after the crossroads
the wrong turns
and taken risks not worth taking

there came a time in my life
when nothing came next

no highways calling out for me
just painted rainbow crosswalks
for staying put

i stayed inside a lot
the more i hid
the dirtier the carpet got

it was cheap and poorly cut
to begin with, the dirt i was daring to become filth didn't help

the more i hated the cost of living
the dirtier the carpet got
the richer jeff bezos got

so stupid i thought

it was a daily thought
my own personal seventieth seven

antichrist and nothing
but crowds to fill his headquarters
hairless cat of a shepherd and his reusable sheep
i stayed inside a lot

so stupid i thought
the more i hid
the dirtier the carpet got

ah, christ, what a CREW:
more
poetry, always more
P O E T R Y .

if it doesn't come, coax it out with a
laxative. get your name in LIGHTS,
get it up there in
8 1/2 x 11 mimeo.

keep it coming like a miracle.

ah christ, writers are the most sickening
of all the louts!
yellow-toothed, slump-shouldered,
gutless, flea-bitten and
obvious . . . in tinker-toy rooms
with their flabby hearts
they tell us
what's wrong with the world-
as if we didn't know that a cop's club
can crack the head
and that war is a dirtier game than
marriage . . .
or down in a basement bar
hiding from a wife who doesn't appreciate him
and children he doesn't
want
he tells us that his heart is drowning in
*****. hell, all our hearts are drowning in *****,
in pork salt, in bad verse, in soggy
love.
but he thinks he's alone and
he thinks he's special and he thinks he's Rimbaud
and he thinks he's
Pound.

and death! how about death? did you know
that we all have to die? even Keats died, even
Milton!
and D. Thomas-THEY KILLED HIM, of course.
Thomas didn't want all those free drinks
all that free *****-
they . . . FORCED IT ON HIM
when they should have left him alone so he could
write write WRITE!

poets.

and there's another
type. I've met them at their country
places (don't ask me what I was doing there because
I don't know).

they were born with money and
they don't have to ***** their hands in
slaughterhouses or washing
dishes in grease joints or
driving cabs or pimping or selling ***.

this gives them time to understand
Life.

they walk in with their cocktail glass
held about heart high
and when they drink they just
sip.

you are drinking green beer which you
brought with you
because you have found out through the years
that rich ******* are tight-
they use 5 cent stamps instead of airmail
they promise to have all sorts of goodies ready
upon your arrival
from gallons of whisky to
50 cent cigars. but it's never
there.
and they HIDE their women from you-
their wives, x-wives, daughters, maids, so forth,
because they've read your poems and
figure all you want to do is **** everybody and
everything. which once might have been
true but is no longer quite
true.

and-
he WRITES TOO.
POETRY, of
course. everybody
writes
poetry.

he has plenty of time and a
postoffice box in town
and he drives there 3 or 4 times a day
looking and hoping for accepted
poems.

he thinks that poverty is a weakness of the
soul.

he thinks your mind is ill because you are
drunk all the time and have to work in a
factory 10 or 12 hours a
night.

he brings his wife in, a beauty, stolen from a
poorer rich
man.
he lets you gaze for 30 seconds
then hustles her
out. she has been crying for some
reason.

you've got 3 or 4 days to linger in the
guesthouse he says,
"come on over to dinner
sometime."
but he doesn't say when or
where. and then you find out that you are not even
IN HIS HOUSE.

you are in
ONE of his houses but
his house is somewhere
else-
you don't know
where.

he even has x-wives in some of his
houses.

his main concern is to keep his x-wives away from
you. he doesn't want to give up a
**** thing. and you can't blame him:
his x-wives are all young, stolen, kept,
talented, well-dressed, schooled, with
varying French-German accents.

and!: they
WRITE POETRY TOO. or
PAINT. or
****.

but his big problem is to get down to that mail
box in town to get back his
rejected poems
and to keep his eye on all the other mail boxes
in all his other
houses.

meanwhile, the starving Indians
sell beads and baskets in the streets of the small desert
town.

the Indians are not allowed in his houses
not so much because they are a ****-threat
but because they are
***** and
ignorant. *****? I look down at my shirt
with the beerstain on the front.
ignorant? I light a 6 cent cigar and
forget about
it.

he or they or somebody was supposed to meet me at
the
train station.

of course, they weren't
there. "We'll be there to meet the great
Poet!"

well, I looked around and didn't see any
great poet. besides it was 7 a.m. and
40 degrees. those things
happen. the trouble was there were no
bars open. nothing open. not even a
jail.

he's a poet.
he's also a doctor, a head-shrinker.
no blood involved that
way. he won't tell me whether I am crazy or
not-I don't have the
money.

he walks out with his cocktail glass
disappears for 2 hours, 3 hours,
then suddenly comes walking back in
unannounced
with the same cocktail glass
to make sure I haven't gotten hold of
something more precious than
Life itself.

my cheap green beer is killing
me. he shows heart (hurrah) and
gives me a little pill that stops my
gagging.
but nothing decent to
drink.

he'd bought a small 6 pack
for my arrival but that was gone in an
hour and 15
minutes.

