I know that there is a table
in a Catholic high school in my local town
with an etch of the letter "G"
next to boredom-inspired vandal,
jagged lines, circles,
perhaps a few ******* shapes
as silly high school boys
are prone to draw.

An Advanced Maths textbook sits on a shelf
with a little doodle
of a peace sign next to an emo smiley
from a time where I was caught
between two phases,
tight black jeans and a flowing turquoise shirt.

Tobacco stains smeared
over the wood of a sealed off door
just outside my bedroom,
evidence of the first time
I tried a cigarette, seven years old,
and then panicked and tried to
flush it down the toilet,
only to have to fish it out and stuff it
in a little crevice, to be hidden and
remain there for seven years.

We leave all these little marks
and stains
in places we've been.
Spilled food, spilled ink, spilled drink,
tobacco stains and pools of blood.
"The marks humans leave are
too often scars."

I have scars.
Left forearm. Right calf. Right wrist bone. Both kneecaps.

A scar across my ribs and chest I was
so desperate to be rid of,
I bathed myself in oils and it was
the first scab I
never picked at; but a couple of weeks ago
I dreamt it was there again, fresh.
It tore open in front of everyone, bled out,
and I woke up gasping, drowning in my fear,
agonised, clutching at a wound that'd long since faded
convinced I could feel it splitting me apart again.

I have evidence all over my body
and more buried deep within the recesses of my mind,
scars so jagged they put knives to shame,
shining, pale, like diamonds in moonlight
not half as precious
but still invaluable.
Evidence of the marks humans leave behind.

I'm not innocent.
I don't pretend like I am.
I know there is a man out there
who gained another scar to add to his collection
when he was fourteen years old.
I know my hands carved it into his skin.
I know I used to use my fists
when others used their words to hurt me.

When I die, I know that I will leave
pieces of myself
everywhere
I've ever been. Whether people know it
or not, whether they
remember me
or not. There are ink stains
and coffee spills. My blood
is still on the floor of his house.
The high school cafeteria
has a circle of red
from a nosebleed I didn't realise I was having.
There are parks wearing my graffiti
and children donning my old clothes, and people overseas
still alive because of me

(or that's what they'll tell me, but
all I did was talk.
Give yourself the credit you guys deserve,
you're the ones who chose to listen.
You're the ones who had the strength to
pick your head up and carry on)

There are exes who still think of me
and friends who will one day
come across some article of clothing
or a piece of technology
I left behind after a sleepover.
Teachers who will remember
that smart, sarcastic student
who had panic attacks in their classrooms
and drank coffee in the mentoring hub with Mrs. Hume
whilst buttering bagels and functioning on no sleep.

Maybe our place in the universe is
insignificant. Or maybe it's the
most significant thing
of all.
Maybe the Buddhists are right.
Maybe we are the universe, together
as one. I sure think it makes sense.

Streams of consciousness
and spirits that need healing.
We work the sun
without even realising we're doing it.
We destroy it, too,
which is perhaps why we
are so self destructive in turn.

Maybe we're
smaller than specs of dust
but that's okay.
You don't have anything
without the particles required
to make things up.
Everything is a collection of atoms:
the tiniest things of all
yet they're the centre of everything,
the beginning of everything.

So when the end comes and
we burst back into the sky,
stardust and souls and
blinking little lights,
we'll have left our marks on the earth
regardless of who remembers
and we'll still be there, twinkling,
a collection of atoms that came from a supernova
essential to the makeup of galaxies
and life itself.
What could be more beautiful than that?

Awaking blithe each morning,
with eyes upon the World,
I wonder, are we mourning
with ebon flags unfurled –
or are they but a warning,
some draped like snakes and curled,
stray stars and stripes adorning,
sent from the netherworld.

I wander through the garden
with nothing on my mind
and say 'I beg your pardon'
alarmed at what I find
as winds begin to harden
and fate begins to grind.

Confused, I watch my neighbours,
they're wide-eyed, unafraid
to halt all useful labours
and join the death brigade;
the ritters rattle sabres,
the frail and fragile fade,
morticians tap on tabors,
the potentates parade.

