'm falling for her.

and later you would pinpoint that one moment, that one moment we realize we adore a person,

as the slightest second you were staring at your lock screen, which was my photo.

it had been a collage of me doing wacky poses in eighth grade,

a photograph i had posted on twitter as some sort of throwback thursday.

unbeknownst to me, you had saved it to your phone,

setting it as your lock screen and showing it to me the next day mainly to spite me.

over the next few weeks, you would save the photos i'd post or send you,

and set it as your wallpapers,

and come up with some witty one-liner to annoy me with.

and you'd tell me months on about that time you went to unlock your phone, stopping to smile at my old photo in all its chubby cheeks and corny poses glory,

only to realize,

****.

i have never been more thankful for throwback thursdays.

I used to think that all of them were just bodies. She-figures, they came and went, facilitating infinite happiness and following with hellacious heartbreak, aorta explosions galore. They pass. I stay. She goes. I remain. We all take a trip, but she falls asleep while I follow the road, I sing the song, make the lyrics up as the 101 heads West, and I careen against the Pacific. I see silvery-white plumes of whale breaths spouting, they break the rocks of my rock and roll. When the levee breaks, we'll have no place to go- I'm going back to Chicago.

California. Line 5. Verse 1. She is born in Arkansas, in Denver, in New York City, in the back of a taxi cab, her parents waiting for a table at Earth Cafe, 1989. There are concerts, balconies, elevator shafts, and on benches. The gain rises, the volume up and up and up, I offer her a cigarette, I ask her if she likes my dress, I show up with two palms full of a flame, and I say hello. Browsing in high-definition, the water is warm, my feet are planted and I have everywhere to go. Classical emporium of light fill me with ease, greatness, and belief. She asks me if I'm gay. Every great confusion can be proven to be fortuitous with enough time on hand. I kiss in cars, in bathrooms, and barrooms, in hallways, on staircases, on beds, church steps, and legs. I touched a leg, ran my fingers through her hair, my thumbs curved to the height of two ears alongside a size B head. I love art *****. i burn candles, and I swirl the wax around until the walls wear masks of white. I check-in to a hotel. I stop to buy wild flowers on the side of the road, or to climb down a ravine, we open a page into an enormous patch of strawberries, wind-surfers, and the golden Palo Alto beaches. I am in Bronzeville, on my way to Bridgeport, I am riding the train, browsing magazines, and singing new songs in my head. My lips are wet with excitement and the musings of the Modern Art Museum and the gift of a first kiss; behind the statue on Balcony 2, near the drinking fountain, the Eames couch, and two lips meeting anew. Bravery in twos.

Chapter 1, Verse 2. The chorus is large and exciting. New plastic shining coats. Smocks patterned with the Random House children's stories that we played with as children. We didn't wear gloves, or hats, or pants, or our hearts on our sleeves. I was up to my knees in hormones and very persuasive. My fifth birthday was at the Nature Center, you chased me into the boys' bathroom and kissed me with your wet and four year old lips in the second stall from the door. I eased up maybe 2% since then. The speakers are a little bit fuzzy, it's like listening to the spit of someone's tongue cascade the roof of their mouth while they pronounce the British consonants of the 90s. Said and done and saving space.

I am saving up for Grace. A crush in the mid 2000s, black hair, long legs, and the only brunette for a decade before or after. We played doctor, with the electric scalpel we turned our noses red with Christmas time South American powders. A safe word for an enemy, the sun for an enemy too. You bolted out and took my early Jimi Hendrix Best Of compact disc case too. While we're at it, you took my Michael Jackson cassettes as well. I go mid-range, think Kiri Te Kanawa in the whispers of E.T.'s Elliot. Stuffed-animal closet party for seven minutes in heaven. Your family came with butlers while mine came with over-educated storage. A blue borage sky in the intestines of life, a splinter in the shanty-town of invincible daily struggles- both of us were born again in O'Hare Airport's Parking Level D. Too many nonsensical arguments in two-tone grayscale ripping open the packaging of a course about trysting in your twenties.

Your stomach's history is overpowering. It is temperamental, mettled by spirits and sleepless nights, borborygmus, wambles, and shades of nervousness you were never comfortable speaking openly about. The history of your ****** was privatized, in options and unedited films shot over and over candidly by a mini DV desk camera, nine months to read you wrong to weep in strong wintry walks back and forth from The Buckingham to the Dwight Lofts, Room 408 without a view. All of your secrets in a little miniature of a notebook, bright cerise red. You captured teardrops in medicinal jars meant for syringes. You tied strings to your fingers, named your field mouse Ginger, and introduced your mother as Lady Darling. Captain with stingray skin, the hide of Ferris Bueller with the coattails of James Bond, dusted with daisy pollen, and clearly weakness. You ate me like bitter herbs on Thursdays, and like every other woman I've ever met, on Tuesdays you always kept me waiting.

I have wings for everything. Yellow wings for a woman in a yellow dress, Red, White, and Green wings for Bernice from Mexico City, Purple wings for  Mrs. Doolittle the doctor who worked at Taco Bell, the Jamaican priestess who was traveling through Venice Italy- we smoked hash with the grandchild of James Joyce on the Northern pier against the aurulent statues of Apollo and Zeus, Cupids' collection of malevolent tricks, SleepingB Beauty's rebuttal in fending off GHB attackers, my two dear friends who were kidnapped in clothes, abandoned in the ****, and only remember eating chocolate donuts with sprinkles and the bruises and dirt on the insides of their thighs. Nothing clever. Nothing extraordinary. Everything sentimental, built to withstand soot, sourness, and early female bravado.

