It's like a dream.

Only I'm not sure
If I'm fast asleep,

Or

If I just woke up.

Broken lips, I smile inwardly,
watching you amongst the books.
Wanting you.

Internally, I ridicule my fascination for you,
I mock my lust.
I see the other men just like me.
I see them everywhere, all wanting you.
I hate relating to them.
I hate wanting you.

You posses a designer desire,
like ******* you is all the rage.

Everyday we all see your face
in every newsstand, on every front page,
but only because we all look.
Only because we all want.

And it's me crawling in the dirt like a worm,
it's me licking the doorknobs of every bar in town,
shoving fistfuls of knotted hair down my own throat
from every shower drain in every filthy run down
apartment complex covering this ******* city.

And it's me still wanting you,
sick with the want,
driven mad with the want,
dying wanting.

Poor from the late fees
for books I just can't
bring myself to return.

every pair of headlights
in the rear-view mirror
follow me endlessly

and I swear
I SWEAR
I hear footsteps downstairs

A concrete island
Adrift upon the asphalt sea.

Come and sit with me
In drunken reverie.

I'm ingenuine.
Disingenuous.
...whatever.

Diner.
Dinerettes.
Grace me,
I'm your
favorite.

Serve me, I tip well.
Now show me your *****,
I won't tell.

God I want
To taste it,
to dip
into you.

Blue
and green
and purple and pink.
Tight
and loose
and acutely obtuse.

Be mine,
do you have
the time
to complete
me?

Or are you busy
being
you?

More than a trope,
still I'm roped
in.

Deserving,
no,
demanding
of more
than just
being something
to adore.

The coffee ***'s braying invaded my daydream
so I snapped out of it and fixed myself a cup.
I sat back down at the kitchen table and
focused on the twirls and curls of steam.
Seeing the water join my atmosphere made
me think of prospective goals and my future.

Positive thinking, you know.

Such thoughts were like admiration for someone
who hates themselves; pointless and unwanted.
My eyes drifted to the sliding glass door and
I took a gulp, shuddering at the caffeine fixation.
I wasn't looking at the birds on the powerlines,
or the morning fog lingering under overcast skies.
Just at the two panes of glass and the cross-hatched
pattern of plastic supports that existed between them,
like expression caught inside of idealistic traditions.

Like seeing house pets kept in a cage.

At some point in my unfocused gazing my
thoughts shifted from the future to the past, and
I felt a hollow remnant of ex-lovers sitting with me.
They sat looking at me sip cooling coffee,
seeing me look at the sliding glass door.

Like an egotistical mirror manic with vanity and pride,
the reflection of the door showed myself watching me
and I liked what I saw inside.

****, how many shots was it?
I think, looking down at the ashtray,
7... 8... 9 BUTTS?*
I smoke a cigarette
every time I take a shot.

Well ****, no wonder then.
Oh ****,
who are you again?

I don't write for me

I write for you to see

Because it's how I please

Myself.

Sometimes
people
end up
alone.

Sometimes
It's by
choice.

Other times
it's because
they're fat,
or ugly.

Maybe if I write a poem about her
she'll finally listen.

(reads through own poems)

Oh, ****, nevermind...
                                                  ..­.I tried that already...

I have so much hatred
pent up inside

but I don't know for whom
or even why.

Behind your bi-folding mirrors
I'm led into the closet.

The closet where you kept
endless time and history.

When you opened that shoebox
and showed my eyes, and let the light
shine bright on, the past crammed tight
into that beautiful cardboard coffin

I took up your red sharpie pen
and wrote generic lyrics along
the lines of an empty tissue box
kept right by your so sickly beside.

Years later when you moved out
and found my words written
while you picked up those memories
from your one and only room,

I cried when you told me
you never even knew.

I died when you showed me,
because we never even grew.

I need a war.
We all need a war.
A real war too, not this
falsified and opaque war
on terror or whatever the ****
we've been doing for the past
twenty years in the desert.
Give us something bigger
to ******* ***** about.
Give us good verses evil.
Something more meaningful
than this curse called the internet.
Give us something to die for,
in a violent and ****** rage.
Give us some meaning,
give us a new age.

I hate writing.

But I love the idea,
And more importantly,
The image
Of being a writer.

What's cooler
Than a glass
Of brandy,
Beside an ashtray.

With a full pack
Of marlboro lights,
And a mechanical keyboard
Clacking away the night.

I want to be a writer
For all the wrong reasons.
I want to convince you,
Dear reader,
That I'm a phony.

Maybe you already knew.
Maybe it doesn't matter why
I want to be a writer.
Maybe all that matters
Is writing about it.

It's as if those sleepless nights
Were dragons in my mind,
Soaring through my clear eyes,
Torching the darkened skies.

It's as if I've been chasing them down ever since, desperate for another gust of wind
To buffet my smiling face with
That same feeling it had back then.

I suppose the high is never as good
As it is the very first time it hits you,
And the naive overdose of emotion
Was just a piece of something bigger.

