From the comfortable cold
of a comfortable
currently flea free apartment
I extend glass shards to pupils.
If all is lost I am no raft.
I am a knife you forgot was in your pocket.
Once, in Baltimore, on a street
where my host told me
HBO shot some scenes from The Wire,
we danced while ordering five dollar buckets
of Budweiser and whatever else
our intestines could afford. In the morning
I was alive as evidenced by this happening now.
My mom just called
to tell me H.L. Mencken was a real bastard
and I couldn’t agree more
because I was so tired from shaking.
Capsules of varied blood pop and twerk.
I’ve become used to the variances.
Sometimes I wish I was blind on a train
that way I could say to you
that I was blind and on a train
and you might take this all kind of seriously
but I am not blind and I am not on train
and you will take none of this seriously
and maybe I’ll die in the lap of a hospital,
a friend, or a Greek salad - hold the olives.
I’m about as privileged as it gets
but still receive notices of garnishment
from people in plush bear suits
getting their get offs in ways I wish I could.
I wish to set fire to my surroundings
but am so far sane enough
to know I don’t have the property rights
to set fire to my surroundings
and would be criminally liable
for setting fire to my surroundings
and that being held criminally liable sucks
because then you're held in a room
which is not your room
and, if lucky, given a blanket of thorns.
The hum of the fridge is a piece by Brecht.
I shake and shake and shake
but somehow am not for sale
to the general public I am obsolete.
Like that song about having friends in low places,
I’ve got friends in trailer parks
whose security system costs more
than the living space of the property
just to ensure nobody encroaches uninvited.
One summer I lived in a shack by the Atlantic,
not zoned for residential purposes
and coming home to the shack one morning
my neighbor who lived in an actual house,
oceanfront were both of our roofs,
told me he’d noticed I kept odd hours.
I asked him how he’d noticed this
if he didn’t also keep what he called odd hours.
Then I moved and, for a while,
was cold on the idea of prostitution
and by prostitution I mean marked loneliness.
Right now I am listening to Mia,
my cat named after the late Mia Zapata,
chew on her Blue Mountain brand cat food.
When I’m down to Lean Cuisines
Mia still gets Blue Mountain.
She keeps a beat like no other
and another time, the night before a CAT scan,
I travelled to the west side
where my CAT scan was to be held in the morning
and I busted my nut or blew my load
or came or prematurely faltered
as soon as the girl finished breaking a condom
while trying to place it over my cock.
She asked me how I did that
and I said what and she said come so quickly
(guess she’d read Freud’s lame excuse
that doing so was an achievement)
I said forget that and we sat
on an air mattress
above which hung a picture
drawn in crayon and she said
it was her son’s.
I cried and she called
for another condom
and I told her about the CAT scan
on her side of town in a couple of hours
and we made plans for lunch
but there never is lunch
no matter who you’re talking to
there never really is lunch,
or a comet,
you say there will be lunch but O
the dinosaurs are extinct and soon
our lunches will be inside of museums.
Should we bring in the horns
and bring in the blue angles
simply because we’ve remained alive?
One option is a bank for private prisons
while the other is a prison. I shiver
which is to be expected every day
of every calendar year
from now forward.
Once, and believe I regret saying once, again,
but once I stood outside our Arlington apartment
by the swingset
and considered walking
across the street to the CVS
where you once cried
because your copay was almost $500
and we stepped outside
and we called your mom and she paid
over the phone which was a solution for seconds
and a death sentence for a viable future.
Instead of being armed with a kitchen knife,
as I’d once threatened while we lived there,
I’d nothing but November leaves
and those don’t even suffocate.
So I took the blue line back to my dad’s
and relished in the view of COSTCO
and all the people going in and out
and in and out
and in and out
and in and out
of the garage.
I’d rather be a leaf,
which, by now, is no longer.
The Key Bridge is key to peace of mind.
I imagine its bottom
or the cars
that travel below
and becoming below
the cars that travel below.
Then I remember
some asshole is trying to get to the job
s/he doesn’t even want to attend
recruiting fuckers
for a bullshit cause.
Is a corpse on the spokes
a reason to call out sick?
Maybe they work for a corporate demon
who lacks empathy. I’m okay
with being crushed
within a couple hundred yards
of Bridge Street Books
but if my corpse is a spoiler
let it spoil those who didn’t deserve gold.
Stocks of private prisons have risen
and this alone,
and happy winter,
is reason to be alone.
So what you’re telling me is that there isn’t a hot tub
inside of the heaven you say exists?
If only the world were not a structure fire
and the alphabet was not a freezing apparatus.
I’d be on fire, like the Hamilton Hotel was on fire.
A brick structure, targeted for deviancy,
dislocated yet still at the same address.
My father, a former cop, feels shitty
for the way in which he treated its inhabitants.
Here’s to a couple of cheers for natural decency.
The light above our ears stings our ears
while the light above our ears is no heaven.
Three times I went to EPCOT
and three times did I devolve into various deviancies.
Waking up inside of your parents’ house,
sorry to deviate
so quickly, but waking up
inside of your parents’ house
with so much snot clogging the nose
and the noises of you
outside tossing the Panthers brand football
while pretending
as though you gave a shit
as much as maybe my parents pretend
as though they gave a shit
about all of this splatter paint
not housed at Harvard.
Deviant as an African painted dog
which has no sense of law
because it is an African painted dog
and knows only to survive or not. I don’t know.
Maybe some African painted dogs are artists
and are whores or muses
or some other 18th century shit.
I’ve only learned to cry
among those trained to cry.
Yeah, I booked a king bed
when I should’ve booked a double.