You know how to play the piano so you've said, but i only have the CD you gave me to prove it. I do have evidence of your addiction to men and *******. I have your collection of dresses with tags still on them (but every woman has some of those), there is the post office box in Kauai, the Halloween card from last November and the two videos I have stored on an external drive in a nightstand adjacent to the foot of my bed. You sleep atrociously, talk too quickly, and **** like your father abandoned you when you were five. Your talent for taking photographs is like your skill-set for playing the piano, but I don't have the CD to prove it. You don't believe in social media, social consistency, friendships, or hephalumps and woozels- with the exception of the classes we shared together in college, I've never seen you outside of the most glamorous of fashion. You hate flats, hats, and white wine, and for as sad as you can seem to be at times, I've only had you cry on me once. While we were on the phone, three days after your mother hung herself. That's when I last left California, and I haven't been back yet.

I love a Kristine, but once a Britni, a Brandi, a Joni, a Tina, Kristina, Kirsten, Kristen, and a Katherine and Kathryn too. I know rock stars who are my dearest friends, enemies who I share excellent taste in music with, and parents who've always had my back but show it in lashings of the tongue and of the belt. It's been two years and three states since I was two sizes smaller than I am now. I've never considered the possibility that I was the main character and not the supporting actor, but due to recent developments in antipathy and aesthete, reevaluation, and retrospective nostalgia. All of this is about to change.

I am me still evolving without my usually stolid and grim ****** features. i bare brevity to situations existing that would **** most or in the least paralyze a great many. There is one for every hour of every day, and one for every minute in every hour, second in every minute, and more than the minutes in every day. No one has a second chance, shares a different time, or works off a different clock. I have been called the master of the analog, king of the codependent, and rook to queenside knight. I share a parabola for every encounter, experience, and endeavor. I am three minutes from being a cadaver, one drink away from a drunk, and one thought away from being completely alone. I think upright, i sleep horizontally, and I love infinitely. I am the only finite constant i have ever known. I am the main character, the script, satire, sarcasm, and soundtrack are mine.

"I don’t care if you believe it. That’s the kind of house I live in. And I hope we never leave it.”
There's A Wocket In My Pocket by Dr. Seuss

His navy blue sports coat with brass buttons appeared to have been folded, again and again, as if to create ornate origami then unfolded to wear every Tuesday and Friday at his job at the Xerox call center in Colorado Springs. He kept his small, stubby fingers in his pockets, uncapping and recapping pens or fiddling with keys. As he passed by co-workers, adjusting his body to make adequate room in the narrow path between spines of cubicles, he would nod and say an almost audible hello. This was difficult for him, but he was trying something he'd read in a self-help book called Going Up.

And go up he had, ever so marginally. But up still. Despite his translucent blonde mustache, which was quite thick but only visible at a certain angle, under a discriminating light, despite his wrinkled clothes, despite the tight, Brillo pad, curly mess of hair atop his head, he'd stepped up from customer service representative to quality specialist, much to the yawning disbelief of his former spinemates.

Craig didn't have a girlfriend, but he had an ex, and, though he tried to never bring her up when talking with a woman in the break room, usually Kaley or Jewelz (spelled that way on her name badge), he did, nearly every time. He didn't know if this was an attempt to relate a yes, I've seen a woman naked in real life--so or evidence that he had, at least at one point, value.

He and twelve other quality specialists shared an office on the east side of the center. In each call he screened he made sure the customer service representative demonstrated the Three Cs: Courtesy, Commit, and Close. He no longer had to hand deliver critiques to reps because H.R. deemed it a liability risk with all the death threats he received. Instead, he sent out emails with no mention of his name. They read something like this:

Dear Customer Service Representative 216442,

Upon review of call number 100043212, which took place on 03/12/12, the Quality department noticed that while you did a super job of being courteous (great use of customer's name!) and closing (we love that you didn't just say, "Thank you for being a Xerox customer, etc., etc.," but instead said, "At Xerox it's our absolute pleasure to serve you." How true! We love that in quality), we noticed you over committed in your commitment statement. During the call, you tell the customer, "I'll have that problem fixed for you in no time." While that is ideal, there are situations in which you will not be able to solve the customer's problem. So instead of saying with certainty that you will have a solution, say, "Let me review your account and see what OPTIONS we have for you today." This tells the customer that you are concerned, yet you do not promise that which you cannot deliver.

Quality Control Team
CS Springs

Craig quit smoking two or three times a week, a hundred or 150 times a year. At 26, he woke up to wake up; he worked to work, to say yes, I have a job, to say yes, it's unbelievable how much of my money Uncle Sam gets, to say, I'm saving for a car or a new place or a full-size bed; he went to the bar after work on Thursdays and Saturdays to go to the bar on Thursdays and Saturdays; he'd say hello to say hello. Today was tomorrow is yesterday.

At the foot of Ute Valley park he lived in a home not all that different from where your mother sleeps, a white split-level with charcoal shutters and a two-car garage--though Craig slept where your mother would not: in the unfinished basement, for the home was not his but his brother's. His brother had a nice wife and a nice three-year-old boy, and they ate pizza on Wednesdays, went to the park, weather permitting, every day after supper for a nice time.

Craig observed this more than participated. He'd listen to blocks fall, his brother stepping on action figures, his brother's wife cooking--all from underneath them. As the floorboards creaked he committed each cohabitant's gait to memory. He vultured deli meat and low-fat slices of cheese out of the fridge when no one was in the kitchen.  

At night he'd drink a bottle of his ex-girlfriend's favorite wine, just to watch it go empty. He'd fall asleep on top of the covers and dream, not without some anguish, **** dreams of her.