The military blesses
(in tunics somewhat browned)
its crimson-stained successes,
hell bent and heaven bound.
Such scenes no more distress us:
a ****** battleground,
dissevered heads with tresses
and arms and legs abound;
the fourth estate suppresses
the heaps of bodies  found
(collateral excesses
discarded in a mound).

Society regresses,
now living by the sword,
with torture and its stresses
upon a waterboard;
a captive kid confesses,
his innocence ignored -
fallacious facts and guesses,
the guts of justice gored!

With canting vindication
a big brass bully brags
(with pearls of perspiration
and swollen tongue that gags)
of third world  subjugation
for gelt and oily swags,
of human rights' castration,
and on and on it drags.

The manifold migration
of refugees in rags
while searching for salvation
soon finds compassion lags;
uprooted populations
are fleeing from their flags
else dying of starvation
as naked hunger nags.

With trump cards politicking,
two little hands (all thumbs)
may send the Mad Dog siccing.
Insane! All sense succumbs.

Atomic timepiece ticking
until the Reaper comes
as Geiger counters clicking
drown out the droning drums.

Cast out for not conforming,
I wander day by day
to find the earth deforming
as nature wastes away,
with bees no longer swarming
(expunged with garden spray)
and ocean depths transforming
(neath plastic overlay).

With CO2 performing
the climate's led astray,
the atmosphere's been warming,
the grasses ashen gray,
eternal tempest storming
while permafrosts decay,
and ozone holes are forming
in deadly disarray.

The people profiteering
descend a slip'ry *****
destroying, never fearing        
of running out of rope;
instead they sit back sneering
“our wealth’s your only hope”.

Yes, Armageddon's nearing,
it's doubtful that we'll cope,
for Evolution's jeering,
she's scanned our horoscope:
we'll soon be disappearing
with whale and antelope.


           Epitaph

The multitudes were jumbled,
some milling ’round the mall,
while politicians bumbled
when bracing for the brawl.

The World around us rumbled,
our backs against the wall,
as bombs were tossed and tumbled
across our broken ball.

My kneecaps creaked and crumbled
but I, too proud to crawl,
took but a step and stumbled  
yet found no place to fall.

And no one heard me grumble
although I tried to call,
or maybe I just mumbled,
as strength began to pall.

Well now the World’s been humbled
I seek an urban sprawl,
but since the feuds were fumbled
there’s nothing left at all.

Sometimes the words I love you swarm like hornets behind my teeth, a phrase so heavy it only has eight letters just like I lost you.
Sometimes in the pause you take before you speak, I wonder if you’re fighting to keep down the same things as I am; trying to swallow a confession that seems less like a secret and more like stating the obvious.
We were funny, we were bad at holding hands, I hated when a car goes over the tracks, you had this way of making silence the loudest sound in the room when it hit the floor.
I made a home out of your hands just like how many beautiful things go without reciprocation.
We seem to have found fault in being whole, somewhere alone the way, we’ve started enjoying breaking things;
Like my ribs when you’re gone and I want to know if you can tell the difference between the absence of my voice and silence.
You are the only thing I’ve ever let go that makes my hands ache.
I’m still trying to piece together what made you lose your faith in me, was it how everything starts with gritting teeth and everything ends with you walking away? I should’ve known, the way you used to hold my back like you were checking it for exit wounds.
It took me 2 car wrecks and 6 shattered mirrors for me to realize that the world has so much more to say when it is silent;
if I didn’t bruise so easily, if I wasn’t looking for a way to be made of a river, if I needed the silence to mean something, then I would ask you to build me out of quiet revenge and goodbyes that stick in your sides like tree branches, I would need you to build me out of reasons to believe instead of reasons to be afraid, I would turn my kneecaps into strawberries in exchange for potter’s hands so I could mild you a bulletproof spirit.
It was silence and your lighter, I was cold, you were drinking; that was our backbone.
You were alone, I was going too fast because sometimes you don’t have to be in the wrong place to be looking for the wrong thing.
I am afraid and you are warm; this is the beginning of a forest fire filled with broken glass shattering in broken homes with broken people inside on a broken piece of land in a city that has too much rain for someone to build an emergency room in.
I spend nights up until my body can’t handle itself any longer,
mornings have come like a hammer to my head-
instead of my face, all I can see in the mirror is an unfamiliar expression,
something like a dead battery.
All I ever wanted was for you to be my fire, I am tired of these old lives and would like to see them burn.