I was being an accidental capitalist,
one-eyed, drunk,
wanting. Hotels. Yeah.
I was being
an accidentral capitalist
maybe like I was
the first time you ever saw me
become genuinely pissed
for an ingenuine reason.
I'd driven us
to the incorrect hotel. I'd driven us
to the Best Western when
we had reservations
at not the Best Western
and we were late
for Bis and Sara's wedding
and it shouldn't have mattered
but somehow it mattered
and I shoved some paperwork
back at the desk clerk
for no reason and
even then I felt guilty but
didn't know
you wouldn't allow
a single transgression.
All floors are welcome
to all bodies.
All beds are welcome
to all bodies.
All floors are welcome
to all bodies.
In Arlington I drank a handle of Evan Wiliams a day
and was drug to the zoo after a Caesar salad
across from the mall.
On the national mall
I touched Annie’s –
and got lost on the Metro.
Once inside a rented home the world became inept.
Sitting on the couch I invited Annie to the play.
I felt she was left out but really
I felt I was left out
because the earth
according to all science
was spinning
and I was only spinning
due to unemployment
and three fourths of a handle
of Evan Williams 1783. Most exercise
came from the two mile walk it took
to the ABC store in Ballston.
The play was about the invention of the dildo.
I think it was called the dildo play
and some other words
coming before the words the dildo play
but I am not interested in research.
I once slept inside of a resort
that was once a slave planation.
I am insipid as a spa
inside of a former slave plantation.
November is constantly a miracle
according to my abdomen.
Virginia is beautiful
to anyone hung over inside of a Huddle House.
Spelling is no longer a concern
and maths, too:
set fire to the curriculum.
Rooftops are tempting,
please keep my body away and also
allow my body to go as she chooses,
abdomen and all.
Ouch goes the subpoena.
Curling goes the paper.
Some people pray to a thing or supposed person
supposedly inside of the sky.
I pray to the bottom of a think tank or bottle,
whichever you prefer to call it.
Waking up is a concern
pawned to the blood.
Vessels were once considered ships.
H.L., that motherfucker, had a quote
once worthy of italics but my mind is shot
and gelato once soothed the cock
but now I’m staring at stars -
unconnected as all other objects.
Memories of the bay
have been stamped, no not stamped,
but branded
on the brain.
Raspberry beef dip.
Hold on to your tan.
How some cisgender motherfucker like myself
gets through the day is beyond blank.
When everything appears to be a travesty
where else is there to go
but the rooftop pool
with the rooftop view?
We go to resorts
but the resorts used to be plantations
and we say this is okay
because wine is being served
and history is being absorbed
by dedicated women hovering over butter churners.
My tongue still burns from the night before.
At the butter churning shack I’m told
that somebody once said something important
inside of the butter churning shack
and on the inside I scream
and on the outside I sweat
and on the inside the wine goes down
and on the outside eventually the wine goes out.
Meanwhile on the rooftop
someone who lives beneath the rooftop
lets me onto the pool deck with his key fob
without failing to say
let me show you how we live around here
then on the pool deck I say that happened
and my soul and I think that’s funny
then we get a sunburn
and the man with his key fob and his shaved head
and his recently sculpted body
goes into the receptive public
and he shows off his accepted body
and all goes well for a day or two
until nothing is well
and there is an asteroid
and I’ve always been afraid of asteroids
but the asteroid occurs
and all of our tongues are mutually burnt.
Right now I’m dressed
for the impending blizzard
by which I mean I’m comfortable
and sweating all over our ideas.
I love a woman named Crystal
but don’t actually know a woman named Crystal.
In twenty ten I attended a fetish ball
and also then there were a projected ten million starving.
Most days are a cleaver in terms of continuance.
I’m freezing, as of course,
as most people dependent upon a substance freeze.
Always there is the possibility of going south
for the winter and for the life
and cheers
to the detriment of a BBC style drama.
Inside Illinois a state rep is being indicted
for using taxpayer dollars
to turn his office into a replica of a room
prominent in scenes from Downton Abbey
and I say if you’re going to misuse tax dollars
at least make a motherfucker laugh
and for this I feel
he should receive a reduced sentence.
I mean, I believe prisons should be burnt
but that’s a bit lofty
‘cause even if we all agreed to that
the structures aren’t very flammable.
Screaming to my dad
about the appeal
watching the mean drunk eyes
of the relapse
because he has to tell his daughters
nothing will be okay.
Nothing will ever again
be okay. Okay
so tonight we’re going to be nice to one another,
okay?We’re going to be civil
and all that shit
and talk out our differences.
I can no longer remember my passwords
to various aspects of life.
I receive constructive criticism in the mail
saying that some lines need more elaboration
or that some lines
need more explanation such as the line
A word is not your home and a word is not its definition
and I want to scream back
to the editor that a person doesn’t write a line
like that one or any one
to elaborate or to explain
but to blow up
in front of the faces of the person it confronts
but instead I get up
and I dry my eyes
and I put on a robe
before the shower I elect to take
before I go to work.
This world needs more bombs in the form of words.
Words are not where the peace should be hidden.
Fuck you.
Fuck you and your need for explanation
Fuck you and your need for elaboration.
This is my happy place.
This is the angry page.
The page with furrowed brow
and dilated pupils
staring into the crowd
knowing that soon
everything will all be over.