"I'll buy you barrels of beer," he had
said.

I used his phone (one of his phones)
to get deliveries of beer and
cheap whisky. the town was ten miles away,
downhill. I peeled my poor dollars from my poor
roll. and the boy needed a tip, of
course.

the way it was shaping up I could see that I was
hardly Dylan Thomas yet, not even
Robert Creeley. certainly Creeley wouldn't have
had beerstains on his
shirt.

anyhow, when I finally got hold of one of his
x-wives I was too drunk to
make it.

scared too. sure, I imagined him peering
through the window-
he didn't want to give up a **** thing-
and
leveling the luger while I was
working
while "The March to the Gallows" was playing over
the Muzak
and shooting me in the *** first and
my poor brain
later.

"an intruder," I could hear him telling them,
"ravishing one of my helpless x-wives."

I see him published in some of the magazines
now. not very good stuff.

a poem about me
too: the ******.

the ****** whines too much. the ****** whines about his
country, other countries, all countries, the ******
works overtime in a factory like a fool, among other
fools with "pre-drained spirits."
the ****** drinks seas of green beer
full of acid. the ****** has an ulcerated
hemorrhoid. the ****** picks on ****
"fragile ****." the ****** hates his
wife, hates his daughter. his daughter will become
an alcoholic, a *******. the ****** has an
"obese burned out wife." the ****** has a
spastic gut. the ****** has a
"****** brain."

thank you, Doctor (and poet). any charge for
this? I know I still owe you for the
pill.

Your poem is not too good
but at least I got your starch up.
most of your stuff is about as lively as a
wet and deflated
beachball. but it is your round, you've won a round.
going to invite me out this
Summer? I might scrape up
trainfare. got an Indian friend who'd like to meet
you and yours. he swears he's got the biggest
pecker in the state of California.

and guess what?
he writes
POETRY
too!

With my bobby pin, taken from my hair after volleyball practice,
I scrape black resin from a blue bowl
It's a rougher
Dirtier
Hash ball
But it loves on your brain just as much
And my arms are bruised from passing
They could use that numbing forgetfulness
That lurks  like stupidity
In the back of my brain

Always

The *** just emphasizes it
The way gaudy clothes do on a pretty girl

That's me too sometimes

But I have a mother,
Just as you,
And she gave me dreamss
To live up to
A school of science and engineering
So...what do you do?

i love the way you
feel me up in public places,
****** to nameless faces,
tell my friends to ***** themselves:
"it makes me feel protected".

command the god of heaven down,
wear your flimsy clinquant crown,
weave tales of fictitious sounds
that i will "soon" be making.

i love the way you never bathe
i love the way you never shave
i love the way you never made
an effort just to please me.

-

and the rain fell backwards that night
and the fires restored houses
and we all took showers and got
dirtier
and
dirtier
and
dirtier.

The tractor stands frozen - an agony
To think of. All night
Snow packed its open entrails. Now a head-pincering gale,
A spill of molten ice, smoking snow,
Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands
In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness.

It defied flesh and won't start.
Hands are like wounds already
Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable
As if the toe-nails were all just torn off.
I stare at it in hatred. Beyond it
The copse hisses - capitulates miserably
In the fleeing, failing light. Starlings,
A dirtier sleetier snow, blow smokily, unendingly, over
Towards plantations Eastward.
All the time the tractor is sinking
Through the degrees, deepening
Into its hell of ice.

The starting lever
Cracks its action, like a snapping knuckle.
The battery is alive - but like a lamb
Trying to nudge its solid-frozen mother -
While the seat claims my buttock-bones, bites
With the space-cold of earth, which it has joined
In one solid lump.

I squirt commercial sure-fire
Down the black throat - it just coughs.
It ridicules me - a trap of iron stupidity
I've stepped into. I drive the battery
As if I were hammering and hammering
The frozen arrangement to pieces with a hammer
And it jabbers laughing pain-crying mockingly
Into happy life.

And stands
Shuddering itself full of heat, seeming to enlarge slowly
Like a demon demonstrating
A more-than-usually-complete materialization -
Suddenly it jerks from its solidarity
With the concrete, and lurches towards a stanchion
Bursting with superhuman well-being and abandon
Shouting Where Where?

