fumigate me
remove me
release me
because
it is warranted
follow the rules
tear into my bloated carcass
see what real hunger feels like
see

there is a man on the side of the parkway with a plan and a gun
I fall off bridges I thought I'd burned

Every night I sleep with a stranger
One whose shadow I dwell in every day
When I wake I cannot see them anymore

with every knock I get closer between the floorboards is where you'll find me

I blow smoke in your face you ******* liar your lips sting with *****

This morning I woke up to
painted crucifixions on my door
and I think I know who they were for

i wrote you a love letter
on the back of this napkin
that you gave me for my coffee and eggs
while i lit my first cigarette

i don't ask for much, nor do i ever intend to
all i can say is that maybe, somewhere in me, ive wanted you back
here with me

bleeding in time with you was difficult but we managed
we clotted our wounds with debris from the hurricane because we had no skin left to speak of

I don't understand why
you insist on transmitting misery
through the same dead and collapsed vein

I have been sitting for far too long
waiting patiently for inevitable disappointment
my legs have failed me
and I am sorry

but I cannot stand for this anymore

I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry

I came back home today and you weren't there so I opened myself and sprayed my catholic wine on the mirror and bathed in bug spray to clean out my insides, filthy with sin

drunk sitting shotgun
you're behind the wheel

don't let me disrupt your steering
don't give me control of the wheel

don't bring it back

and i promise i won't make you steer us into the oncoming lane
so i can end it

wake up
from slumber you cannot call your own
walk
run
move
proteins block and
blur motion

if i thought i could do it i probably would have done it
being in the hospital long enough
has taught me that colors correlate to days
and that the opposite is true as well

i have too much of what makes you good
and that is why i am what i am

I'd make myself into a mannequin if I could
I would remove my flesh
I would cut my arms off
I would tear into my thighs
I would rip myself apart

for the sake of entertainment,
not art.

covered in disdain
and inorganic temporary euphoria
and a jaded sense of self

face meets concrete

what of the hole?
what of the hate we give to it
what of you,

get off me man. get the *******, get off me, off of me

survive
bleeding
final envy
central

tear your ******* ties

I. These phrases may be used interchangeably.

In the case of this patient, we expected nothing less. As a marginally dissociative fellow, this comes as no surprise, it happens all the time. Everyone from the white coats to the volunteers and cabbies are in on it, or should I say, they were in on it. They snickered. They laughed. They blew cigarette smoke into his eyes. They ashed in his trashcan. With a patient like this, when they see the finish line, they go for it.

II. Not a single person cares.

Business is business and routines are routines. The world keeps turning. The coffee keeps brewing and sitting lukewarm in large paper cups. All the flowers are dead and so is he.

III. You will not be remembered.

Well, at least not kindly. You see, patients like him were an obligation; more of a liability than a person. One of those. Pretty run of the mill, but this guy was different. He carved his name into his forehead with a letter opener. He wanted an open casket for some ******* reason I guess.

Whatever is behind me
is before you

Condemned to heights
suffocating their lights


Biting
and tearing
in hindsight
out of me



What
binds me
to you?

Why do I
always think of it?

It can't ever
escape me


They're here

What
binds me
to you?

Why do I
always think of it?

It can't ever
escape me

i want to sit here for the rest of my life
with the walls bifurcating and bubbling and whispering and

sometimes i just can't stand to look at myself

you have
fooled yourself
veiled yourself
lied to yourself

fervent and unrelenting all
the way down

you weren't even a good egg watcher
you couldn't cook, clean, you couldn't even bend over the right way
if you know what i mean

there was a garden snake in the gutter this morning
slithering and writhing through damp crumpled up newspaper and days-old cigarette/rain water
in any allowed capacity my only intent from that point on was to charm all the snakes in my neighborhood

it is funny until it makes the headlines
it is funny, to you
I bet, or at least I hope or else
why did I write this?

Well, I don't know and
that's the most I can say

every year is getting longer
every night is feeling colder and
biting at my bones
and eating at my sinuses

this house
i made it
from bricks and twigs and pieces of animals from the woods
so
then i knew i would
have a place to call home

i tore into myself i ripped
my arm open and, rearranged my veins
so i can bleed more easily into you

this one makes me feel better but i don't even know what it does

There is no currency for this
You cannot hide, if only from yourself
You are the most difficult to outrun

I am held captive by myself and on my own terms
Please glue my pieces back together
Light the garage on fire and start over

why do you police the gender politics of a dead horse

Just as much obscurity as will make me noticeable
It is hard to be proud when every prosthetic is better than you

I am reduced to nothing but what am I reduced to

comfort in quicksand
a labyrinth of off-colors
conclusions with a knife

I put an ad in the paper for someone to carve me to the bone
To whittle my bones into shivs
To gently strangle me with cellophane from the cupboard right where you knew it was