At least I’ve no daughters
who need consoling. No son,
especially no son of yours
who needs help being raised
and taken to and from baseball
to and from the birthday party
to and from the no reason party for kids party
to and from football
to and from school
to and from boy scouts
to and from Target for toys
to and from the yogurt place for yogurt
to and from a what adults call play dates
to and from a trunk or treat
to and from his dad’s house
to and from your mom and dad’s house
to and from the skate park
to and from Game Stop
to and from the Dollar General
to and from laser tag
to and from the bounce house
to and from the Redbox
to and from the other Redbox
to and from the water slide
and back again to the water slide
to and from the arcade
to and from another arcade
and back to the waterslide just one more time
just in case nothing fun was found
at any of the above locations
just in case there was nothing
he’d been rightfully taught to consume
was acceptable,
technologically or in the flesh,
to and from and
to and from and
to and from and and and
Fuck you
Have fun.
By the time your kid knows
who the president is
and what being the president means
your kid will have adapted
enough to the world
to be impressionable.
Maybe all the pussies he’s seen
at your parents’ house
all his life so far, growing up
around cats and me and you
calling each other
kitty kat, pussy kat, keddy,
keddy cat, maybe he’ll think it’s cool
to just grab them as he fancies
although I can’t imagine
his imagination imagining, yeah
his eyelashes are astonishing
but what about brain
development? Not all of them do
and not to be evil but fuck it,
you’re not the best bananas foster in town.
Let’s do the maths, if we can
do any maths at all.
Maths are so hard.
Divided between your tired brain
and Dale’s proclivity
for domestic violence,
your kid, Dominik, I’ve abstained
to mention him by name,
so far but as previously stated,
fuck it, Dominik
will either be the harbinger
of a new age
for situationists
or he’ll revive Dada
or he’ll die in a gutter
broke and wishing
kind of like us
kind of like all of us
not just you and I
but you and I and Dale
and his parents and your parents
and my parents
and all of our cats will eat our flesh
and there will be nobody left to put them down
just cuz.
Are we obsolete in this world yet?
Some franchisee chose to open a Char Bar 7 near here
Remember, probably not, but remember
when we went to look at the second house
which we were considering cohabitating
and we were so excited about the door frame
and the fenced in yard for the dog
which we didn’t have but imagined
and the large unused room which could be used
as a play room? We were so excited
that we went to a Char Bar 7
and ordered the most expensive shit, like the Mahi
and the broccoli and all the specialty cocktails,
we could order because who cares
and life was moving in a certain trajectory.
We showed pictures of the place
to your mom in her living room
and she was excited too. At the time
it seemed she was excited for us but right now
on November 17, 2016 I wonder
if she just wanted you out of her house.
There is supposedly a super moon tonight,
November 17, 2016, I don’t know
what that means but it sounds appealing.
The realtor called and said the place was ours
with a certain credit score
which neither of us possessed
and I sat in a leather recliner
and you stroked the grease of my hair.
Cartoons, of course,
were on the television.
The first house we looked at
which we were considering cohabitating
had built in bookshelves
and what looked
like a ska-inspired
checkered floor
or maybe just something
from the sixties
or maybe
I know nothing about
architecture or design.
We talked about the privacy
the wooded front yard
would allow for our living and
after turning on the light
in the room we thought
might be Dominik's
we made out and
decided to take it
outside to the private
wooded lot and
you took a sleeping bag
out from the trunk
and we did what we called
marking the yard then
we got kabobs on the way back.
I still have pictures of this
which I intend
soon I intend
to burn. All the assaults
upon all of the senses
continue their effrontery
and we should all be ashamed
except for when we show our assholes
to the camera man but here,
here in our lives,
there is no camera man
with an interest in documenting
our constant disappointment.
There is only
what’s on fire.
There is only the house
in which we’ll never live
but still love the blue
of its shutters.
I’ve friends with kids
and feet that freeze.
Whatever I guess I’ll drown
in the lazy river filled
with foam LEGOs.
We threw water at one another
as though water has meaning
other than life itself.
We floated around a circle
and relaxed beneath global crisis.
We switched rafts as though
we could switch globes
when the drowning seemed not too real
but just real enough
to be considered real.
After the lazy river
we did another round
of the lazy river
and another and
then it began to thunder
and all the patrons were kicked out
and we drank whiskey gingers
at the LEGOLAND Hotel bar
while watching a LEGO competition
for three to seven y/o’s
being hosted by someone, by some
princess, I don’t know her name,
real or fictional,
from the movie Frozen.
The LEGOLAND actress
or princess depending
on your belief system
asked one four y/o girl
what she made and she said
with as much conviction
as anyone can have she answered
a gun! And the fake princess
didn’t know how to react
to that answer.
You were off somewhere
and I was laughing
and you came back
and you asked why
and we shared that,
the fourth to last thing we ever shared.
I saw Crystal at the grocery store tonight.
Inside my cart at the time was cat litter
a box of pinot noir and dish detergent.
I was still in the market
for almond milk,
maybe a candle,
dinner and a couple of cacti.
But I’m such a chickenshit.
I should be pelted with eggs
the way Jello proposed
a statue of Dan White be erected
and then pelted with eggs, eggs
and tomatoes. I’m such a fucking
sweating puddle.
I only saw Crystal
at the grocery store tonight.
I didn’t speak to Crystal.
Even though I’ve been dreaming, really
I’ve been having dreams
of seeing her outside of the workplace.
I fled without using my coupon for 10 off 50.
I fled because I was under lights
and the world is a broad thing
filled with constrictors.
Crystal will, for now, remain in dreams
assuming I can sleep tonight.
Alcoholic that I am, I was only in there
for a couple of items
and had a glass in hand.
(This is a cosmopolitan
place of commerce)
She doesn’t know
that I rarely eat
and still somehow manage
to be a successful glutton.