Explaining My Depression to My Mother: A Conversation
Mom, my depression is a shape shifter.
One day it is as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear,
The next, it’s the bear.
On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone.
I call the bad days: “the Dark Days.”
Mom says, “Try lighting candles.”
When I see a candle, I see the flesh of a church, the flicker of a flame,
Sparks of a memory younger than noon.
I am standing beside her open casket.
It is the moment I learn every person I ever come to know will someday die.
Besides Mom, I’m not afraid of the dark.
Perhaps, that’s part of the problem.
Mom says, “I thought the problem was that you can’t get out of bed.”
I can’t.
Anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head.
Mom says, “Where did anxiety come from?”
Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out-of-town depression felt obligated to bring to the party.
Mom, I am the party.
Only I am a party I don’t want to be at.
Mom says, “Why don’t you try going to actual parties, see your friends?”
Sure, I make plans. I make plans but I don’t want to go.
I make plans because I know I should want to go. I know sometimes I would have wanted to go.
It’s just not that fun having fun when you don’t want to have fun, Mom.
You see, Mom, each night insomnia sweeps me up in his arms dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove-light.
Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company.
Mom says, “Try counting sheep.”
But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake;
So I go for walks; but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons held in strong arms with loose wrists.
They ring in my ears like clumsy church bells reminding me I am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness I cannot baptize myself in.
Mom says, “Happy is a decision.”
But my happy is as hollow as a pin pricked egg.
My happy is a high fever that will break.
Mom says I am so good at making something out of nothing and then flat-out asks me if I am afraid of dying.
No.
I am afraid of living.
Mom, I am lonely.
I think I learned that when Dad left how to turn the anger into lonely —
The lonely into busy;
So when I tell you, “I’ve been super busy lately,” I mean I’ve been falling asleep watching Sports Center on the couch
To avoid confronting the empty side of my bed.
But my depression always drags me back to my bed
Until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city,
My mouth a bone yard of teeth broken from biting down on themselves.
The hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat,
But I am a careless tourist here.
I will never truly know everywhere I have been.
Mom still doesn’t understand.
Mom! Can’t you see that neither can I?

You are the velvet to my lace, the freckles on your face, the rocket to outer space when i’m forgetting why my feet need to hit the ground.


You are three seconds away from a sunrise when I desperately need the light, you are a cup of tea and wisdom, and you are a giggle at just the right moment while the blood exchanges ideas between my wide-eyed fanatic manic panic mind and my static acrobatic heart.

You are love and a smile when everything around has fallen dark. We fall down the seasons, each leaf turned to green as the time is subjective as valued.

we fall down the winter of broken glass and torn kneecaps and into the summer of understanding and patched hearts.

We fall down the stairs of the boy who was the blank slate and into the arms of the boy who painted his stone happy.

You are the living room of my soul, where all the pictures make us smile just to look at them and the quilt on the couch is beautiful enough to make up for the small tear in the corner. Where the cups of tea sipped are innumerable as the curls on your head and the watercolor windows open past our souls and into our worlds.

Someday we’ll be able to keep track of our socks and get enough sleep but right now I’m still figuring it out. I’m still trying to connect the sky to the tree to the earth to the tesseracted interaction theatrical statement of who I am and what I will be. We will become.