Worse iron is waiting. Power-lift kneels
Levers awake imprisoned deadweight,
Shackle-pins bedded in cast-iron cow-****.
The blind and vibrating condemned obedience
Of iron to the cruelty of iron,
Wheels screeched out of their night-locks -

Fingers
Among the tormented
Tonnage and burning of iron

Eyes
Weeping in the wind of chloroform

And the tractor, streaming with sweat,
Raging and trembling and rejoicing.

I want you to make a mess of me
Throw your love on my body
And watch me fall to pieces right before you
Like you did when we were in highschool

No one even asks what I'm doing these days,
and it's obvious they don't care.
I want to wash my hands of these people;
I come from a family of fist fighters,
and forgiveness is like a cardinal sin.
****, even I'm still bitter about the ****.
Even I still get upset at the thoughts.
My lover wraps her arms around me
and I radiate this ******* into her.
Every time.
Sleeping next to me
is dirtier than sleeping
in any grave.
This dirt farmer can't wash his hands or his mind,
he isn't a fist fighter or a loud talker,
he won't let the easy things slide,
and even six feet into this hole,
this dirt farmer is still digging.

an old familiar,
an adversary of the first degree,
when we wrestle,
me and this god
disguised as an angel disguised as man,
the door to where we tangle,
clicks shut with a perceptible oval sounding,
a trumpet announcing commencement of the festivities,
that we are
Occupado

no stray observers permitted in,
the room entrances locked,
someone's two hands upon each temple,
(cannot be mine, for)
inside we combat literally,
"mano-a-mano"
hand to hand,
word to word,
gradually, continuously,
up close and personally,
one on
One

over the course of a lifetime,
each battle named,
famously borrowed and thus recorded,
Agincourt, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Leningrad, Ðiên Biên Phú,
for the record keeping purposes of our unforgiving ******-
historian

the rules of engagement somewhat flexible,
biting, choking, eye gouging,
kicking when down, not just legal,
encouraged, no holds barred,
when we wrestle,
the dirtier the
better

take turns declaring a victor,
for that matters little, truly,
just a record keeping notation,
the battle and its aftermath,
the waves of pain inflicted,
the casualty count engorged,
is the greatest glory,
dans une manière de
parler

though sent away the children,
our earthly goods,
designating them purportedly,
non-combatants observers,
yet 'no rules' meant
they could be accidentally drawn in,
non-combatant status does not prevent them
from being freely captured or
killed

the conflict ongoing,
no one ever calls for a truce,
for both unequal adversaries know,
no quarter will ere be given,
and though the tide shifts,
each individual battle produces as always,
a winner and a
loser

noisy affairs,
long after the battle,
the slain yet scream,
perhaps I am confused,
perhaps it is the day's survivors,
announcing that sadly,
they are still
alive

it must be the latter,
for here I am writing and recording,
and though alone,
I hear an ever growing louder,
gouging sine wave scream piercing,
daring my soul to leave my wracked
body
for though mortal wounded,
I am therefore
both dead and alive,
but which more so,
none can surely
say

this conflict remains
unconcluded
the pain in my hip, now
everywhere,
my Jacob, now, Israel,
marker
so visible even if itself,
unseen

3:59am

I reach my hand out to strike him
For all his hurtful words,
I detest him
For his misleading words,
He made me believe that I was
Weird, not simply different
Made me feel like a stranger
In my own body
(those touches from a long
time ago from That Boy who
used to be a friend )
They come back to me and
-And I feel *****
When he calls me something
I practically know I'm not
I feel even more dirtier
For one moment,
I hated him the way only
Siblings can hate each other
Everyone else foreign to
This strangeness
So I deal him a blow
That didn't sting half as much
As his words did
I withdraw my hand
And it stings
I look at its underside
A thin, red line of blood
Stretching out
The scar doesn't leave for
Three whole days

Going Off To War (a/k/a Washing The Dishes)

When its time to wash the dishes,
I make proper preparations for this serious business,
I strip down to my skivvies (shorts, in a prior generation)
Cause there will plenty blood and gore afore too long
Soap and water flying about, the ceilings and the walls,
Not to mention big, big puddles on the floor.

Multi-colored sponges of sizes varied,
Some Brillo-sided, like extra armor on a tank,
By Dawn's early light, turn the clear water
Into a heaving, breathing soapy concoction.
Woebegone and woe betide, dried and sticky maple syrup,
You are no match for super-strength orange dishwashing solution,
Of the Greeks did praise, a single dollop packs a mighty wallop!

Ain't afraid of any stain, decomposing, half chewed, culinary rejection.
Don't even bother with rubber gloves, cause that's for sissies.
The dirtier the better, cause I love the sounds of
All out war, the rushing water, the futile screams of
Grease departing this world, down the rabbit hole,
My gleaming, victorious sinking of the enemy shipping

You think I am the first to celebrate in verse
This storied fight of right over dirt?