I hope she didn’t see me
in her peripheral as I saw her
in my peripheral. The periphery,
I’ve heard, is dangerous.
So tomorrow the coffee will be black,
so what? The cats
will have a place to shit.
I’ll become sufficiently incoherent
and if able, wash the dishes
in the morning.
In the morning,
which will contain your absence,
maybe more.
I sent just sent my mom a video
of Dead Kennedys' Stars and
Stripes of Corruption
after having a conversation
about how I’d get the shit
beat out of me tomorrow night
if I went out into the world
and tried to have a conversation
about the world in which we live.
I feel and I don’t know
whether this is the first time
I’ve used the word feel so far
in this trance of a desert
we’ve decided to enter for fun
but I feel I feel so fucking much
like being inside of the dumpster
of the local zoo hoping
my carcass could be recycled
for some common good
if that’s a concept
that even still exists.
I still panic when thinking
about panicking
while shopping for almond milk.
Inside Medina, Ohio
a similar panic arises
over the concept of thanksgiving.
How to tell the family
that another family
has elected a Chinese buffet
like the one in that one movie
they saw that one time
during the holiday season?
It’s all such a structure fire.
We’re all burning
but the pace at which we burn
at the stake or as a steak
varies. Rare, medium-rare,
medium –medium - well- if
you order anything well
done. I’m disgusted
by generalizations
and place my body in that
when I say ordering something well-done
infers a sense of control
that should be abolished.
Any sense of self has been mulled in the mixing bowl.
All congruence has become
something to be tossed out
with the howling of the neighborhood dogs
of whom there are many. So
Fuck you.
Fuck you and the porn
which you hide behind
we are all part of this porn
being dragged by a horse maybe
I use too many verbs
so hang my ass for it but I’m kidding
because you can’t hang somebody
by the ass and if you want to: try.
It is a cold morning
in this life and yours
it is a cold morning
and the cats
all curling up like some rat king,
they all know better
than we know.
Last night, I think,
I walked out of the bar
without paying my tab again.
I feel bad about this, almost
bitter. I blame
Guy Debord
instead of blaming myself
as it should be. See,
I was reading his book
Panegyric. I think
I got to thinking
about the other people
in the bar and my body
in the bar and I got scared
about all of our positions
in the bar and
something very electric
occurred between my fingers
and I walked out
of the bar without paying.
It’s 8:05AM right now. Shaking,
of course, and shopping
for exits. Anybody round here know
where somebody can get a good exit?
It’s all in the bag.
The bag is a scary bag.
I smell the ammonia.
Who isn’t afraid of the bag?
I thought about
seeing a prostitute
before noon
then thought twice
about seeing a prostitute
before noon. I thought
three times
about the concept
of prostitution,
made a cup of coffee
(no creamer, you know,
‘cause of the shakes)
and settled in bed
with a box of wine.
I think you sent me
into some never before seen
late, well, you know,
how they say late stage
when it comes
to alcoholism? I think
you sent me
into late stage depravity.
Mourning, noon,
and every night
all thoughts
are directed
toward the singular goal
of self-destruction.
A gun will not do.
This needs
to be natural.
Is a gun not natural
screams my head
and I don’t know
how to answer her.
Why
am I even awake right now?
To see the news
to see the news
to see the news
I want to sweat and I do
I do sweat all over town.
The people go in
and out
and in out
and in
and out. In this stage,
the alcoholic typically manifests
an utter disregard for everything.
So says the Internet
and I believe it. I believe it
as I’m so taught to believe it.
It’s on the Internet.
Somebody must mean it.
Somebody somebody
somebody must be real on the other
end of this.
Indefinable fears
of fucking course
Unreasonable resentment
only toward myself
And hostility toward others
not yet but who knows
Auditory and visual hallucinations
always and forever
Persistent remorse
since I was in grade school
The possibility of psychosis
affirmed then reaffirmed
“The shakes” “The DTs”
realities and myths
Devaluation of personal relationships
personal what?
Loss of tolerance for alcohol
working on it damn it
The realization of being out of control
interesting
Impaired thinking
constantly
Nameless fears and anxieties such as
feelings of impending doom or destruction
asteroids, anyone?
Vague spiritual desires
ever since first communion
The collapse of the alibi system
that exists?
Continual loss of control
been there
Moral deterioration
am there
Benders or lengthy intoxications
of course
Obsession with drinking
That’s all you have to offer?
Can we become a bit more moribund
like the pope or somebody?
So it has to be said
that it doesn’t have to be said. Nothing
has to be said.
Last night
in the bar,
in Neville’s, all I said
was do you need me to move over
the answer was no.
Most people say no to that
except on military appreciation night
everyone always
wants me to move over
regardless of where we might be.
I just wrote to Juliet, told her
I hate capitalism
but if we could both
live forever
off the profits
of a reversible cake decorator backslash
dildo then I think
I could be at peace.
Is that the only way
I could be at peace?
That would be
a disappointment. My mom
sends me an email
and a text
that reads whatever you do
don’t look at the news don’t look
at the news whatever you do
no kidding don’t look
at the news and so
of course I immediately
look at all of the news.
My feet are freezing,
I might’ve told you
my feet are freezing
I might die from it if not
my feet are freezing
my skin is uncomfortable.
Dysphoria, all around,
not just gender.
My whole is freezing.
Remember
when we went to the zoo
and you were happy
and Dominik was happy
about seeing the gorilla
get fed? I feel
like that gorilla. I think
I don’t know
how that gorilla felt.
Although my mom tells me,
and I think she might be lying,
that gorilla was my first word.
