In the parking lot they wear glass masks
And pay authority no respect.
They devour each other and pay dearly for convenience,
They build fires from accumulated Parking Tickets

In the parking lot, the wilderness closes in
And spills over like unconscious thoughts
Into uncontrolled hallucinations,
Glinting fangs and severed heads shift in shadow

pine needles naked bodies and golden hairs
you belong on a silver ship
                                               that goes
                                                            ­   to nowhere
                                                         ­               but
                                              ­                 sometimes
                                                    stops
      ­                                   near
                        paradise
storms blowing at stubborn desire
   filling lungs with memories we thought were lost

we die when the soul is exhausted by the torment
   it has swallowed
                                 like honey
                                                   ...and your skin
when it is next to my skin

I wrote a letter to my 12-year-old self and
It went something along the lines of
“Love Yourself”
but counselling office posters read the same
things so I ripped it up.

See, I used to think that I could fly into the
Sun and it would feel like a warm hug, nothing
So drastic as incineration

Then I saw what could happen to pallid skin on
a hot day and my mindset changed.

I wrote a letter to my 10-year-old self and it
Was more like a warning,

(a red light is flashing, don’t fly into that tower)

Don’t let yourself become cynical
Don’t forget to call your grandmother
Don’t get so caught up in making money that
You’ve forgotten what it means to be a kid

You should be doing loop-the-loops around
That tower,
Roll upside-down, see your city like a bird.

Don red, bleach your apron, do something
Radical to it.

This has become the unsung song of your life

You’ve forgotten to live.

Cut myself on double checking
                   so I stopped.
   Did nothing I wasn't sure of
         and so I
               felt nothing unheard of.
                           Am I lazy in my knowing?
            If I saw life,
would I call her by name,
                                                        in the way
                                                                ­                    some people are
                                                             ­                                                          afraid of?
                                                 Like eye contact
      or tenderness?

1.
it was my first cigarette
in weeks that i hadn’t found
half-smoked on the asphalt
and it still tasted like something
leftover from somewhere
i don’t belong;
its smoke drifted through
the evening city mist like
how our voices used to harmonize
but only when we weren’t trying.

2.
on the blue line through
south central i heard someone
say “i could’ve been president
of the whole world, could’ve
taught y’all something about
success” —
she wasn’t talking to nobody
but the whole train listened
and in that, she taught me
more than any textbook
ever could.

3.
when you stand on 5th
and san pedro you can’t see
nothing besides the cliff
at the end of the world,
but instead of clouds there’s
puddles of ****, instead of
waterfalls there’s shopping carts
filled with people’s whole lives
and everyone down there is
shaking their heads at you —
leave, leave unless you know
what falling feels like.

I do not hate you.  
                                                       But I wish that I did.

(Maybe it would make this
     aching loneliness
easier to accept
if I understood
why

you were not worth
      the love
                  you lost.)

with an unobstructed view of god's boot -
can also be seen
my quaint Victory
Garden, with a babbling pond -
and fresh green shoots
seeping into your Koi Thoughts;  i trouble you
from dull slumbers
to great new heights
of lowdown
***** love.

and may i trouble you again ?