Recall please this famed couplet, for now be known its true inspiration!

"Oh, say can you see by the Dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?"

Though Men Like to Load the Dishwasher (You Didn't Know?)
Is another poem of a similar ilk, when technology is unavailable,
It is fact verifiable and unassailable,
That if you give a man some room and some privacy,
Ignore the shouts and war cries from the kitchen emanating,
Male aggression can best be expiated,
When playing war games in the kitchen, a live action movie,
A video game that never grows tiresome,
And violence is necessary, for the enemy's complete annihilation.

Thank you my dear, no medal need be awarded,
Scored this poem as my just reward.

i'm walking down the street
bare feet, without a care
**** uber, metro, I hate public transportation,
i'm dirtying up this sidewalk, for a few years already
i'm writing down a will, in my mind, close to my eyelids,
because i'm on the wrong side of my mind
i feel sick, tasting the bitterness of humanity
when I wipe mankind on the side of the pavement,
at the very deep, there's masculinity mixed with *****,
i'm walking down a bridge full of empty shells
i pass hordes of girls who are smiling insincerely
and again, i feel a boost in my veins
and again, i'm louder than mirrors
and as in the mirrors, voidness space,
and it is me, who takes the best from it
i absorb this poisoned air.
In the ears of mine, i can hear electro heat,
i feel like one man one Jean-Michel Jarre,
rain is pouring through me, sticks to me like fog,
i wrap myself in the warmth of two MDMA's,
someone glances surreptitiously and steals my soul,
you have a backpack full of cash, i have a suitcase full of emotions,
i'm going on a journey through the cursed city
like a hermaphrodite with a broken rod,
streets, like stigmas, cry with hollow screams,
in front of clubs content abortions on the sidewalk,
let's leave this lie, like the walking dead
assertiveness and pride to the gutter washed away.
And again, this booster is kindling my veins
i'm dirtier than a new jerusalem
and similar to it, i'm sticking to everything
and so I'm taking the most out of my heart
and I absorb this poisoned air once again.
and so the booster flows through the aorta
it is flooding my tarred heart,
destination reached.
and my wallet is shimmering with bitter crystal
nothing will change the course of this chemistry,
betrayed. betrayed by their own bodies
vidi, no vici, veni on its own,
and i'm catching a laugh, standing still in the subway
i am still absorbing poisoned air.
hatred.
jealousy.
i've seen enough.
today, in my city, sun rises in the morning.
you will remember this day forever or forget it for eternity.

wondering about swallowing lysol in cute plastic shot
       this morning i saw a gum print handbag, finger ***** tease,
so those are the prayers you save for your knees.
i know, it's terrifying; and the thought of ******* makes
         you tired. it makes me tired.
we pretended to love
         for protection from this. head against the seat
closer next to kiss. you smiled but i thought about so much time
             les vacances and the dirtier brooklyn romps
    through teeth, "no, i don't know the nyc scene"
     and then, off! we were headed for each word of love.
  everything went out as day, we remained in there. the tall
     glasses of milk and the shaky hands. how nice the breeze
     to slap my cheek in a summer pop ****. the one where i'm
     already on fours while the elevator door, closing; down in his head as though walking on madison. i pick off the beauty marks from the
mouths of mean angels (/ the angle of your body makes me soaked through and warm.
        duck and stay with me, even if you promise to wait.
you were smiling at "sounds like you," the screen and the taxi horn
   scraping in the ****** of a thunderstorm. and me and you and jesus,
  all pries of lips and teeth.
solemnly striking mary as he pleased, crawling surprised through
the egyptian's dreams like he was made for it. like ancient honey centipedes. like you and like me
       god got sure he made you angry. moving about his eyes he wrapped you up in that redwood chest and you crawled right through
it. look at the hole you left! sound comes as well to thank you,
                in scopes of soft, strangled moans. the ones where i have
        my tiny hand around your throat, and god rings his hands
       in defeat because we ****** so ***** we made the world clean,
    the **** finds its home where bacteria grows.
bite 'til there's blood, if that's
              what you want. our friends always tried to make martyrs
     of us. "i want to know you," he says, but the mountains moan loud
    on the ear hairs, those baby ones, that get tickled in the chicago wind
or when you stick your tongue in and i like it.
                when a girl says get gone she means it; now rip off
            your pretty pink lips i want them to bruise my **** i want
         you to get off from it. but you want love
fifth and twenty-second, legs less fervent less eager to bend
        over the sink, in the shower, in your bed. so again with the play:
read something about warmth .some thing warm like a body
        like your body. some/thing like a brown powder
                              and now it’s warm all over
                        here i dip my pinky finger, here spread that on your
          gums. baby, you look so good with a finger in your mouth.
   i can take the coke drips and the starchy pain of paper cuts,
   the first taste of blood and missing the last step, "just dope sick,
   alright, *******/"
                 but the silence is so