I don’t know. I was there
but don’t remember
kind of like last night
but with plausible
deniability.
That sounds like a lie
the goodhearted kind of lie
moms say about their kids.
But my mom, my mom talks shit
about moms who lie
about the achievements
of their children.
Certainly she wouldn’t
cover me in sugar
in front of her friends?
My mom is more sincere
than you or I. There is
a cat clawing my shoulder, you
know those commercials
about depression
and how to get rid
of depression? A cat
clawing a shoulder
sounds like a descriptor
for the way those commercials
put sugar all over depression.
I just wrote an email
to a former professor.
It reads like I’m on a lot of coke.
I’m not on a lot of coke.
Coke always results in closed blinds,
closed blinds and too many
romantic comedies.
Over the weekend I guess
I responded to a bunch of ads
on the Craigslist personal encounters section,
whatever. I didn’t remember
until today, a Monday,
when I got a text from someone
named Frank something or other
apologizing for the late reply
and wondering if I was still interested
in a NSA hookup, probably
on Wednesday night, sober
and feeling the pull
of a desire to be within the realm
of relative normalcy
I deleted Frank’s text
finished my Camel 99
and went back into work
to send emails to strangers
about shit I don’t care about.
Some days are difficult;
others are a Lisa Frank drunk rough draft.
Today was a fine balance
between those two.
Some cavalry responds
inside of the ribcage and the skin,
the skin also responds.
The skin revolts
against what I do to it daily
sometimes on purpose and
other times as a tertiary result
of my sickly lifestyle.
My index finger has a scar
from trying to retrieve
a drunk frozen pizza, I mean
I was drunk
and trying to retrieve a pizza
from the oven. I’ve never
met a drunk pizza.
My arm has many scars
from washing dishes in Arlington
and taking knives from the washer
and deciding what it was
that I decided. In the morning
when my parents picked us up
up to visit the zoo. I’d forgotten
to put on long sleeves.
Each puppet has her individual limits.
I am one of them. I stand
in solidarity with the puppet
who has her individual limits
and, in being a puppet, lack the capacity
to properly respond to this knowledge.
Some fucking kiln we’re in, huh?
Sometimes, I think, it might be better
just to melt along with its contents.
I freeze while touching these letters.
I talk to a friend. I scream
from a hotel lobby I’m wearing black
so as not to be seen
beneath any of the lights. I can’t believe
I’ve never been convicted
of any of the aforementioned offenses.
We’re told that the world’s an oyster,
slimy and sometimes
smelling and feeling
like thousands of potential babies
scurrying down your throat
like the rats beneath Paris. The ribs
are other forms
of a catacomb.
Creative impulses
are for creatures with resources
but fuck it,
you know:
it’s my mantra.
While trapped inside the monastery.
I suggest that the official slogan
for Buddhism if, anything
is to be official about Buddhism,
should be Buddhism: Whatever.
Fuck it we’ll try again next time
and again and again and
again. A lot of chances
can be a trying experience.
Once I went to bingo
and considered shooting up
the entire community center
but without a gun
and without heroin
it’s kind of hard
to take comfort
in the kinder birds
that the sun inside the life
sometimes offers.
Cockwaffles.
Fire plays a part
in our disintegration. So
some darkness encroaches. I get updates
from my mom
about Kanye’s mental state.
It’s comforting.
Yeezy sang he goes off
when he’s off Lexapro and I wonder
if he’s ever tried Seroquel?
Lexapro didn’t’ do shit for me
except cause me to repeat things
three or four times
to my friends
before they pointed it out
and requested I stop. That,
and eat two lunches at lunch
because I would totally forget
that I’d just eaten lunch.
Seroquel seems to help
in quelling the desire
to ruin everything decent
happening in my life
at any given moment.
It doesn’t always save me
but it helps.
The shit’s expensive
even with insurance
but Yeezy’s got that Seroquel
with no insurance money.
Basically I go to work
for the insurance
so I can afford the medicine,
the social containment,
the extortion, I need
in order to stay out the hospital. Sometimes
I still end up in the hospital
but when I do it’s a fluke
and I’m out
relatively quickly.
I function, sometimes
I’m faking it but I function.
Sometimes
I still take a kitchen knife
to my left bicep
and sometimes
I punch myself repeatedly
in the gut until I bruise for weeks.
Despite all this Seroquel helps
to remember
there is a future.
Remember
the afternoon you came here
just to say you were leaving? Probably
you don’t remember the afternoon you came
just to say you were leaving but I do,
it’s carved
into my arm
as you might suspect
but don’t care to consider.
Whatever. Sometimes
you ask how I’m doing
exploiting your sister
and brother in law
as a conduit. Sometimes
I tell them to tell you
I’m doing well, other times
I tell them to tell you
that I’m embarking on an avowed decline
into alcoholism, visions,
and some kind
of so far indiscernible
skin cancer. Regardless,
of the answer I ask them to impart,
you never actually respond. Sometimes
I think they’re asking me
even though you never asked them to.
Actually that’s probably every time.
You’re too cold a human,
what with your hoodie
always wrapped around your hair helmet
as you nap all goddamned day.
For a couple of years I thought
your indifferences and your naps
were some kind
of monk-like transcendence
of which I was incapable
of obtaining. Now
I think you don’t give a squirrelfuck
about what happens
in the world that surrounds you.
We haven’t spoken
since the latest developments
in fascism, plutocracy,
inequality and global devastation.
We haven’t spoken
in a year. I’m guessing
if I were sitting on a stool,
drinking a glass in your parents’ kitchen,
trying to ask you about it all
you’d probably say
huh?