There was a town beyond the woods,
Ne’er there any water stood,
Alas, a Well, of the purest kind,
The aquifer under, is here described,
Beyond a thousand gallons under
The diamond-esque rubble and sunder.
But one bucket, at but one time,
Kind, the town, taking turns of rhyme,
This essence, used to bathe and cook,
To drink, to create, a cozy nook.
-
The happy town, the gorgeous shire,
The crops grown there as green as Ire,
No law exists, they live but civilly,
A fetching, quiet community,
But always there exists a one,
Who would want power, want this undone,
So it was said regretfully,
Poisoned their Well, emotionless he.
-
Now this village was quite secluded,
No one not there born, ne’er intruded,
Deep in the forest, behind a mountain,
Over a peak, under a cloudy curtain,
It existed in secret and abolition,
And one did seek its demolition,
Knowing the only flaw to here exist,
The essence of life, no man resists.
-
He crept at night, while the guard did sleep,
Promising the pure water to weep,
Dropping the genocide with bucket and crane,
Releasing its Demonic Alchemic Strain,
The Well did hiss as the poison moaned,
Recoiling at this unwanted drone,
The assailant then brought to his steady lips,
A cup and was first to take Devil’s Kiss.
-
On the morrow of the mentioned crime,
Busy bodies awoke to start the day’s time,
Queuing at bucket and awaiting turns,
Each family there a portion yearned,
Not one did from the water strafe,
Each then bathed, then drank, unsafe,
No one could tell different taste,
Water is water, but not today.
-
The plague did start like any disease,
Sore throat, fever, stopped nose, displeased,
The people sought the witchdoctor,
But he from bed, would rise no longer,
He caught ill too, and wouldn’t budge,
Afraid for his life, afraid of this grudge,
He knew this sickness, had heard before,
But told no one, the end was sure.
-
In a week, vomiting and nausea,
Nasal passages sealed, no nostalgia
Brought to memory of any like sickness,
The virus brought about decrepit afflictions,
But slowly and steady, worse and worse,
The people became, some saw the course
But kept silent, to avoid alerting,
The so many children in need of comforting.
-
In two weeks’ time, the pathogen,
Had taken wits of sensible men,
At night, they screamed in somber fright,
Their deepest fears, real now, and bright,
The lutes died out, the bards not singing,
An unfortunate time, but this was only beginning.
-
Fingernails rotting off at the cuticle,
Too much blood for any receptacle,
Leprositic, the fingers came next,
One by one, extremities hexed,
Children lost their legs to run,
From mothers’ faces rotted, undone,
In every other step, heard were bones breaking,
Kneecaps cracked open, shins splintering,
Eyes turned cadaverous, awake, but not seeing,
Cataracts formed, blinded from viral being,
In cradles were witnessed toddlers there suffering,
Their mothers watched with empty sockets, but listening
To the cries impossible to stifle,
The pain too much for these tiny disciples.
The dogs normally to their masters zealous,
Became of them mortally jealous.
They bit the hands that fed them well,
For watering them from the cryptic Well.
Men watched their sons dive right under,
The bridge that harnessed a valley of blunder
Hundreds of feet above sharp rocks and stumps,
Their namesakes leaped, impaled in clumps,
For those lucky enough to still have eyes,
Cried tears of acid for images despised
Sickness was spewed upon the walls,
Entrails adorned the Gathering Halls,
Some had turned to mutilation,
Blood-letting for some, abomination,
Some crazed enough to “cure” themselves,
Clawed throat and stomach til flesh dissolved,
Some rich with elixir tried to embezzle,
Upon some of the poor, tired and grizzled,
Riot broke out amongst the walking dead
Fortune or lack of, irrelevant,
Black pustules broke out that looked Bubonic,
But the cure for that failed, how ironic,
That it rather hastened the steadfast curse,
Faster than iambic verse,
Molecules turned to embryo,
Rising like a great Pharaoh,
They became flesh parasites,
Taking internal organs, slow and precise,
They started with the liver and spleen,
So there lasted hours of wretched screams,
The intestines of some would close and then
Becoming septic, they passed, bile in stem,
A few had throats seeming cauterized,
Friends watched friends closest, strangle alive,
There were in fact, some optimists,
Among them, talk of being “rid of this”,
They too died while clutching life,
Endeavoring their eternal flight,
From noses, there dripped blackened murk,
Thicker than combined oil and dirt,
It then secreted as sweat from all pores,
Fatigue then struck those left to the floor.
Upon broken knees some prayed,
Usually the skin under ribs was flayed,
Trying to understand what went wrong,
Dissecting the dead was not headstrong,
It only furthered viral progression,
The open corpses breathing infection,
The cadavers would move still, the fleshbugs active,
The horror of lifeless movement, corrosive,
The minds of the weak, it pure happenstance,
One found eating dead flesh for a cure, no chance.
All in all, this lingering curiosity,
Provided once good people with animosity,
One man turned good people to hate,
Their neighbors in ways that were irate.
-
The chaos was not anarchy,
For, as I said,
It was civilly,
But verily, I do decree,
That no one knew such misery,
The inhabitants of this village,
Did not suspect innocent visage,
Or perhaps, their cherished Well.
To be culprit behind this hell
So they drank and drank to remedy,
To recompense this malady,
To no avail did blood get thicker,
Alas, they got but sicker and sicker.
-
This hell, the townsfolk then realized,
Wouldn’t end til they all were nullified,
Eliminated they were, eradicated at that,
This pathogenic virus had verily spat
In the faces of the people here,
Decimated they were, not quenching their fear,
Murdered they were by a systematic
Suicidal psychopathic,
Inflamed in the mind of darkness thereafter,
Only satisfied by his own laughter.
Not many, til now, know of this town,
From lowly peasant, to “Godly” Crown.
An explorer found the deserted hamlet,
Body parts and questions then found the hermit,
He had heard of a town like this, he wrote:
“It was a new age Roanoke…”
But the village, not a town to cause commotion,
All that was left of them, a tree scratched, “CROATOAN”.