                                                            ­it's so
                    
                       when i wild and bare teeth, it's dreaming
                                  because i can handle the coke drips, the softer butter
                       shards, real fine i can keep steady all handlebars
                                a little hype for ketamine like crazy eyes, hear you
                  repeat to me for two hours one night, "your face! your face!"
          and the men they apologize because "it's not mine" but the elbow
      won't tear from the socket i'm eating my eyeball i'm shooting the
  *** rockets all over manhattan. so what's it to hustle, when the
       scene can't even bump it. i'm waiting to nod out to miles davis'
           trumpet. tell me how the drug girl can find some one to keep
up/ can one-up the crazy and puff the exhaust. i'm only looking
for a partner in my disgust; so you and me and jesus should talk
                laugh over )a real one) "yes i love tequila,
                                             darling you're a *****, meet me at the
                                  bar, ill ******* at your own game ;)"
        "oh you'll **** me ? ;)"
                                            "yea i'd *******, so what, i'd **** a lot of
                                              people,"
                                              Read 2:43 am
        "..."        
                                             "what are you typing"
                                              Read 3:24 am

Because we both know the sound of gunfire
Except I, didn’t grow up in a war zone
It was a different kind from yours
Our bullets were words
Sounds of breaking glass
And the shards of which made it into my cheerios the next day
Chewed them anyway to spite
The sound that
Breaking makes

You,
you know the sound of falling bodies too readily
  you can mimic them in your footsteps
The smell of rotting corpses
What kind of scars shrapnel really leaves

What the color of blood really looks like
I see that shade of red every time you speak
  The way you keep it hidden in those paintings
In the drawer that I sneak into when you sleep
Know too well what evil looks like

I can find a place for all the words buried in my chest
inside your bullet wounds easily

If I were not a coward

Staring into the dark irises of men in uniforms dirtier than their conscience,
Find it easier to look into a barrel of a gun
Only one of them holds salvation
  
No, you are not afraid of guns
Nor the sound that breaking makes


But I still remove the safety pin
Just in case

Pin me down
And show me bad things
I can do to you later on
I never been made love to someone
Who was ******
In their dingy
Smoke stained apartment
Our love nest I actual
Scream god is great
When you give me loving
In ******
Make love to me until I
Have my essence flows
Let’s get dirtier then your
Walls
Lap me up
As you give me special kisses
Make sweetly love to me

compasses, clocks, knives, are useless now.
clues, few.
coffinlike rooms full of certain exclamations,
4am empty train stations full of dangling questions.
selected memory, particularly of being
cruel to love. character,
existence, poetry, it all becomes layered
like crime novels.
blurred and unblurred,
in stained-rag mind, faces and places and
the theme,
tense, it is an age
where nothing begins and i myself begin to
(be) mean
many other things
in addition to what i say.
"what is the meaning of this?"
"i don't know."
"what should we do?"
get jilted again, spiral drunk, die on the
floor, bored, playing
sick,
i don't know.
"been there,
done that,"
it's a slow slowing and a trying to forget,
hands dirtier, shards smaller.
i don't even know if
this was an accident?

through climaxes and comedowns,
still carrying clouds
around; to cash the check, to the party,
to the pharmacist,
to the burial ground,
craving a reason to go hungry.

god, how big are your hands
god, will tomorrow be better
god, what have i done, what can i do, how

the more i remember
the more i just remember the young day
i had screamed so hard for so long at the unanswering rain

Creek
I call it a crick
when I was ten- no eleven

Maybe ten and a half

My dad worked as a mechanic....like I do now

I remeber he came home one day and kicked off his ***** workboots by the front door
His hands were always dirtier than a *******

He always had grease and dirt under his nails when he got home
and would run them under hot water and glo-jo like I do now

Them hands were COVERED in scars
....mine aren't that scarred yet
and I'm hoping they never will be

I got out of this town once and made it half way around the ******* planet

But I came back when aunt mary-lou died
the only thing I remember from that funeral
....the girl across from me was wearing a red thong
her name was Megan (I had a dog with that name once)
She was aunt mary-lou's friends **** *** stepdaughter

She had that look like
"I am way too good for this trailer park *******"
And I smiled and thought
"I know you are"

Well my dad came home
To find out that I had broken the bb gun he got when he was fourteen

And instead of yellin' at me
or beatin' me
he told me to go get him a beer
and he let me have a sip

I thought he was gonna tear me up and down like a red headed step-child
Or put his cigarette out on my palm

But he didn't
He just sat there
and still to this day I wonder why I didn't get the usual


Truth is:
when I came back from getting his beer on that fateful day
I thought I might have seen my dad wiping a tear from his cheek

You are Irish. So am I. The Kennedys are, and so is half of ******* America.