To future conquering civilizations
in galaxies far far away . . .
don't worry about polluting the air,
our smokestacks have shot *****-bombs
into the clouds for centuries,
mixing rain drops with the
black grime of industrialization,
transforming our children's tears
into cesspools of sulfuric acid and ddt.
We've also drained the bayous and swamps
and between you and me
don't even bother landing in Africa
there isn't suitable drinking water
for miles, you see.
You can thank years of colonization for that.
In fact, you may not want to land
on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Thursdays
in LA either-
on those days the air quality index
is 175 and far too unhealthy for any
biological organism to survive.
But at least you won't die of malnutrition
you've got decisions:
McDonald's or Burger King
choose
cholesterol and diabetes are your shock troops.
Send them in immediately,
there won't be much resistance
we've got these things call lazy boys
and daytime t.v which have
enslaved the population and decreased
the distance
between fully functioning
human beings and mindless apes.
Don't worry about bringing weapons
we've got those too
we've perfected the art of blowing each other away
there's not much for you to do.
we destroy cities with fire from the sky
and our mushroom clouds rise
at least ten miles high.
And god can't see, there's too much smoke
in his eyes
and our radiated children die
with radiated sighs.
While we are on the topic
don't worry about us spreading
propaganda
we've lost the ability to communicate.
We've learned
books turn a peculiar dark yellow
when lighted and burned.
And forget erasing history,
we've done that too.
Our subjugation of native peoples
is masked as 'patriotism'
under the red, white, and blue.

But don't get me wrong,
I tell you all
of this not to dissuade,
please come and attack,
please come and invade.
Here, I'll even turn
on the lights . . .

thursdays are special
not because of some superstition or tradition
but because it's that one day of the week
our schedules allow us to meet
not in between classes like the rest of the other days
it's a day we have, more or less, to ourselves

on thursdays we go out to the restaurant
where strange things have happened
we watch a movie
may it be in theaters
or through the glass of your laptop screen
sometimes we just lie on your bed
until our heartbeats sing the other to sleep

i like thursdays
but i know you haven't been your best lately
like the whole world is swallowing you whole
and everything leads you to jump off the 25th floor
but please don't go
we still have adventures to go on
giants to conquer
movies to watch
strange moments to experience
we still have more thursdays together

too old to walk
the aides wheeled him into the sunshine each day, for their peace of mind  
his eyes were clear, one gray but the other as blue as a robin's egg  
he cackled more than talked though everyone understood what he said
which helped get him rolled onto the lonely concrete each morn,
in all weathers

I came Thursdays to see my aunt, on the way to the office
I, her only heir and she still owned the office, the firm yet bearing her husband's name, his first name the only word that came from her mouth the last two years, some strange protein eating her cortex, her body playing a cruel joke on her by keeping her organs pumping away masterfully....she didn't even **** her pants at ninety minus one

when they wheeled her out beside the cackler
he began his sermons, citing chapter and verse
usually from books I had not read--he also said,
for every hour you read, you add 89 minutes to your life
fishing, he said, was for fools who wanted to live forever;
he would settle for purchased words
and the 29 minutes in change

he had stopped reading with both colored eyes he claimed,  
but he calculated he had added seven years, three months, and four days to his life, and he would, unless he took up reading again, leave the earth seven Thursdays from when he told me the tale--then he began quoting Melville I think, if he is the one who hung the poor stuttering Billy Budd

I kept returning Thursdays to ignore my aunt and listen to his words
and when he was yet alive on the seventh one, I asked if this was the day,
"the day for what?" he replied, and he began his cackled verses, from Poe, or Updike or maybe Hemingway when a bull died mid sentence, and  
my aunt SPOKE that day, telling him goodbye

he was not there the next Thursday,
but neither was I

I used to feel like a little kid
going to the playground on Thursdays
because Thursdays were the days
where I got to see you for four days straight
and mondays were sad because i left your nest
and i went back “home”

On Tuesdays I missed you
I didn’t get to see you,
even though every other Wednesday I did
but then not for another weekend
not until Thursday

It was complicated, and I couldn’t change that
I was eight, and I couldn’t change anything.

I was four when you sat me down
four years old and you said you didn’t love mom anymore
and mom said she didn’t love you
and you said you were going somewhere else
and I didn’t know where
you wound up living in a womans basement
and now that i’m older I know her ex husband

It was complicated, and I couldn’t change that
I was four, and I couldn’t change anything.

I hurt myself for the first time
not because of you
no i don’t want to blame you
but it also wasn’t just me
I hurt myself more
and you didn’t really think
when you told me I was doing it for attention
because then my vision was white and my head was heavy
I thought of those words
I still think of those words

It was complicated, and I couldn’t change that
I was fifteen, and I couldn’t change anything.

I heard you cry
because I was dying
the only time
I’ve ever seen you
have any emotion
it changed my life
but didn’t change you

Im twenty years old and I live with you
I’m twenty years old and I don’t see you for days
I’m twenty years old and you have no idea who I am
I’m twenty years old and you seem like you’re dead

I’m twenty years old and twenty year olds still need a Father.

You can sleep at night.
I have to take tranquilizers
to stay asleep and
I'm not the one
proclaiming to be
"The Jerry Sandusky"
of the correctional facility

and I can't sleep at night.

Lately I toss and turn
thinking about the
deafening silence
after a single shot
and the dogs
left in the house to
clean up the blood
before anyone else
finds him.

Congratulations,
that you are happy with
yourself.
Congratulations,
that you are comfortable
in your
pederastic, putrid
wrinkled and washed up
skin.
Mine is white and soft,
and I can't stand
to be in it on
Mondays, Tuesdays,
Wednesday, Thursdays
and Saturdays
because half of that skin
is your skin, your brain
but
like I said,
congratulations that
you've declared your
noble head
"Grown Up" at 60, old man.