**** Middle-Aged Dad at the Water Park,
this is an ode to you.

**** Middle-Aged Dad at the Water Park
ambles behind
the kids sprawling out of the entrance
like baby spiders spilling
out of the crushed mother’s abdomen.

**** Middle-Aged Dad at the Waterpark
flip-flops his way to the lazy river,
shies his black Harley Davidson tanktop
to reveal his sunburnt
abdomious belly
flopping over his camo swim trunks.

He shakes off his flip-flops
and awkwardly wades in,
his hulking mass shifting with
each foot and tree trunk
of a leg smashing into
the shallow water,
sending shockwaves towards
screaming toddlers
in his wake.

Finding a vacant tube,
he turns his body around
and heaves himself
into the neon green donut
with considerable
and farcical
difficulty.

Mother at the pavilion
opens an eye from the lawn chair
and chuckles to herself,
applying another layer of sunscreen
over ruddy cancer-sensitive skin.

Sporting oblong racecar sunglasses
atop flushed puffy cheeks,
**** Middle-Aged Dad at the Waterpark
basks in the baking mid-summer sun
and the cool ****-ridden waters
he sinks his hands and feet into.

What is on his mind?
I imagine it is as close
to nothing
as he aims to get,

free from responsibility
like a wiry youth
he knew
from long ago.

The piercing screams of laughter
from ambulant children
splashing about him
are fruitless
in penetrating
his enclave.

He coasts about this way
for an eternity,
his red leather hide
burning in the hot sun
enwreathing his glasses.

Meanwhile,
mother reads
under the cool shade
of the pavilion,

the kids tumble down
slides and splash gleefully,
endlessly,

and life lingers on a moment
for a necessary
sojourn.

**** Middle-Aged Dad
awakens from his sun-cooked daze,
approaches the exit
and prepares himself
for his departure.

Waddling left and right,
he flops starboard
splashing magnificently
like a cannonball rolling off the deck
into the ocean.

His sunglasses leave him in the ruckus,
he gropes blindly
with chlorine-infested eyes,
til he grasps the visage
and stands up in the water.

His great body surges
from the waters,
fading tattoos gleam
along with a bald spot
in the sunlight.

He ambles through the waters—
water spilling out of rolls of fat
undulating in the motion—
and sensuously runs a baseball glove of a hand
through thinning hair.