So that shit wasn’t meant to be
but what it is?
Show me something
that is meant to be
and I’ll probably say
destruction
but maybe not.
There’s no knowing.
There’s not much of anything.
All variants
much in accordance
with the bullshit gears
with which we were born.
What do I mean
by any of this? I don’t know,
if you want to know
try opening me up
and asking my organs.
My organs my know
what’s going on inside themselves,
maybe not even that,
we’ve never spoken.
I think I’ve been set
to repeat. I walk
into rooms and walk back
into the room from which I walked
and there are very few rooms here,
two rooms
and a kitchen,
but it’s enough space
to play jokes on a brain in decline.
I need more comedy in my life
so I turn to a screen
which offers little but I watch
and when I watch I argue
with an image which can’t argue back
but I continue to argue
with the image
and the image becomes imbedded
and I believe my pillows
are the images imbedded
and just for one night
I mean just for one morning
what would it be like
to wake up
not with a forged image
but a fucking friend?
Don’t despair.
An intelligent woman
bought your cats toys
just ‘cause. Try not to think
as you pass the guns
on the gun rack
inside of Walmart
about the guns
on the gun rack
inside of Walmart
on thanksfuckinggiving.
She bought your cats toys
and “wouldn’t object”
to having Starbucks
after the holiday,
“of couse.” I wanted to say
that not only
was there much better
coffee available in town
but that I try
not to go into Starbucks
not out of pretention
but because I have PTSD
from living with Ellen
and having to go
to Starbucks sometimes
up to three times a day
and just looking
at the logo, just thinking
about the Starbucks logo,
to quote Fiona, my fingers
turn to fists (I never
did anything to you man)
but I didn’t say
any of this instead
I said I’d never object
to coffee. She said
“nothing too serious,
caffeine can be dangerous.”
I didn’t mention
Balzac, for a couple
of reasons. Over coffee
I’ll spill my pretention,
my baggage.
Try not to think
about the pepper spay in Dakota
and then think
about the pepper spay in Dakota.
Try not to think
about the “Sozzled Nazi Werewolf”
in a position to position
the nation-state
as a WMD. Then,
think about that
and the fact it was already there;
the barrel, the trigger,
the bomb, there just wasn’t
anyone at the helm
who knew
or wanted to know
about all of that, know
what I’m sayin’?
Of course not.
Goddamnit. I just found out
a favorite poet
is charging up to 300 bucks
for online astrology readings.
Whatever. A girl’s gotta eat
and I read the HuffPo
Women’s daily (Libra)
horoscopes most mornings
while sitting at my own job,
which I kind of hate
in its own right so who am I
to get pissed
about how someone
earns the requisite money
to live
in this world
that’s been designed
so that money is requisite.
Money should be optional
but that is another discussion
to be had on another day,
a day when I’m not trying
so hard not to think
about the pepper spray in Dakota
and just when I’m trying
so hard
not to think
about the pepper spray in Dakota
I gotta think
about secretary of Housing and
Urban Development. Goddamnit.
I hope this reaches you, Ellen,
Crystal, Clark, Juliet, Lucy, mom,
dad, everyone. I hope
this reaches someone
before the fucking world
explodes
just ‘cause
somebody said
make it so.
I hope this reaches
someone but I know
this will never reach anyone.
Oh and also,
before I forget,
At Least 57 Dead In Iraq Truck
Bombing Targeting Shiite Muslims,
Dozens Killed In Scaffolding Collapse
At Construction Site In China,
Tenn. School Bus Crash Claims
Another Victim As 6th Child Dies,
Ralph Branca, All-Star Pitcher
Who Gave Up ‘Shot Heard
‘Round The World’ Dies,
World’s Tallest Waterslide
To be Demolished
After Boy’s Death, so,
you know,
happy holidays and shit.
I've got to bring one of the cats
to the vet tomorrow.
He might have worms or,
at best, his anal glands
are clogged
with unnamed stinky goo.
No wonder, though.
The world is difficult.
Some day it will be my anal glands
feeling the pain.
Assuming continuance,
of course, which can never be
assumed. There are so many options
for a purposeful exit
and as exhibited above
there are many more options
for natural, or accidental,
depending on your state of mind
exits. The exit,
it’s going to happen
on my terms or theirs.
The idiom
In a world of hurt
is something I just said
aloud to a mirror.
This morning
shifting in and out
of consciousness
I kept seeing Steve
Bannon addressing a group
of Muppets. I’ve got
to stop watching
so much news. Right now,
maybe more than ever,
prostitution
as well as all drugs
should be
decriminalized. Aren’t you
for natural freedom,
Steve? I need solace
and all of the poetry
seems cut with baking soda.
I need a hole,
a warm warm hole. I need
a place to go
that welcomes me,
real or fictional,
I don’t care. Designer
or designed by your god,
the latter being
the vagina, the former
being ecstasy. Grand design.
I think I’ve stumbled
on a subject for an essay,
maybe even a book,
which I’ll never write so
if you know what I might mean
please write it on my behalf.
I relinquish all rights
to the thought.
Intellectual property
is still property
and all property
is disgusting. I wonder
where are you
this holiday season?
The ideas I have
are all pretty evil.
I haven’t eaten all day.
It’s supposedly a holiday
dedicated to food.
I fear for disease. Remember
at the tiger rescue
two winters ago
back when we were a family
and the volunteer guide
told the story
of the drug dealer
who, when picked up
on drug charges, had his tiger
repossessed
and the tiger rescue
took the tiger in ‘cause
they happened to have room
and then the dealer got out
and showed up
at the tiger rescue
demanding the return
of his tiger and the volunteers
gave him their tiger handling
equipment and told him
to go for it
but that they wouldn’t help
and the dealer left
without the tiger and now
this tiger lives at the tiger rescue
for us to be told that story
by the volunteers
at the tiger rescue?