Orange peel Thursdays and the Velcro shoes
Of children hordes
Who spider up Alice on toadstools in Central Park
Dusted psilocybin shoots my eyes through
With the clarity of ice and sliced mushroom
Steeping in stomach acid before finding blood
The kids are tripping like madmen or halloween candy
Like its time to release and give up to the nonsense
And let your young self congeal to a saccharine sludge

I don’t stroll in the park to keep my mind sharp
I’m here because it’s a riot
My head can throb to the jittery birds
And the blasts of carsong
It’s the right kind of rhythm to walk to

* *

Ketamine days and the lolling slums
To make sure the insane stay insane
And the hobos are washed with spit from the clouds
And the subway exhaust always hangs in our hair
And the old Coney Island burns again and twice more

We don’t pretend to understand what we see
In subway grates thirty feet wide
Like the earth punching out of work for a bit
Opening to you her *** belly
So you can check out the strips of metal inside
Before she slurps you down and with an esophageal squeeze
Shoots you through the turnstiles

The train squeals and grinds down our eyes
With thoughts as slow as ketamine
Makes room for schizophrenia in a conversation
We’re listening to ‘til sundown

* *

Years full of Brooklyn and the assorted pills
Makes offal fit for punks in name brand shoes
Squared off with police in the park
Being beaten for the fun of being beaten
Peacoat locals pass the days in supermarkets
And you grow up to the loony mumble
Of the woman who knows the boat
Moored at the end of the street
Mansion of the stray cat colony
You help her with her daily chore to feed them
Tabbies popping the pills of the homeless
And puking in tandem all over their house
Living off generous dying folk

What colour are Mondays?
Red? Well mine are.
The same colour
you’d imagine a headache to be,
tomatoes, morello cherries
or like a nosebleed.

Does that mean Tuesdays are blue?
That mouthwash shade,
brain-freeze after a Slushie.
Wednesdays? Perhaps purpley-pink
as burning potassium,
Parma Violets under your tongue.

Thoughts on Thursdays?  Fake-tanned,
tangerine skin, the ugliest orange
for the ugliest day.
But Fridays are a healthier green,
think telephone-pole celery,
cucumber truncheons and kiwis.

Saturdays then? Funeral black
speckled with brown sugar
though Sundays are white.
Hurts-your-eyes-like-snow white,
almost transparent, for they come
and dash by with no tone in-between.

No, I don't think you understand how rare it is for me to like you

To just find you attractive because that is fairly common for me

But actually like you like you

Because those are two very different things

Attraction and affection

No, I meant Affection

It should be capitalized

What I mean is

I don't like ALOT of things

Seriously

I’m freaking negative

I am the queen of all pessimism

I don't like:

Bad grammar

When people pronounce words wrong

People who say Pacifically instead of Specifically

Overly optimistic people Example:(Oh your family is in thousands of
dollars of debt your sister just killed herself and your boyfriend just
cheated on you with your mom and you're pregnant with the baby of
the guy who got you drunk and slept with you without your sober permission who happens to have just moved to Asia to escape having to care for you and his baby? Well, you have your health!) –stab-

The number 9 it sounds like it’s on the edge of something. I hate wishy-
washy numbers that don’t go all the way. Resolve to ten already!!!

Movies where there is a completely impossible happy ending thanks to spontaneous magic

Apple juice

Most flowers

Pink (the color)

The Sun

The month of April

Girls who don’t know how to wear pants. Or a shirt. Seriously. Those aren’t shorts. That’s just a belt that ***** at being a belt.

People who try to ****** me

People who freak out at me when I try to ****** them

Mondays

Tuesdays

Wednesdays

Thursdays

Fridays

Saturday­s

Sundays

F!CKING MONDAYS AND TUESDAYS

When people pronounce french words WRONG

PEOPLE who pronounce french words wrong

Reality TV

Holidays that don't even get you a day off from school

Ducks that are yellow. THEY DON’T EXIST the bath toy company is LYING TO YOU

Sticky hands

The color yellow

The color orange

Colors that just seem too… happy. It makes me want to light them on
fire. And impale them.

Obnoxious hair colors

Girls who wear jeans and skirts simultaneously

Overly colorful rainbows

When people talk into your ear and you can feel their warm breath.

Being drenched in water

Character or word limits

Signs

When I get all disappointed because I dreamed someone I hated got hit by lightning and it doesn’t come true

When I wish really REALLY ******* a star but it just doesn’t come true. Then I have to go and fill the grave I had all dug up for them.

Plastic hangers

Man, I HATE plastic hangers

Walking

Running

Standing

Any kind of action that doesn’t include limply lying around

When I look at someone with extreme loathing and they don’t spontaneously combust. It’s very sad.

Raisins

When you THINK it’s a chocolate chip cookie and it turns out to be
raisins. MAIN REASON I HAVE TRUST ISSUES!

But, I do like you.

That’s saying something.

I LIKE YOU.

Really.

Honest.

But you don’t realize how rare that is.

:P

…God, I’m so violent. I should have that looked at...

Well, there's your positivity for the day

I watched the mailman go by again.
He's always at it, delivering mail.
It reminded me how the days pass by and
how theres always Thursdays.
The mailman goes by day after day,
shoving mail into box after box.
I watch him.
I watch his technique.
He doesn't know I'm watching,
but then slowly people trickle out of their houses.
To open the previously closed box
and open the previously sealed letter.
One letter may be special.
So lets be thankful for this doorless truck and its driver.
But really its all about the driver
The mailman.

And on the days
He lacks to shave,
I find it right
to compromise,
The only way
I'll feel his scruff,
is rough against
my thighs.

beginning optional weekday
wielding officialese words
triggering hectic exchanges
determining original gangsters
distributing invisible data
refreshing urbane novelties

yelping our universe
chaining awkward neologisms
scripting encrypted e-books
tackling hacking exercises
cavaliering auric tumult
trivializing our obsolescence

preparing online pentimento
alternating rainy themes
allocating numerous droplets
meandering overseas missions
averting raging tornado
losing outscored lightning

hacking impish 'sblood!
alienating nival drumlins
hearing erudite raconteurs
beer-drinking on thursdays
finding obnoxious rabblerousers
finding upscale negroni

seeing ubiquitous purple
cavorting horse ebooks
inventing twitter subgenre
liking otherworldly vocals
initiating new greatness
defining ambient yesterday?

defining ambient yesterday
fancying oneiric retreat
hailing optimistic chicago
kiboshing expired yogurt
rushing airborne blackhawks
bestowing infinite shivarees

needing baller acronym
fleeting ideal notions
alerting left-coast state
featuring unquiet nights
finalizing orangeball results
nodding occidental warriors

i can feel my feet swelling already
thats how you know when it will be too heavy
or when you will not be strong enough
there are no dots to be connected,
and i want to speak but i know i am the only one who would listen.
my stomach keeps asking me to pull out the drawer
and spill milk, but it's empty so what good would that do me?

the air from my ears is sweet like honey
steam forms your body in my mind, where's my apology?
where's my money?
i can't ask, that defeats the purpose, and all i ever seem to be doing is pulling on yarn hoping to find something at the other end
i'm only unraveling

i need sleep
and a movie
and time to plan my future without worrying what a bald man who wears shorts in the snow will think
or a shiny man who doesn't cover his knees
or a grey man who thinks he can treat me as if we are sexually intimate.
tell me if i'm being oversensitive, okay?

