Splitting my back
Washed out
Washed up
Birds silent under traffic
Traffic is all I heard
Change in jars
(not enough quarters
Only nasty copper)
My nose an oozing wound
On my face

I’m looking for good news
In every bottle I find
Lifting my pen
To defend myself
Cutting the clouds
With my own protesting
Chill
Showering under the pale
Light
I’ll pretend to be a
Bald face moon

Dignified

Thanks for coming to see
Me yesterday
You looked like a sweet
Tired stain
To my heavy head and
In my favorite story

Became a vapor
Became a husk
Only moving through things
Transparent
Given up

The invisible rim of the sky
Your untied shoe
Wild pang of hunger
A vicious nod of sleep

Quiet and prowling

some people have battle plans
others have battle cries

I mostly have

dreams of two wet hands
wrangling the  
dumb flesh of fish bodies
from the church of Youth
the child warriors
wanting to hide in
our pictures
I’m only a spy of the soul
infiltrating the office
with my lines of paint and type

hiding behind a curtain of hair
and a coffee cup
in the elevator
praying the ties and heels won’t
ask me
about the weather or how my morning
is going

the clock-
captor, friend
my right eye is forever dedicated
my window faces only the broken
face of a letdown building
where no one shifts
only owning the hallow
just a mirror of my grey skin
the fluorescent buzzes

I’m waiting for the sky to fall

drawing it out on
stolen stationary
passing the time
only it’s passing me
eventually it’s all headaches
and the non-flavor of used
gum
(I chewed it too long again)

I have a tiny whole
carved into the wall
and I’ve been leaving S.O.S in bottles
and my bed sheet ladder
is nearly reaching
the lawn
and beyond that
I know I can finally be the animal
I’ve always dreamt of being

I think I’ll **** on every heel
and tie I see.

swimming outside the rim of sleep,

head near the undertow of the tides of dream-

thinking of our words in circles

pencil acting as a catheter

of my worry,

I’ve been puking into my journal,

I’ve been barking up the wrong tree,

I’ve been in a cave

with a broken lantern-

and the water’s been around my knees.

I’m all teeth, hair and eyes.



I’ve known well the-

truth terror

but I’m still wanting it dressed up-

I asked you to put a happy mask on it

but you said

“I cant pretend,”

I’ve had this red heart shaped locket

for 12 years now.

I got it as a gumball prize

at a rundown Chinese restaurant

(maybe in Germantown?)

A lot of the paint has chipped off

and the tiny keys to it are long gone.

What shows beneath the paint

is shinny tin.

When I was a tacky teen

I would wear it clasped around my

neck imitating Sid but not

knowing it.

I always wanted someone to give me

something like this

but I impatiently jumped the gun and

cranked the dial of the machine

myself,

and the tiny Valentine rolled out.

(SINCERELY, YOURS TRULY)

No sentiment to share.

Now I’m nearly 30

and it hangs on my key chain,

a teenaged 50 cent memory

amongst adult responsibility.

If you see me standing crossed arm at a show,

and spy my red locket,

know that I’m an advocate of

living in the past,

and harboring silly passions.

I lay my love on the string of kite
I admire the thing
as it glides stories high
but detest the burden carrying it

saw you in my dream again
it was as much you as a watered down
pigment of your skin
I dare slit a pallet to paint you
to make the horrors real

too dense to be sunshine
instead
I’d love to be your dark cloud
anchored to your finger with twine

smother the one you love- a slogan I recite
lay only with me
having doubts snuffed into washed out color
a jungle cat full of ****
no desire to hunt
only to smother

one last thing
hold me tight like a found doll you lost
that had been flattened in the road
many times
I lost my button eyes but now
you
can see who I really am

do you remember our trip to the south
and how much fun we had?

yes, and how the dusk dozed,
turning the cotton fields purple
and the cranes flew like
living paper planes
and every star was real
and as bright as the
humble candle flame

yeah
and the bluesmen sang to us