I felt really warm that day.
It was cold but
we were family,
life’s extra padding.
I am cold today.
I wish to be mauled.
Back to that bullshit
about elaboration
and explanation
fuck all that.
The world is a tiger and
from the world
I do not
recuse this body.
Enjoy.
As a porn actress
how many times
can you be
in a movie
that claims
you’re fucking
a black cock
for the first time
before the redundancy
is no longer worth
the pay?
It must be difficult,
even more so, now
‘cause of the fucking
Internet. As soon
as you do a shoot
it’s online
and free and maybe
once there was a time
when people watched
and believed
you were actually fucking
a black cock
for the first time
‘cause they hadn’t seen
you fuck a different
black cock
thirty seconds
before seeing you fuck
this one. Life
is a delicate doll. Life
is too delicate a doll
not to want to break
just for the sake of breaking
something
so delicate.
Go ahead.
Break up your life.
Your life
is too porcelain a subject
not to throw
up against rented walls.
Put in a maintenance request.
Our balance,
she’s broken.
Drunk
up at the vet’s.
The vet knows.
I know. She knows.
I couldn’t help it. I said
At lunch
penetrating
a white sea
of nuclear
family
togetherness,
I walked passed
the jewelry store
where I was working
on having your ring
designed
just three weeks
before you decided
to end us.
The door was open
and the owner
recognized me
from 13 months ago.
He wasn’t angry
I never purchased
one of his products
but, being
a peddler
of seemingly
permanent symbols
of love, he was curious
how everything
turned out and so
now all drunk
up at the vet’s
I’m telling the doctor about all this
and sweating
and she doesn’t care
she suffers me
and I tell her you worked or
still work
as a vet tech
I don’t know
where you work or
whether you're alive
or not
it’s no longer my business.
Crystal,
I’m sorry
in advance
for when you find out
that I’m nothing
but a lech
with numerous
physical and mental
derailments.
I’m sorry
that wearing a collared shirt
everyday
is misleading.
I do like you.
I do like everything
I know about you
so far. I like
how much more
intelligent you are
than I will ever be.
I’m not talking
about books.
Fuck books. I’m talking
about putting your mind
to use in ways
that could be helpful
to others. Fuck.
All the world’s pizza
won’t get together
to forgive us
for this. I don’t remember
Why we’re talking
about what we’re talking
about and
I’m puking
while on a small town’s
tilt-a-whirl. Screaming
about everyone’s potential.
Remember
when we were dying
together in a room
and nobody seemed to notice?
I just asked
I just asked
I just asked a friend
I asked a friend about this disease and
I texted Nicole
about how tingly I felt
about seeing Stars Hollow again.
Stars Hollow
being the titular town
represented in Gilmore Girls.
I’m stuck
inside. I forgot
my book
about all the characters
from Gilmore Girls
burning down all sorts
of institutions and
setting fire
to the established order,
Rory Gilmore Wants To Fight
it was called
and it was a semi-finalist
in the 2011 or 2012 Rose Metal Press
Short-Short book contest
and it was one
of five finalists
in the 2010 PANK Magazine,
I don’t remember
what it was called book contest.
Now it languishes
along with all the other shit
that languishes
and I’m happy. I’m happy
you’re engaged to some asshole
I’ve never met, my only qualm:
he finds it prudent
to propose
on Thanksgiving day.
Fuck him.
I’m wearing a woman’s raincoat
I think
the fact that you’re engaged
is the reason
nobody is returning my calls.
Everything turns
very metallic in the mouth.
Friends disappear for days,
for lives.
So what
the world spins
as we’re told?
I never thought
about marrying you
or I did and
don’t remember
and by you I mean, you,
Lucy. I never thought
about marrying Lucy,
there was just that one wedding,
her brother’s wedding,
when I smoked cigars
with her dad
and five other|
senior citizens
and he said
this is my future son in law
and I imagine
he says that about everyone.
After that
we had to pick up some pot
in the Harris Teeter parking lot for
somebody
nobody
knew.
It was strange times and
I hope your marriage is strange times
and I won’t be present
unless AJ and I are allowed
to be bridesmaids.
About marriage,
I did think
about marrying Ellen
all of the time,
and then
we mutually died
inside a bowl of rice
every day. The risen ghost
of Guy Debord
can’t help me
out of this situation
but maybe, the risen
digital ghosts
of Rory Gilmore can.
I’m shaking.
The cold
envelops.
Not even this fictional town can save my ass.
A lot of work has gone into my panic attack
inside the vet’s office.
So, you know,
I’m thinking,
maybe I’ll die
by purposeful MSG overdose?
Maybe I won’t but
that one night in Carrboro
when my dad and I went to see !!! (Chk
Chk Chk)
because I was going anyway
and I basically dragged his ass there
and I think he thinks
he’s going to die
way sooner
than he probably will
and so he volunteers
and is down
for whatever.
Before the show we ate
at some Thai place down the street
from the venue and
I fucking freaked
once we got back inside the hotel
I puked and I freaked and I sweat
all over the bed and
Friday at the vet’s office
I almost did the same but
Doctor Janet Johnson
probably doesn’t have the same tolerance
for the human instability
of a stranger
as she does
for cleaning diarrhea
from the ass of a cat
she’s met twice before.
I haven’t eaten today.