We aren't special, you aren't unique, so put down your Guinness you freak.

I hate people being so proud of a land they have never been.

Our freckles and our hair and skin is the color of ham.

You act like the Irish invented beer

and are proud that the Celtic women have a big mule rear .

Our ancestors had to escape such a ****** forsaken place.

and you act like god chose you to procreate some master race.

I know that your family and mine spent years in mud.

Dirtier than swine, just to feed your family a diseased spud.

Our pink grandparents came here, and put down every other race that didn't match their rosy face.

So go find a leprechaun with a *** o' luck.

Don't raise a drink to our ancestry, because I don't give a ****.

Why would you ask me if I'm okay
Don't I look like I'm okay
And stop calling me Jacqueline
I’m not Jacqueline anymore
No, I was never Jacqueline,
But I didn’t realize that when I was younger
And who do I ask about my gender
Don’t tell me God
I have spent so long praying
There are depressions in the floorboards from where my knees collided with faith
But I don’t think I have faith anymore
God doesn’t answer my prayers anymore
Why doesn’t god answer my prayers?
I know for a fact God answers my friends’ prayers
why doesn’t He answer mine
I think it’s because He doesn’t love his queer children
I think God needs to go to a PFLAG meeting
Or at least one needs to be held in a church so He can hear the words of acceptance echoing throughout his house
Mom told me they didn’t know if I was a boy or a girl until I was born
But I still don’t know
Let’s do an ultrasound on the part of my brain that decided not to feel like a girl
I must have decided
But I don’t remember doing it
I told my friend I didn’t feel like a girl,
She laughed and said, “I know, you feel like a woman.”
I told my friend I didn’t feel like a girl, and she said, “Not so loud, I don’t want my parents to hear.”
And she was right, because at some point “gender” became a dirtier word than ***
Because even though her parents won’t admit it, they wouldn’t kick her out if she was having ***, as long as it wasn’t with someone of the same ***
And I’m in a same *** relationship with God
Because in religion class they told me He was genderless
But we still call God “He”
People still call me she
But I’ve never told them different
They said we’re all created in God’s image,
But I think I’m not
Because God doesn’t make mistakes.
No, I’m not okay
And stop calling me Jacqueline.

Being cheated on hurts. So. Bad. 


The way I loved before, I know I’ll never be able to get back to that point ever again.

My sense of self worth has gone down, I now question my trust in my own intuition, and my hurt feels like a pain I’ve never felt before.


“I’m so glad I never have to worry about him.” 


Something I used to always tell my mom and friends.

I always thought his love for me would overpower his desire for other women. I was so wrong. 


I felt stupid. I felt played. 


I’d had opportunities to do him as ***** (if not dirtier) than he did me. I didn’t partake in those opportunities because I felt like our love was so pure and I didn’t want to be the one to ruin something so beautiful.

I was wrong. 
I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed. 


While I was sick, I thought he was being true to me. I fantasized about having his kids upon healing. I thought our love grew stronger because he was there for me at my lowest.

I was wrong.


Instead, he was spending time and money - something we both felt we had such little of- on someone else.

I feel hurt. I feel unsafe. 


I don’t trust the same way I used to. I don’t look at him the same way I used to. I don’t have “forever” hopes like I used to.


Hopefully someday I’ll heal.

But for now, my heart hurts.

I’ll never be the same.

waiting outside of the recording studio
near the train tracks and the tall buildings
running out of time.
an old gypsy woman
wearing magenta rubber boots
and riding a  stained crimson fixed gear
passes me, trains come and go billowing
their impatient whistles
as I take double exposures of them and the sky
with my lomo 35mm.
Ate nothing but six shots
of espresso
and a pack of cigarettes last night, with
a side of liquor which
reminded me too much of memories too good
to be worth remembered .

Best advice I've read in three months;
wear sunscreen, and realize that
good advice is wasted on the young,
advice is also a form of nostalgia,
the givers of it reach out to the dirtier parts
of their memories, clean it up into something
hopefully worth salvaging.
another train passes and I start to grow
impatient myself, a long day of work
ahead of me.

Life*
is just a larger
dirtier version
of high school...