Well, I'm not.

I used to think that all of them were just bodies. She-figures, they came and went, facilitating infinite happiness and following with hellacious heartbreak, aorta explosions galore. They pass. I stay. She goes. I remain. We all take a trip, but she falls asleep while I follow the road, I sing the song, make the lyrics up as the 101 heads West, and I careen against the Pacific. I see silvery-white plumes of whale breaths spouting, they break the rocks of my rock and roll. When the levee breaks, we'll have no place to go- I'm going back to Chicago.

California. Line 5. Verse 1. She is born in Arkansas, in Denver, in New York City, in the back of a taxi cab, her parents waiting for a table at Earth Cafe, 1989. There are concerts, balconies, elevator shafts, and on benches. The gain rises, the volume up and up and up, I offer her a cigarette, I ask her if she likes my dress, I show up with two palms full of a flame, and I say hello. Browsing in high-definition, the water is warm, my feet are planted and I have everywhere to go. Classical emporium of light fill me with ease, greatness, and belief. She asks me if I'm gay. Every great confusion can be proven to be fortuitous with enough time on hand. I kiss in cars, in bathrooms, and barrooms, in hallways, on staircases, on beds, church steps, and legs. I touched a leg, ran my fingers through her hair, my thumbs curved to the height of two ears alongside a size B head. I love art *****. i burn candles, and I swirl the wax around until the walls wear masks of white. I check-in to a hotel. I stop to buy wild flowers on the side of the road, or to climb down a ravine, we open a page into an enormous patch of strawberries, wind-surfers, and the golden Palo Alto beaches. I am in Bronzeville, on my way to Bridgeport, I am riding the train, browsing magazines, and singing new songs in my head. My lips are wet with excitement and the musings of the Modern Art Museum and the gift of a first kiss; behind the statue on Balcony 2, near the drinking fountain, the Eames couch, and two lips meeting anew. Bravery in twos.

Chapter 1, Verse 2. The chorus is large and exciting. New plastic shining coats. Smocks patterned with the Random House children's stories that we played with as children. We didn't wear gloves, or hats, or pants, or our hearts on our sleeves. I was up to my knees in hormones and very persuasive. My fifth birthday was at the Nature Center, you chased me into the boys' bathroom and kissed me with your wet and four year old lips in the second stall from the door. I eased up maybe 2% since then. The speakers are a little bit fuzzy, it's like listening to the spit of someone's tongue cascade the roof of their mouth while they pronounce the British consonants of the 90s. Said and done and saving space.

I am saving up for Grace. A crush in the mid 2000s, black hair, long legs, and the only brunette for a decade before or after. We played doctor, with the electric scalpel we turned our noses red with Christmas time South American powders. A safe word for an enemy, the sun for an enemy too. You bolted out and took my early Jimi Hendrix Best Of compact disc case too. While we're at it, you took my Michael Jackson cassettes as well. I go mid-range, think Kiri Te Kanawa in the whispers of E.T.'s Elliot. Stuffed-animal closet party for seven minutes in heaven. Your family came with butlers while mine came with over-educated storage. A blue borage sky in the intestines of life, a splinter in the shanty-town of invincible daily struggles- both of us were born again in O'Hare Airport's Parking Level D. Too many nonsensical arguments in two-tone grayscale ripping open the packaging of a course about trysting in your twenties.

Your stomach's history is overpowering. It is temperamental, mettled by spirits and sleepless nights, borborygmus, wambles, and shades of nervousness you were never comfortable speaking openly about. The history of your ****** was privatized, in options and unedited films shot over and over candidly by a mini DV desk camera, nine months to read you wrong to weep in strong wintry walks back and forth from The Buckingham to the Dwight Lofts, Room 408 without a view. All of your secrets in a little miniature of a notebook, bright cerise red. You captured teardrops in medicinal jars meant for syringes. You tied strings to your fingers, named your field mouse Ginger, and introduced your mother as Lady Darling. Captain with stingray skin, the hide of Ferris Bueller with the coattails of James Bond, dusted with daisy pollen, and clearly weakness. You ate me like bitter herbs on Thursdays, and like every other woman I've ever met, on Tuesdays you always kept me waiting.

I have wings for everything. Yellow wings for a woman in a yellow dress, Red, White, and Green wings for Bernice from Mexico City, Purple wings for  Mrs. Doolittle the doctor who worked at Taco Bell, the Jamaican priestess who was traveling through Venice Italy- we smoked hash with the grandchild of James Joyce on the Northern pier against the aurulent statues of Apollo and Zeus, Cupids' collection of malevolent tricks, SleepingB Beauty's rebuttal in fending off GHB attackers, my two dear friends who were kidnapped in clothes, abandoned in the ****, and only remember eating chocolate donuts with sprinkles and the bruises and dirt on the insides of their thighs. Nothing clever. Nothing extraordinary. Everything sentimental, built to withstand soot, sourness, and early female bravado.