According to episode one
that’s okay and
sometimes a way to cope
and even while drinking
adults forget to eat
then they drink
and maybe
cope
and I am so covered in smell
the cats are stuck.
So basically the lesson is
maybe die early
so none of this
is ever experienced?
Today I was afraid.
All day at work
I was afraid
of the coin I dropped
into the lint trap of the dryer
It was crippling.
It was so crippling.
I sent you a picture
of one of the cats
enjoying the cat toys you bought,
huffing
with pure contentment
the medicinal catnip
thinking, probably,
I could stay here forever
and that’s not a thought
I’ve ever had; that I could be content
in one place forever.
Then I thought, again,
about Lucy’s upcoming marriage
and about how maybe
since she has a career
with a desk she thinks
she’s supposed to get married
and then I thought
that for a couple of months
I was saving up
for an engagement ring
inside of a memory box
V bought me as a Christmas present
on a year when
I got her nothing as a Christmas present.
I was saving that money
and then I spent that money
on seafood and scotch.
The memory box
still sits in the closet I meant
to fill it with printouts of prison letters
I’ve transcribed for legibility but so far
there’s only one.
I’m doing nobody
any good.
I didn’t go to work today. Some days
are not the day
to go to work. Some days
are so clouded with actual clouds
and doubt about the current global circumstance
that you must remain in bed
until 1PM before facing the rest
of the house.
The house
is a house split in two.
It is a house containing two homes.
I am worried
for the future of your child and
by you I mean the general population
and the You who is being addressed because
as mentioned above,
fuck you.
I’m sorry
but can’t seem to stop screaming
into the white void that is this screen
and I am so privileged. I am privileged
to have the ability to scream
into a very expensive screen. I am worried
because my cats keep staring at the ceiling
which never a good sign
like having an office meeting
at 4:45 on a Friday I hope
we’re all just distracted by the shadows.
With my holiday bonus
I will pay the fees I owe
to the library because of the look
Jenny gave me when I said I owed fees
to the library. I think
that might be why we don’t talk anymore.
We had one coffee date
during which I sweat
throughout the entire experience
even though it was February
in North Carolina,
something that can’t be blamed
on the climate crisis.
This is a crisis
of the internal
which cannot be curbed
by any of the current science,
not even your wings.
So I’m trying to watch the movie
Tom At The Farm
for about the fifth fucking time
and my cat keeps tearing the TV
off its wall-mount. Did I mention
that I’m way too privileged?
I don’t know, I might never know
how Tom At The Farm ends,
but imagine it doesn’t end well
for Tom who goes to farm
for a reason I’ve been too drunk
or sleepy or both
to even rationally describe.
John Waters claimed
this was one of the best movies
of one of the recent passing years.
I’m just going to go ahead
and believe because once again
my eyelids are anvils
not only upon the body but
the whole of the life
sitting in a chair
doing a task
renting out my mind
for the profit of -
whatever.
I might just be dreaming.
I wish the more discerning cat
wasn’t so upset
about the ceiling.
It makes me think
about the two of us and how
there was constantly something
about to crash through and end us
but end us only, “as they say”,
as we know it.
We’re still alive.
What are you choosing to do
with what’s left of your living?
I am actually curious
though I’m sure it’s a horror show
but what isn’t
when talking
about living what we’ve left
with a life?
I whittle.
I whittle dolls of us.
I whittle dolls of us
and set them loose
into the fire, out on the town.
Just finished watching Tom
At The Farm all the way
through and
I’m admittedly
confused in the same way the way
people are admittedly socialist
about why
I’m supposed to care
about Tom
or the cows
or Tom’s boyfriend’s brother
or Tom’s boyfriend’s mom
or some bartender
for some reason,
I don’t get it. I get
none of it. It’s cold,
still, in this environment
but that’s no reason
to go around sympathizing
with slow progress.
I’m dehydrated; I think
that’s a certainty.
I’m afraid. I said nothing
to Crystal before walking
out the door at work today
but some fucking horoscope
as well as my ribcage
said I should spend time
alone and for me that means
cultivating fungus
where there should be coffee dates.
I do hate living
if that’s what you mean
by asking. I’m all
for gun control
when self imposed, like
right now I know
nobody should ever allow my body
inside of a room
with a gun
supervised or
even fucking un -
‘cause if supervised
I’m not trying to go out
as a murderer, but just a whole soul
who couldn’t afford
to buy his girlfriend’s son an advanced drone.
Shivering has become my least favorite activity. I mean,
if I could just stop shivering…
there isn’t enough comfort
in the whole of Stars Hallow
to squash this self-imposed emotional beef.
My heat sometimes
feels as though it is doing its best to escape its cage.
Sometimes I consider letting it out,
just to breathe a little
under medically supervised conditions. My mouth,
the sides of my mouth, cracks
with anticipation or
dehydration, I no longer know
the difference between the two.
If I could just watch 60 Minutes tonight,
the interview with house speaker
Paul Ryan, if I could just do that
I think I might feel, for 60 minutes,
like a respectable human but I won’t or
no one will let me or there will be some emergency,
some tire fire brought on
by simply continuing to live.
So I’m trying to read Anne Sexton
A Self Portrait In Letters.
I’m trying to get to the end
of the book
without first
having a heart attack
like my dad did
last November and now
it is this December and I am feeling
the drudgery of every day
waking. In a pool
of certifiable anxiety and
not knowing whether to keep swimming,
float, or hold my body under.
Every twelve hours
on the hour I consider
the ending; whether
I should be responsible
for the ending or
if the ending should occur
naturally
on its own accord, free
from mind,
free from hand.
12/24/2016