His trunks bunch up around
firm, beefy buttocks
and a tired old *****,
thick tree trunk thighs,
ending its constriction just above
the wrinkled knot
of kneecaps.

Mother snapshots a photo
of the visage,
his fruits spilling about him
in perpetual glee,
his stolid look of authority,
wisdom, drive,
and endearment.

Years later,
the ambulant youths
on the cusp of adulthood

leaf through old photo albums
suddenly eyeing the Father piously
in a newfound awe,

aware of his gargantuan countenance
that shielded their efflorescence.

He was their sun,
he was their shade,
and their sky—

for he knew
when to plant,
and when to water,
and when to wait.

Running a thumb over
the diaphanous visage
exemplifying
an analog adolescence,

they jeer each other
over the Father,
secretly harboring
an amassing reverence
for the great figure,

the **** Middle-Aged Dad at the Water Park.

one person said: "peace is nothing but illusion
all I want is retribution"
[from "Pure Power" by Zardonic]
that's something I can identify with, which is why
I decided to write this heap of lines
————————————————————————————————
on a shooting range in a boondock la[ɛ]nd
with gloves pU̲t on; sta[ɛ]nd
in front of an autocratic ruler chained
by his hands to two moola safes'
[greed]
handles looking way
like an old-fangled car directing wheel
[steering wheel]
have this die-hard fool restrained
so that he, more or less, is still
I'm not a scho[ɑ]lar who can wave
around a degree in the medics field
but it's obvi this high-hat dO̲U̲chebag's plagued
with megalomania in a neglected condition
but there's a dreadfully effectual treatment
and he'll get it like villains
quite a gruesome fate
is looming upon this power-befuddled ****
like darkened clouds that, beyo[ɑ]nd a doubt, are soon to rain
["dark end"]
like waveriders, he's go[ʌ]nna serve
["surf"]
as a punchbag for I'm in quite a mood to raze
gonna wI̲nd up as nada short
of a ****** loon today
like Battinson, clepe me Vengeance
but I'm more something like the Zorro-looking caped
anti-autocratic vigila[ɛ]nte
from the Norsefire-ruled UK
[V from "V For Vendetta"]
meets someone whose work field's tormenting
like victimizers who pertain
to LE in one tsar-sized off-putting state
[law enforcement]
you know, the one that's go[ɑ]t a putrid trait
of always posing as a side you shouldn't blame (it's all the West!)
now, let's go back to the foul autocrat
————————————————————————————————
like a snotty boss that you disdain
I give this f#cking no[ɑ]b a cool g'day
by douching him from a bo[ɑ]ttle full of straight-
-fro[ʌ]m-a-cooler H2O; just a fE̲w secs break
for him, & once it's U̲p, I ****** this base
creature fro[ʌ]m a stE̲wpot great
with **[ɑ]t-a## noodles aimed into this hU̲mbug's stupid face
[the "hang noodles on the ears" expression]
pepper it with some ground 7-po[ɑ]t to boost the taste
feel how I, like a husband who betrayed
his devoted, yet testy, wife, get rudely gazed
at, racked, beda[ɛ]mned (by who?)
by food-lacking men from Africla[ɛ]nd
[Africa]
ask him: "is the provided food okay?"
zero gratitU̲de displayed
all that comes from this swine's bazoo's complaint
but it's nO̲[ɑ]t that I'm surprised
a classic pro[ɑ]sperous gobshite
repeat the tactic priorly applied