You know how to play the piano so you've said, but i only have the CD you gave me to prove it. I do have evidence of your addiction to men and *******. I have your collection of dresses with tags still on them (but every woman has some of those), there is the post office box in Kauai, the Halloween card from last November and the two videos I have stored on an external drive in a nightstand adjacent to the foot of my bed. You sleep atrociously, talk too quickly, and **** like your father abandoned you when you were five. Your talent for taking photographs is like your skill-set for playing the piano, but I don't have the CD to prove it. You don't believe in social media, social consistency, friendships, or hephalumps and woozels- with the exception of the classes we shared together in college, I've never seen you outside of the most glamorous of fashion. You hate flats, hats, and white wine, and for as sad as you can seem to be at times, I've only had you cry on me once. While we were on the phone, three days after your mother hung herself. That's when I last left California, and I haven't been back yet.

I love a Kristine, but once a Britni, a Brandi, a Joni, a Tina, Kristina, Kirsten, Kristen, and a Katherine and Kathryn too. I know rock stars who are my dearest friends, enemies who I share excellent taste in music with, and parents who've always had my back but show it in lashings of the tongue and of the belt. It's been two years and three states since I was two sizes smaller than I am now. I've never considered the possibility that I was the main character and not the supporting actor, but due to recent developments in antipathy and aesthete, reevaluation, and retrospective nostalgia. All of this is about to change.

I am me still evolving without my usually stolid and grim ****** features. i bare brevity to situations existing that would **** most or in the least paralyze a great many. There is one for every hour of every day, and one for every minute in every hour, second in every minute, and more than the minutes in every day. No one has a second chance, shares a different time, or works off a different clock. I have been called the master of the analog, king of the codependent, and rook to queenside knight. I share a parabola for every encounter, experience, and endeavor. I am three minutes from being a cadaver, one drink away from a drunk, and one thought away from being completely alone. I think upright, i sleep horizontally, and I love infinitely. I am the only finite constant i have ever known. I am the main character, the script, satire, sarcasm, and soundtrack are mine.

"I don’t care if you believe it. That’s the kind of house I live in. And I hope we never leave it.”

hypodermics lined up like firing squad rifles, loaded with Morpheus' mortal brew

at this "humane" place, where we stare in the face of every critter we "put down"

felines, canines, by the score--there will always be more

we do it Thursdays; each gets its own black plastic bag, for a trip to the incinerator

courtesy of the county's grandest
crematorium

that has donated the friendly fire for our four legged friends;

we watch the trails of smoke fill the night sky

there is no Zyklon B to fear--not here, where we use shots instead of showers

and pass the hours scratching the ears and petting the rumps of those we slaughter with sleep

Every Tuesday night
From January to April
The highlight of my night
Was a chocolate croissant.

I would sit and listen
To theories and methods,
Literature and research,
And on break I would have one.

I would order it each night
With salivating anticipation.  
As I handed over my money
They put it in the oven.  

And each night
They would call out
"Chocolate croissant?"
And I would grab the bag.

I would devour that morsel
With joy and elation,
And as I felt it go down
My chest would warm -

Not only from
The warm croissant,
But also from the joy
Warming my heart.

It was the best part
Of those horrible evenings
Of literature and research
Theory and methods.

Sometimes,
If I was feeling spicy,
I would get two -
One on each break...

And sometimes
On Thursdays
I would get two more
For History and PR.

Yes,
Those chocolate croissants
Got me through
My last semester of college.

When I was feeling stressed,
Or feeling down
From the subject matter,
I would eat one,

And I would feel better.
And I bet
As you are reading this
You want one.

Do yourself a favor,
Go buy yourself
A chocolate croissant -
And enjoy it.  

Let it help you escape
From your worries
And your cares
For about 90 seconds

As you devour that
Delicious pastry.
And let it warm your chest
With chocolate and joy.

What a nice name for a bird.

I bought a bird.
Tuesday mornings seem to fly away now.
Thursdays often nest in my eyebrows
and every second Sunday I could find reason to sing.

The bird took my soul.
and flew away with my money.
I should have never bought a bird.
Feathers ****.

Next month I shall buy a dog, or perhaps a horse, maybe even an armadillo.
But the dog will run, the horse will trot, and the armadillo will roll;
All away.
Pets ****.

Next year I shall find a wife,
and the the month before a band of pearl,
but what If I should run away?
what if I would ****?

I am from too long grass
that left muted green stains on my knees
From rock gardens overrun with punny yellow snapdragons
which delivered into my care all sorts of fascinating creepy crawlers

I'm from ash grey two by fours
which were all together fun to climb on
but gave nasty splinter when they were mad

I'm from the woodchips and sand
that provided me an elaborate landscape
in which to house my boundless imagination

I'm from the tail of sulfur smoke
that burned white hot through the crisp October Sky
and propelled my rocket to high heaven
or so it seemed to my eger eyes

I am from Thursdays
from green and red rhubarb leaves
and dirt under every fingernail
I'm from hurling half-rotten tomatoes
at the fence accross the ally
and running haphazardly from angry neighbors

I'm from lasagna and jell-o
candels on Christmas eve
and the squirt bottle of water
my only defense against ants

I am from obscure old families
who came over like so many others
and played the ***** in the secret choir loft above the church
I'm from woodwinds and piano strings
and never a silent moment
From reading aloud and reading alone
and from those who did the reading

I'm from the future and the present and the past of a million different stories
And I've always been headed towards
Where I'm from.

I wish each blunt I'd smoke
would erase a letter of your name
from the top of my lungs.

You see, you've changed my name
to "C'est la vie, Darling".
My mother died later that year
so the phone calls addressing my forgotten self
stopped eventually.

Two Thursdays ago I had cinnamon buns with Hades.
He was such a flirt with
these benevolent eyes of liquid brown
mirroring my self hate
and bad dub;
casting me away
from your smell in my apartment
right before you wash the day off your mortal flesh.

He bought me scented candles
and invited me to where the roots are,
and there wasn't enough oxygen
to lit up my blunt.