(No one really gets ahead)

She was the only one I trusted enough to let hold my hand,
hers wasn't as soft as mine, but I liked how long her nails were,
and the color of her nail polish, which I can't remember,
it's always changing anyway.
I hated it when she cried, but I loved it too.
The way her lips would almost curl up,
teasing you with the taste of her beautiful smile.
Her tears made her eyes flash from light to dark so fast that they would glow.
Her eye's a rich, dark chocolate, would melt into a moist gold and I
swear you could see the universe unfold in them.

She is the light that casts my shadow,
and the darkness that blends it into nothing.
Stripping my soul from bones and flesh.
I bend into her as she makes room by removing time and replacing the space between sight and sound.
The warmth in her red-stained lips, long socks, and tight skirts,
force me to smile as I walk alone, knowing that I'm the other half of
something.
Her colors make me scream a thousand times, until my throat gets
clogged with her contrast
and the inner-lining candy-coated things I
want to say dissolve with a down pour of tears
from the phrases that she pukes into my mouth for me to swallow,
and digest.  
Like a mother bird to it's baby.
She's often like a mother, the way she holds me,
the way she pushes me out of the nest
knowing I'm afraid of heights,
knowing that I'll fly anyway,
knowing I'm terrified of myself.

Trust is hard to come by alone in my room,
imagine my surprise in the amount that she would wrap me in,
imagine my surprise when she held me:
and wouldn't let go.

She fell in love and we visited his home together.
His bachelor apartment revealed his artistic interests
and his tendency toward a monkish life.
It made me tired, and hungry.
She slept beside me that night,
barely understanding what he was thinking through the walls.
I imagined her trying to feel his arms around her,
instead of the humid air and scratchy sheets.

I wished that my hair had less dirt
and that I could be the one whose
thoughts were blocked by concrete and wood,
and not a swollen tongue.

It's been a long time since then.
I give my cat milk instead of water,
I sleep with blue blankets instead of skin
and I keep my pajamas on.

My phone calls are lot dirtier than I'd like them to be,
and my heartbeat can't reach farther than my vision.
Now she cries for reasons I'll never know,
and I hate it.
It scares me that I can't dry them with my back turned,
and that she lives too close for letters.
I can only hope  that she'll stay long enough to be my winter skin,
and so that I can be hers,
because I know without each other we'll both freeze to death.

My heart needs you,
and my soul needs you,
like a stomach needs food,
or a suicidal man needs morphine,
or a child needs a friend,
or lips need the burn of a yes
or the freeze of a no:
I need you.

I only say that because I love you more than I love myself,
and that's saying something.

Pencil and paper turn into stylus and screen;
our world is industrializing like we've never seen.
Manufacturing products out left and right,
and soon enough our prototypes will join in the fight.
Are we possibly producing more than we can consume?
Do we understand that technology could lead to our doom?
Convenient, oh sure, as we just sit here and get fat.
We have iPhones, and iPads, but no eye contact?
The air is getting dirtier and unhealthier per day,
and we believe the government when they say it's okay.
Do we not realize how much harm we're actually doing,
even though a better world is what we're pursuing?

The caramel corn has taken on a subtle hint of hand sanitizer.
It is enough to **** all the germs.
A kernel escapes and the search party is unsuccessful.

The tile in the bathroom reminds me of other jobs.
Janitorial work,
cleaning up after others.
The tiles in my store were larger and dirtier.

I can't think,
this headache is raging a war.
Aided by my cube neighbors fan.
I snore at night and dream of helicopters.

Things usually come back around to bite you,
like a snake
or NASCAR.
America,
the Land of the Free.

I have lied so much that
it comes out as the truth.

A rusty swing set sits in the backyard,
choked by weeds and broken furniture.
The overstuffed purple couch
has seen better days.
Tonight,
it will sleep alone.

When I am feeling down I count the ceiling tiles,
getting lost at fourteen.
Fifteen is a liar.

What would happen if the stars did re-align?
Just for one day,
the cost of beer wouldn't be so high.
Then again,
the liquor store on Jefferson sells Tallies for $1.19.
Let's not be greedy.
I will buy two of them to make sure that when I sleep tonight,
it is soundly.

The phone keeps ringing with complaints.
People are more interested in their neighbors
than the fire.

Forget about this poem.
It is better if you just skim this literary travesty.
There is no substance.

This new day is failing
and it will soon be cleansed.
Forgive me Father,
for I have sinned.
Please,
watch over those I care most about.

Girl from wherever,
You appeared with a coffee in hand,
At my table
So we talked,
and we walked.

My friends were infatuated,
Their pupils dilated
I’m sure one even masturbated,
to a dirtier, devious you, locked in his mind
But you were too pure for me to.

Your eyes were big and brown,
Big and brown, I could see in your house
Through those big brown window-eyes
I saw love, pain, sadness, and reflections
Of a time that you longed for.