I wanna buy you ****,
Yeah I wanna build you **** too.
Build you **** outta ******'
wood and metal and whatever.
Yeah I wanna *******,
wanna make you make noises.
Wanna hear you make noises
that no one else gets to hear.
Yeah I wanna *******,
and buy you ****,
and build **** for you,
Yeah.

words and spaces and punctuation

tell me, upon returning...

"Returning from where, I've been right here?"

...did you gasp for breath?

"I no longer fool myself into believing that breathing was ever an option,"
-thought my hand out loud
"I merely close my eyes and concede myself to the asphyxiation."

love

*"...is my darkness of eternity."

But you don't know what it is.

Dropped something,
patting my pockets.
Feeling for what is not,
yet what should be.

Knife, wallet,
phone, keys.
Gun.
Smokes, matches.
Vape, shades.

All here
and accounted for,
yet...

Concrete barriers with trees painted on them?
Buildings with murals of rural landscapes?

I want to paint a grassy field like a parking lot.
I want to carve a cityscape into a cliff face.
I want to dye the sky yellow, jaundice with smog.

Bring the city to country a bit.

Father had a rotary,
Whereas I favor flat four
But when Pap has a V8
I cain't argue no more.

There is a fine balance between
all or nothing,
which is very difficult for me
to embrace.

I either want it every day,
or it to forever go away.
The same goes for anything
that I've ever found interesting.

My shower head was down to the last seven streams of water,
the other thirteen or so were either clogged
or just slowly dribbling out sad little droplets of hard water.
The calcium and lime buildup around the jets grew
greener and thicker with each day passing,
yet I never felt the inclination to attempt cleaning it.
I just stood there in the few remaining streams each day,
rotating slowly like the ballerina in my mother's jewelry box,
trying to wash away the ***** suds from my hair and shoulders.

Until one day,
after I had gotten home after a grueling twelve
hour shift at the dogfood plant where I worked and
stepped reluctantly into my bathroom, I peeled
the sweat stained clothes from my reeking body
and reached behind the curtains to turn on the water.
The only response I received from my poor shower
was a loud groaning noise, like a man attempting to
pass a particularly large kidney stone but having no luck.
Three or four drops of water escaped from the mere pressure
building up in the old pipes, then it quit altogether
and the groaning ceased with a brief moment of silence
before the face of the shower head burst, throwing plastic
shrapnel in every direction and spraying the ceiling and walls
with rusted water.

slug slime on your skin
salt it and it begins
to wither and writhe
deliciously

yum.

Got done work
early today,
only an eight hour shift.

Was eager for bed,
didn't clean at all.
I just got drunk instead.

Girl's coming up tomorrow,
gotta make the bed.

Gotta pick my place up
and not get drunk instead.

I lie to myself
and say that
I keep it clean for me,
but only I know
that without someone else to please
I'd let this place
slowly accumulate
my garbage and debris.
Until the detritus
overwhelmed me,
in my comfy old jeans.
I'd be in over my head,
because I wouldn't be able
to delegate,
and I'd just
get drunk instead.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe there's a tangible thread
that dangles and wavers,
ever so slightly,
as my eyes turn steadily red.

Wind whipping through naked limbs,
plastic bags like tumbleweeds.

Solace under an overcast sky.

Billows bellow out from the candied sunrise,
brief beauty unfolds in rippling hues
of taupe and ochre and violet.

I watch alone,
as the commuters argue over lanes.
As trucks trundle past.
I enjoy the parallax as
the chuffing dragon's breath
of their air brakes
grows, and then fades.

I watch alone as light begins to bathe all.
An upside-down ocean. A gorgeous abyss.

I watch alone, yet
I'd like someone
to share this morning with.

Dawn brought a bruised sky with it,
A spattering of trundling snow clouds
Scattering the radiant light of the rising sun
Into nothing more than a blue and purple smudge
Peeking through the gap in my bathroom curtains.

It was just enough light to see a silhouette
Of myself in the mirror hung above the sink.
It's fun to imagine the reflection isn't a reflection,
But a window into another universe, another
Perspective on how I actually exist and persist.

I want to reach into the silvered glass,
Like it were a puddle of polished chrome,
And give the silhouette a squeeze on the shoulder.

I want to let him know that
He's doing a good job,
And that I'm proud of him
For everything he's done.
Even the little things
Like getting laundry washed
And waking up on time.

"You're doing alright man,"

Were the first words I spoke that day,
Smiling to myself.

A little more light was pouring in now,
Liquid day filling the room a bit,
And for a second I saw the silhouette
In the mirror a bit more clearly.

I could've sworn he mouthed the word:
"Thanks."

A picture of a blazing inferno,
flames frozen in time,
is as I burn for you,
forever this house on fire.

If ever the wood should
wither to ash and ember,  
I would bathe in the soot,
I would burn to remember.

Miles of art
All buried beneath
These mounds.

Mounds of dirt
Meant to drive away
Silent hill people.

Under the art,
Under the mounds,
The world's on fire
Under the ground.

This place feels like
A cemetery.