using a bucket full of maroon red paint
[autocrats have blood on their hands, hence "maroon red paint"]
like that music producer famed for dull future bass
I put on his viscous head a **** bucket
[Marshmello]
whereafter pick a wedge up & drum it
[golf wedge]
and, like a heap, I barely get started
[worn-out car]
like an unprepped passenger on an insane car ride
with no seat restraints applied
he's about to have a way hard time
I'm a cosmetic surgeon that operates part-time
fix his blamed jawline in just twain sharp swipes
with a steel bat, then yield some keen slaps
that meet his kneecaps until the knees snap
like the Baba Yaga hitman detached
from his peaceful life by someone ge[ɪ]tting him mad
[John Wick]
get his nails removed
which is pretty much the same that you do
when you repaper a room
[wall nails]
having perforated his fingertips
I get 'em plastered
a few minutes later, I rip them things
off sim. to wax strips
he gets his phA̲[eɪ]lanxes smitten with
a freaking ratchet
[rathet wrench]
pro[ɑ]b'ly, he regrets that his bo[ɑ]dy's still not dead
pick U̲p a pistol, set a drum-like clip in, get
it cocked, then shoot lead around his silhouette
till the clip has zero ammunition left
seems like this once co[ɑ]cky piece of dreck
has gotten his khaki chinos wet
but if I've go[ɑ]t him in a sweat
like a summer jo[ɑ]gger being dressed
in venthole-deficient threads
for this brash dude, there's bad news
like me when I write some sick bloodshed
sadly for him, I've not finished yet (uh-uh)
like a runner who's go[ɑ]t some distance left
to complete, & it's not as dark as things can get
'cause, like the heroine o[ʌ]f M. Streep in "Death
Becomes Her" after falling fro[ʌ]m that string of steps
I've got a somewhat twisted head
[that staircase fall scene with Madeline Ashton]
so consider this as an insult-to-inju[—]ry sesh
————————————————————————————————
grab a brace of scissors
for garden mainte[—]nance; Richard
****** Trager's here ta
get his skills of surgery trained; begin ta
amputate this creature's half-dilapidated fingers
operate at leisure getting 'em disarticulated I̲nto
twenty eight **** pieces
and cauterizing the remains with illuminated cI̲gars
fling into his piggish face some tissues
and some pain relievers
tell this nazissistic patient: "hE̲A̲l up"
["****" in the sense of being "severely intolerant or dictatorial"]
let him relax for eighteen minutes
over the spa[ɛ]n of whI̲ch I put on play "La Chica
Rockabilly" & some other ro[ɑ]ckabilly
jams to make the whole vibe a mite less grisly
like an NA brown bear that is gravely injured
["mightless grizzly"; North American]
(as, in fact, this tragic-fated bleeder)
whereafter spray him with a
["wither"]
can of gas & make his dicta—torial a## go ablaze akin ta
a straw-fabricated figure
during gala days at the late of winter
[Maslenitsa effigy]
telling this piece of trash: "in case you wI̲[ɪ]nd up
in somewhat of Hades, give a
warm shalom to the infamous ******"
consider this autocratic **** a sugar daddy's skirt
'cause he's gotten what he was asking for
————————————————————————————————
oh, & one thing more to say: the
nullified, like ruler's presiding terms, dictator
was known among some as "toilet sprayer"
like a scuttered urinator