What a specjal day I remember . I remember that small cry from a new born baby at exactly 10:10pm. I remember watching over him when he was one day old as his mother went back into the hospital for ten days to have surgery. I remember how unsure I was that week and scared to death. I remember his gentle smiles when I walked into the room and his eyes when he saw something new. I remember our walks in the park along the trails to see the deer and his excitement to get a .99 cent disney video from the Blockbuster. Back then thats all I could afford. I remember the game rooms and movie theaters and the holding hands and little kisses and hugs. I still remember every word of our special prayer and the father and son song I made up and yes made him sing..lol.   Watching as he ran with his friends down the street and seeing him look back to make sure I was still there and that smile, oh that smile.  I remember rockets in the park, the boat rides,  sitting him on the gas tank of my motorcycle and giving him a ride around the parking lot time and time again. I remember him sitting on his great grandfathers lap and giggling and hoping I would get the chance to see my great grandchild. I remember every Tuesday and Thursdays phone calls at 7 pm just to hear his voice after he was moved to Florida.   Sometimes I would get him on the phone and sometimes I would leave a message but those calls meant the world to me and allowed my week to be just a little better. I remember all of our long and short talks for advice and how he actually listened. Teaching him to drive a stick shift and how he picked it up so fast.  His first girlfriend when she came over and said hi and after she left I said who was that, he said I dont know but im going to find out, and I just laughed. I remember every year taking vacations to Florida just to see him and then four times a year his trips to Ohio to see me. I remember all the tears from both him and me as he boarded a plain to fly back to Florida. I remember the extended family and how much everyone helped out when he was so young. Dont know how I could have survived without that help back then.  Christmas parties, and gatherings and how as a young man he helped me propose to my now ex wife.  His graduation from high school, his friends and  all the places he has worked. I remember how happy I was he decided to live in Ohio and go to Ohio State and how I was more excited on his first day of college then he was.  I remember how sweet he was when he knew my heart was broken and how the son tried to comfort his father when I got a divorce. There are so many thing that I cant even begin to list but most of all I remember and still feel the unconditional love he has for me and I for him. Today is my sons birthday and although he is now a man we spend time together almost every day. He is always my son first but has also grown into a friend and a great young man. I Love you son, always and forever.   Dad

He was the Weekender Boy
with lips that tasted like salty sea caramel
on lovely Saturday mornings
and caresses that felt like soft warm sunbeams
on lazy Sunday afternoons

Mondays she sat behind him in lecture halls
watching the back of his black-haired head
as he flirted in the front row seats

Tuesdays were him walking past her bench
pinning her in place with those glacier blue eyes
that always turned away to porcelain redheaded dates

Wednesdays it was his calls that came at 3:05AM without fail
and she'd listen patiently to his drunken rants and giggles
that sometimes ended in tears and incoherent apologies

Thursdays he exhaled alcohol breaths one-two-three-four
while laying her down across his green vintage car hood
gentle as she moved lithe and languorous beneath him

Fridays they broke dorm rules and shared a room at night
they stayed up over beer and banana milk
and at sunrise she'd wake up in his arms to his smiling eyes

He was the Weekender Boy,
and she was the only girl who ever owned him on weekends.

Some nights are not as good as others
for example I have never loved Thursdays
no Thursday is what you want it to be
and no Thursday night offers enough rest

some nights, maybe Thursdays, I'm awake
laying where I'd sleep with eyes closed
but mind wide open, wishing to be empty
or filled with whatever rest has to offer it

I lay lucid, still as sand, wishing gently
for your warm hand in my hair, shirt
wrapped in me, pressing me into oblivion
on a stupid sleepless Thursday night.

The rats in the walls are chewing our cable lines
The channels that work on the TV are as follows
11 - where we watch the news
29 - where we sometimes watch shows on Thursdays
4 - That’s where we watch sports on Sundays when the Vikings lose again

Wicked September winds are killer in the morning
And all throughout the day
October is relentless,
She pierces like a *****
And our wooden walls can’t stand up to her.

When we watched the Lusitania go down
On that warm May evening
Our hearts sank deeper than its hull
The war was just beginning
The war was just beginning
And when we watched the sailors go up in flames
Screaming for his mothers warm embrace
Sinking with the ship and his captain
Floundering in the warm bay of Ireland
I knew you were dying inside
When you saw the war begin
And I saw it ignite in your eyes
The war was just beginning
The war was just beginning

September mornings seem to get us still
It’s cold in the rafters where the snow owl has chosen to live
At least he keeps the mice away
We can thank him for that later.

There are days now
I don't think about it.

There are moments,
in the dark I
clutch my chest to keep
my heart intact.

There are moments,
in the dark my smile
breaks all lines
of my face and I.




I remember what we whispered.

suddenly i know
where you are on thursdays at 8 pm
the number of pillows in your bed
and what you and your grandma talks about

you only ever saw
the drawn out clothes in my wardrobe
and my hallway plant

all i craved
i got
momentarily

and then
you left

back on the sofa
count the patterns on my wall

no, i know
it was what it was
nothing more
nothing less
i guess

but i rather not have this new knowledge
in the back of my chest
it interrupts my important plans
staring at the wall

His voice is like flowers, his voice is like puddle skipping, hand-holding, his voice is almost like Thursdays and his work is to speak the words of men long dead. But I like his words best, I like his stammerings and stutterings and ums and ohs and the slip of vernacular into something more spectacular than the slip of his tongue into my mouth.

On the mornings I awake empty,
more frequent than few and far between,
I take solace in the supposition
That I have something within me
Worth expending.