Your skin was soft with a suntan,
But it wasn’t a suntan,
it was a piece of perfect toast,
it was wheat bread,
smooth and a light dark.

One night we talked,
You on the floor, me on the couch
We danced, we sang and we laughed,
But you were leaving the next day,
I had nothing to say, but thank you.

You told me you were the perfect match
For me, a man of Pisces,
“I don’t believe in that,” I said,
But really, I think there is something to it,
We decided we would be perfectly matched.

Oh, but you were leaving the next day,
And I went to sleep, with you in my arms
You were a girl from wherever, my norwegian wood,
I was a pisces that was too clever, but you understood,
Goodbye girl from wherever, my norwegian wood.

I think back to that day, those days,
And I wonder what you’re doing,
Ha, funny thing,
I don’t remember your name,
but you’re my norwegian wood.

The little gold
Shines beautifully
Under the yellow light
Shimmering faces
With a cheeky smile

Come four years
A little older
A  little dirtier
But that same cheeky smile
The same little gold

Come another 8 years
The same little gold
Inside
Layers and layers
of dark, black
dirt piling up
No more cheeky smiles
Only masks, masks and more masks

Come another 16 years
The same little gold
More and more
More and more
More and more
Layers piling up
The little gold
No more to be seen
Black, coarsened gold
Masks, masks and
more masks
A heart of gold
But not
a mind of gold

Come another 32 years
The little black gold
ceases to exist.
Under the thousands
and thousands
and thousands
of other layers
But a new layer of gold
forms.
Twas not the gold
formed first
Formed last
Old is gold.

A dime on the floor is dirtier
than a penny on the table
Another race that's only run
By who is young and
Who is able, and
It's hard to differentiate
Who is *******
in a stable
As all our backs are sore
And our losing legs are shameful, but

Let it not discourage thee, thou, or
You
There's a faster racer running
Passing, beating without shoes
There is no flag attached
No podium or pew
Just some blood
Some wood and ash
Running through and through

There is a sun
And it rises
And further,
The world still spins

We run around it for
Gold and prizes
But our own strength
will never win
it.

~Feed Me~

Ox blood red runs down your perfect thighs
in a hell storm of leather.
My tongue following close behind
in a flowing trail of excitement.
Stiletto heels kiss the ground
to take ownership of where you stand.
Returning back to those pretty red satin *******,
only to lose myself in your essence.
My tongue straining through the fabric as to tease.
On my knees before you, I can live forever,
thrive, feast on your love.
Your wetness is my pleasure, it's all about you,
your beauty and your mind.
***** blond locks brushing bronze peaks,
in a dance of passion.
The thoughts in your mind are dirtier
than the color of your hair.
you tremble at my touch, eyes meeting in lust,
my hand finding the
joy between your legs, soaked, throbbing, wanting.
I lightly brush my finger across the satin. your **** hard,
engorged, seeking my tongue.
Kissing you behind your knees
and licking up the back of your thigh,
biting and slapping your ***
before spinning you around on your come
**** me heels. Reluctantly removing the silky
red barrier between myself
and heaven, still on my knees
I grab both cheeks of your pretty ***
and pull you into my mouth, my tongue deep...so deep.
I feel your thighs
tremble, knees weaken, lips of velvet quiver and glisten.
That's my girl, let it go baby...
your *** cheeks clench, your rose she throbs,
thrusting into my mouth, convulsing, shaking violently,
your warmth flowing
into my mouth like the river wild....
I look up at your angelic Halo of wrath
and the now devious smile upon your pretty lips as you whisper.....
.......again....

I.
Lovers, hold on to everything.
Because when you’re holding on for dear life
That’s when you find what you’re made of.

II.
I walk and the rose petals fall
(Slowly)
as if they have gravitational properties
which allow them to float
for just a while longer
Before they hit the ground.

God I wish for that gift.

III.
An ethereal light
Illuminates my figure
I crashed onto the ***** mattress
On an even dirtier floor
And writhed my body
Screaming
Wait

Wait.

WAIT.

This isn’t the story of heartbreak
It’s the story of what happens after it.

IV.
I’ve felt the heat from the core of the earth
Give birth to my broken body
He broke me but I fixed me.

(It took an eternity)

When I thought I just needed his love
I found I just needed mine.

I watch you tend to the celery
Weeding gently, encouraging
Little leaves tenderly
"You're growing" I hear you say
This moment is enough
To justify the love I possess for you
If you can tend to the seeds
Dirtier than I could ever be
One day you may even love me
Again, like you did
When I was as new as your garden
If you had tended to me so gently
Would I be here?
Or did you need me wilted
Desperate enough
That I might stay forever
Beneath the dirt
With you