You're Gonna Learn Someday

It's tough,
no doubt about it,
to walk straight
when all you
do is stare
at the cracks
in the cement.

If I never
opened my mouth,
or committed
words to a page,
I would never
again be tried
for a false or hurtful
statement.

I clog my ears
with gossip,
I stuff my shoes
with the rocks
I have thrown.
I rub my eyes
down to nubs,
trying to erase
all the trouble
I have caused.

I fall
through the holes
formed from
when I busted
my body open,
hoping to find
the piece of me
that I lost.

It's gonna take some time
to give back the time
in the best way I know how.

I'm gonna figure out how
to quit missing what I gave up,
quit missing this moment now.

One day
I'm gonna learn,
when push
comes to shove,
what it really means
to love.

hoo ra

memories are cheap
so it's no wonder I sit around remembering
like a prince i passed judgment
on the pastimes crumpled like a wad
of would-you-be-mine
and if it were the time for celebrating
I'd raise an empty glass and chuck it
across the tracks 'cause I see no cause
for calamity except the contradictions
constricting me, signing my name
on the kiss-crossed line
in hopes that I will be released
from my daily contract

well don't you love me
mirror mirror quit stalling
I am taking out a policy on you
expecting a splinter so deep
to puncture my nosebone
making a modern Flinstone outta me
dude I wish I was that punk
man I wish that this funk
was only temporary but it seems
more likely that it's just something
I'm gonna haffta graft to myself
and make it an accessory,
a feature length memory

c'mon up you shady nasties
I got a pretty, a pretty, a pretty
noose for you
doesn't matter what you are
if you've got the feel
of a night-terror then I'm sure
you're terrible and that
is reason enough to celebrate
seeing you sway like a curtain
of beads in the doorway
get outta my way

just a partridge
in the patriarchy
trynna evolve into an animal
worth feeding

Collision

my throat is in ribbons
from the dozen cigarettes
saving me daily

one throat for a lifeboat
I'd say that's fair trade
I'd say I've got it made

now I watch the burning
bridge jump back
from the water

now the grass
begins to show

these days I draft up
my dark blueprints
with the stubbornness
of the sea

thinking maybe I should
have been an architect

these days have been
like a cigarette— feels good,
and killing me

Petra

How will we ever know

the right choice,

when choice cracks

under the weight 

of every course delayed?

The grooves

in your hand

will never be moved.

Your fingers
grip the wire
and fall into
petals,

from
your kindness

stems a rage

that will one day
blossom whole.

And so you roll.

And so you roll.

It's all good and not enough

Look, none of us asked to be shafted this way.

Wanna know why the minnow bucket looks so alive? They're all trying to forget how to swim, and I've got nothing for 'em except a head full of bigger fish to fry.

Silly lil' fish, you are so funny, why can't you just die?

Look. Maybe I'm not so smart or strong. Maybe playing pretend was all I picked up on. Maybe.

I am in a bad way, coming off 22-jump already street, hesitating before traffic, feeling something cold in my stare that condenses my inner fluff.

Look, as I said, it's all good but I have had enough of this grind, enough grinning and bearing, it’s become a chore to chew by now, and this mounting burden of knowledge is crushing me. My verses come up short on breath. The birds gather to split the bread.

So many smiles take their turn to pull me out of the wreck... perfumes push me away from the edge, that look in the eye, that momentary salute, that call to arms of embrace that shakes me, the twinkling voices that wake me. The slope is more pronounced each day. I mope for lack of trustworthy hope.

Look— I do not entrust these thoughts to you. I am hoping quite openly that these thoughts die

by allowing them to live forever and ever.

Have you ever asked for mercy? really asked? Look I had a vision of myself by now as being this appropriately frustrated, as being this appropriately appropriated, as being used and screwed, as being the fool, as being so hopelessly behind, as being more than a probable statistic, as being more than all that I am. But this— this was not what I ordered.

God, how I am continuing.

My images have conspired in vain.
I am drunk with the absinthe of absence. I am screaming at my insides to give it up. My insides want so bad to stir it up. I think I might die very lonely. I think there is that something which emboldens me to search a while longer, but do I know it already?

What is this fine line I'm walking to get at the point? What is this here that defeats my purpose? What is this fear?

Panic! At The Rosh Pit

Entrenched in the battle,
fighting the good,
perpetual fight by proxy,
I pulled the trigger
on my pulse for the play,
until hey, wow, my heart 
is beating me bloody,
then the screen turned thick
and blurry, I thought not now,
please not now, we've put
in so much effort
that's now being swallowed
up by the throbbing
of my head, and holy shit 
this sweat, I stripped
my clothes and laid in bed,
pained to understand
which mode I chose,
fight or flight, 
and I wanted to fight,
no matter the cost,
but my body chose flight
and so we lost.

Song for the Salvaged

Connecticut is calling with the latest update
on your fate. The tea turns milky grey
in a way that feels significant. Disregard
tomorrow's bombshell threat, make cat calls
at the rabbits who live beneath the shed,
seduce the laborer into labor. Promote
friendly debt into savage debt, credit
yourself with another day well handled.
Help yourself to the handle. Don't slip.
The roof drips and forms a continual
rink. Carry on carrying. Cast a spell
that just can't be helped. The smoothing
stone of routine softens the howls
to barely audible mews and dulls
your jagged doubts. The thoughts
of being held by whatever you love
hold you like a joey in its pouch.

Community Service

Reluctant stars

descend on the

pastel waves.

I flutter 

over the litter,

forming gutteral

sounds, 

dwarfed by our

garbage fetish.

Waves fade

into a roil

of boiled blue

as I lift one hand

to block the light

from the sun,

the other hand

buckling under

so much wasted

effort.

Live and Let Down

Waking in these sorry States,

forgetting what broke me down

this way. Scraps of choked up

speech lay strewn on the tiles.

The wind has no waiting room,

it stuffs my mouth with a poverty

to please and partitions my teeth.

I s'pose I assume responsibility

for every attempt gone south

for the winter. The drifts of snow

strike their quiet pose. I listen

closer, and expect the main things:

the puff of trains, the whistling

of the restless wind, the silence

of sunlight. Then, the soft scratch
of the needle stitching it together,
as if the common thread
existed only to comfort me. 

You are more than what makes you sad.

You are more than the sex you've had.
You are more than the hours you put in.

You are more than the drugs you've taken.

You are more than the leavings of your losses.

You are more than a work in progress. 

You are more than the sum of your parts.
You are a dying art.

Hyperbolic Angel Chamber

I saw you in there,
and all my questions
were reduced to a quest
to keep you this close
for as long as I could.
I cannot forget when
your dress of silver mesh
and tinsel-tangled hair
gave me no reason
to keep breathing.
In fact, the moment
you tapped my knuckle
with your icicle fingers,
all sound was swept
into space and every
nerve in my body woke
from a life-long sleep
and every word I ever
wrote flew into my face
like birds against glass.
I have a question,
and though a kiss
is hardly a question,
I think it must be
the answer.