You knew it

The doctors
told me
I'd have
a year
with no teeth

zero teeth
a hero lies in grief
with everything beneath

As it grew
As it were
As it falls

zero teeth
hero obsolete
forget what lies beneath

if only to make it brief
rinse and repeat
chew but don't swallow

smile, smile, smile

Lead but always follow
Making sure is just the burden of my borrow

Asking questions carefully but only submitting them as an answer to a question that I already asked to you about gender and how much I think I understand it what am I doing what have I done, all I can say is that I think it all goes away and either way I think I am nearly done

Brass buttons
To fasten a cape made of everything false
To cloak me in feigned serenity through the night
To sing me to sleep
and turn me into someone like you

I can never stop crying although I want to rebuild my body

rudiments of a former dwelling
silt from the river
to cover fragments and bone

to color the walls of my being
to deduce me to dust

God is dead

cataract eyes
lungs full of coal

i swallowed my heart and it was full of worms

the devil retrieves it with a smile
he comes from under your bed
and it will never come back to you

everything comes apart
if we are all tied to the same cloth
then its time we realize that the cloth is wearing thin
what you need is some time in bad places

dig the gold out of my fillings
i can **** you if you give me a dollar first

Push me off of that
roof as I
finish writing this

We need to talk
We need to talk
We need  to be quiet

I hear the chalkboard-nail-scrape
I hear them laughing in unison
Like a personal orchestra of pathetic, pointless humiliation

They pelt me with beer cans
They push me too far and too fast

I wish I could get back at them
with every passing moment the hatred accumulates

But they're already dead
Open caskets set to be closed and lowered
Faces with no features

They left without leaving
They left me
"Ha Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha"

I am a coward
afraid of my disposition

empty hull
emptied corridors
empty nicotine stomach
coughing up animal fat

My shadow engulfs me
I am what I am
and it reminds me

Dirt under my fingernails
Grind my teeth to dust
My stomach is surely made of glass

All of my evils
A raw nerve

let me tell you what's wrong with you
in position
over you

let me tell you what's wrong with you
as you drown
in tripwire and honey

let me tell you what's wrong with you
don't put me in this position ever again

if stitches won't dissolve then
how will
i ever open my mouth again

if i was made of parts i could call my own, i said, i'd be a lot better
but i have no choice

flourish from blood
blossom from vessels
gather materials
walk the land until
it crumbles underneath you

off of the pit
ripe down
come down
fall down

stay in the fog with me
i can see you because all of your plastic pearls glow so brightly at night

had a little bit too much to drink there
might have held you down too long

as oxygen returned to your skin you looked at me and we said nothing to each other

for extra

Surprise! Surprise; this life should not come as one

panic attack season and
it isn't presumptuous of me to say that i may have been heavily involved

a jaded catalyst
show me this that and the other
i've seen it all before

decomposition
after tapping a dead nerve for far too long
only ever with substance

third parties weren't invited but it looks like they're here anyway

all the exits to your house
burst into color
on the highway
colors only i could see, or so i thought

sparkling red, and dim, headache-inducing blue
i shot a road flare up to the skies in front of your house
and it exploded into a million stars
but you didn't look out your window

before he died
his breath was sour
it smelled like whiskey

flock to me
adorn me in funerary robes
build me into a messiah
so i can bruise myself in your name

i promise to you
i ******* swear to all i have left that i would finish creating you
but our time has run out

warm blood and black ice

LACK OF CONSISTENCY WILL NOT PROVIDE THE PROPER OUTLET FOR THE ABUSER

abuse is arduous under certain circumstances
but i don't think you'd know too much about it
because you're always on the unwilling, but receiving end

my dreams have no meaning
and my life even less

a direction to stand for
or one to move in

i dug a hole in the backyard
and buried everything in my house

this morning
was like every other
routine
work and drool
come home

dig holes for burial in the backyard
I dug up my dog
we buried her when I was younger
I found where my father filled in the old swimming pool
tore my fingers to bone and
filled the old hole with water
and drowned properly

my existence cannot be accounted for
by myself
or by anyone I've met

you
lined the median with
all of my mugshots
so I could revel in past failures

my car seemed to drive itself to your house
I came bearing gifts but they washed away in the rain

when they knocked on your door I had nothing to say

look at your hands
are they ***** yet?

i counted every single footstep from the car to here
i ran them backwards through my mind
and then i forgot about it

reactions and
nervous twitches
i have all of you to thank
but no time to do properly pay you back

don't worry
stay the **** away from me

we return
to
our own
homes

a trap made for mice
fooled a man

rather than
feelings
we have
perceptions
of vague and thick reality

there is no conclusive evidence to prove you're here
there was nothing here that wasn't here that wasn't here that wasn't here