I walk around my hundred person hot tub party
and I
cannot feel anything
crawling through my veins alcohol takes over
alone in my yellow living room full of people

\

The girls from the local apartments are here
they arrive in groups of three
five
six
sometimes in long trains of sixteen
I try not to **** my pants with laughter
as I hug and greet each one as they grace my home
I never thought I would be this person
this tongue tied host

\

the felons are here talking about their latest stints in jail
the Olympian is talking about how he walked next to Lebron James at the opening ceremony
the musicians are serenading a girl that does not want to hear it
plastic bags have been placed over the smoke alarms
the marine is talking about killing in the desert
leaning on the northward wall I take a long drag of my blunt trying to look aloofly attractive
, but failing miserably at the act
until she walked up to me
red leather jacket
skin so soft
binding black dress
I liberated her from it and she kissed me
Kissing her back emptied my inhibitions and the morning after: when I found out he was in love with her and I had slept with her; I felt alone all over again
She ran when this was spoken
Me and him fought with our fists
nothing got resolved
all of a sudden
I feel isolation again
just like the party
leaning on the northward wall
having made thirty conversations
none of which compel me
finally leaving me to the world
that exists in my head
THE ONE I CONTROL

\

I have this negative kick back
whenever I feel something going too nice
I just want to be in my room
alone
with a computer
books
marijuana
a chair
pen
paper
precious paradise
I want to run
tear my flesh off my chest
rip into a heavy metal howl
then have blasting music come in
come in from every corner of the room
the bass tones would bounce from the corners
the high tones would bounce of the walls and refract rapidly
and I would be gone
now wondering
what my position is to where they stand

\

What worlds we can mentally create
and which do we want to step into
Sometimes the ability is strong on Tuesdays but not on Thursdays
Why the inconsistency?

A boxer with an undercut goes for an uppercut against his opponent
Who doesn't know the correct pronunciation of the word "sterile"  
Don't you get it?
Cut the cable
And stay inviolate
Perform the synthesis
Wait for the nuisance to abate

Ride on the magic carpet
Be nimble
Pass on
Against the grain
The shrill laughs
Just make your way in the world
Through the Savannah
Going job hunting

Downplay it
A well deserved day off
Coke bottle glasses
Sleepless
Countering verbal assaults
Chopping wood and ******* blood
Oh brother, oh bother
Upstairs, down stairs

Pushed away by bad music
The barista sneezed in my coffee
I wonder what she does after hours
Mercy mild
Made from concentrate
You don't want any part of this
You poor anemic *******
You *** stirrer

in twenty one days, on the twenty first of may, you will be turning twenty one.
twenty one seemed so far away when you were growing up. i remember how you pictured twenty one year-old you, with wavy jet-black hair, thin bones and a radiant smile.
your hair is wavy right now, thanks to the rain that hasn't stopped falling; your bones are the thinnest they've ever been; and i think you've got a pretty radiant smile. so, three out of three, i guess.
and your life is better than what you dreamed.
you are surrounded by so much goodness.
your mondays, tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays and fridays are filled with the laughter of fifteen children that steal your phone to take selfies and give you hugs that leave you breathless.
you have the friends you have always wanted. it took you a while to find them, but they're here now. they are your home.
you are doing beautiful things with your life. your words are in books, in journals and in people's hearts.
your life is more than life. it is light and fire and bravery and hope and a song.
and you are loved.

Polly had a delicate situation
Was zinged by a witch last spring
Which engendered a condition which did cling:
On Tuesdays she was a girl
Who liked scented candles and flowers
And stickers of dragons with magical powers
On Mondays and Wednesdays she was a boy
Who loved dirt bike racing & spicy bok-choy
Thursdays she was a socialist vegan
Fridays a long armed gibbon
And on Saturdays she became, to the chagrin & horror
Of her pets and paramour
A Tea Parti colored Republican!

The ambivalent affect of a cold cup of tea 
On a snowy day, late March 
When everything rings of life and death and urgency 
Like our elliptical elections  
With their Messiah complexes  
Mundane 
Like Thursday desks and tables 
Green tea tainted with undertones of unwashed coffee 
Lingering in the pores of mugs 
The politics of shame 
And all the things I wish I told you 
(I wish I had told someone) 
But cyclical realities are ultimate realities 
And I've chosen mine already 
Woven with interchanging self-destruction 
And re-composition 
Re-construction 
Resurrecti­on. 
Pain. 
Dull, dualistic  
And dripping from my forehead 
Did I mention Thursday? 
Did I mention scars? 
Shall we move to new and different places 
And leave ourselves behind?
Burdens like sticky, heaving blackberries 
Molten, melting, gooey, globbed together and leaking  
Through the cracks in my straw basket 
Heavy. 
Dropping berries walking paths to places 
Falling like blood-bombs 
One by one on the white-brick 
Walking silence into sunsets  
And never looking back at the 
Rotting plasma carnage  
That marks the roads I travelled 
What's left are leaves and stalks and thorns 
A basket dyed dark red and sticky 
Me, poised and paralyzed  
Gasping, gagging, groping in my liberation 
Homesick 
For places that never existed 
    That never will 
Crying stories that never happened 
Fearing creatures never born 
Blisters and bruises, 
Beckoned to oceans 
In the soft-tide I saw my future 
In the undertow, my past 
Riding the waves with crystal foam  
And diaspora trash 
All my chunky sins intermingled with salt and seaweed.
Questions burn me
Bind and blind me
Battered and bleeding 
Left helpless on the floor 
And they yell  
Learn faster!
Learn better, learn well!
If pain leads to the deepest learning 
Then I will know so very much 
Muffled and maimed I'll sink in it 
Drowning,
Docile in the knowing of things.
Facts and figures
Factors, functions, fractions
And formulas
Here are the things I know
Splintered, smiling, basking in their blinding light
They’re my diamonds, my precious disasters.
They are my welcomed death.

Eyes open and perceive
Taking stock of the surroundings
A blood-burned path of blackberries and scar tissue
My knobby-spine leaning against a tree trunk
Sea breeze, and my aura
Free-floating but defeated
Affected ambivalently by these words
By worlds
Spirits and bodies and
Torn flesh and minds
Still always cold questions
Still always early Thursdays
Walking
Working
Willing to draw more breath
Willing to keep walking
To keep working
To keep breathing
And bleeding.