THESE ARE YOUR HANDS AND THIS IS HOW YOU TELL THE FLAMES YOU'RE NOT ALL BAD.
THESE ARE YOUR THIRD DEGREE BURNS TO SAY YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH BONES MELTING IN TRUST ISSUES.
THESE ARE YOUR WRISTS, THOSE ARE YOUR KNEECAPS, THIS IS YOUR STORY.
THIS IS HOW YOU BITE YOUR TONGUE BUT STILL MANAGE TO LEAVE THE WORLD WONDERING HOW YOU COULD MATCH UP TO THUNDER'S HARMONIES,
THIS IS HOW YOU WHISPER TO MOUNTAINS AND KNOW THE PEAKS WILL HEAR YOU.
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD TO SHAKE HANDS WITHOUT STARTING AN EARTHQUAKE,
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL DEPRESSION TO LIGHTEN UP,
THIS IS HOW YOU GRAB ANXIETY BY THE SHOULDERS AND SING LULLABIES TO ITS LUNGS.
THIS IS HOW YOU WALK UP TO GOD AND RIP OPEN YOUR CHEST WITHOUT INTRODUCING YOURSELF FIRST AND ASK "WHY?"
THERE'S PAPER UNDERNEATH YOUR PILLOW,
THOSE ARE THE NOTES YOU PASSED TO YOUR BEST FRIEND IN THE THIRD GRADE WHEN YOU TOLD HER ABOUT YOUR FIRST CRUSH.
THERE'S A PAPER THAT'S BEEN IN YOUR BACK POCKET FOR A YEAR AND A HALF,
THE ONE NEXT TO YOUR RECEIPT FOR A BOTTLE OF WHISKEY AND STAIN REMOVER,
THIS IS THE NOTE SHE WROTE YOU A WEEK BEFORE HER FUNERAL.
THIS IS HOW YOU WASH YOUR JEANS WITH TWO CUPS OF 'TODAY I FORGOT TO REMEMBER TO FORGET'.
THIS IS HOW YOU COPE.
THIS IS HOW YOU LAY ON MUD STAINED CARPETING AND AND STARE AT YOUR BROKEN DOOR,
THIS IS HOW YOU CONVERT TO HARDWOOD FLOORS AND STRONGER DOOR HINGES.
THIS IS HOW YOU WIN A WAR WITH ONE BODY ON A BATTLEFIELD,
THIS IS HOW YOU SHOW A BLIND MAN THAT YOU CAN PAINT A ******* MASTERPIECE.
THIS IS HOW YOU REACH HEAVEN WITHOUT DYING, THIS IS HOW YOU KNOW HELL WITHOUT LIVING THROUGH IT.
THIS IS HOW YOU UNDERSTAND THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE, BY CROSSING PATHS WITH THE GUY THAT MADE YOU HATE WET PAVEMENT AND THE SMELL AFTER IT RAINS,
THIS IS HOW YOU HELD HIS HAND THE SAME WAY YOU HOLD A KNIFE, THIS IS HOW YOU LEARN FORGIVENESS.
THIS IS HOW YOU SMOKE WITH THREE LUNGS AND LOVE WITH ONE.
THIS IS HOW YOU STUFF THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE IN A FORTUNE COOKIE AND LEARN PATIENCE.
THIS IS HOW YOU TELL PEOPLE YOU'RE NOTHING LIKE YOUR MOTHER. THIS IS HOW YOU SAY YOU HAVE YOUR EYES, NOT HERS BECAUSE THIS IS HOW YOU UNCLENCH YOUR HUSBANDS FISTS.
THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE SOMEONE THAT NEVER KNEW HOW TO BE ALONE, THIS IS HOW YOU WORRY.
THIS IS HOW YOU CONFIDE IN A HOSPITAL BED TO TEACH YOU HOW TO LET GO.
THIS IS HOW YOU LET THE NURSE WITH SHAKY HANDS TEACH YOU HOW TO TRACE THE STRAIGHT LINE ON YOUR HEART MONITOR AND BE OKAY AFTERWARDS. THIS IS HOW YOU LIVE AND ACCEPT DEATH.
THIS IS HOW YOU UNEARTH YOURSELF,
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP EXISTING,
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP FOCUSING ON LIVING AND BREATHE FOR YOURSELF.
THIS IS HOW YOU STOP THINKING AND FEEL.
THIS IS HOW YOU SPEND A LIFETIME TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT 'THIS' IS.

September speaks in dull sand flecks
and billowing my stiffened skirt to kneecaps
rested on for prayer, grinded on for ***.

It pokes and I’ll awake –
I am just like a ***** in the autumn morn
first torn, the first born of a hundred
encounters of which I would not believe
it could be the opus of.

Ladies lose physical barriers, but they
do not evade a September when orchards are
trimmed and all that’s beneath is unveiled:
see it with my glass eye. No dust inside.

See it with your honey bulbs –
the foothills, the knees married to the floor
where stars first aligned, so I ****** you off.

The South African sun caused my
Eleven year old eyes to squint.
Sat in the stadium, my father and I,
Sweated and watched rugby;
A father - daughter tradition.
That Saturday afternoon was the final,
The stands were crowded and full,
Like a fish-tank ready to burst
At any moment.
In front of my father and I,
There sat a dark-haired woman
In a lose fitting jersey.
About forty minutes in,
She bent down, sudden and quick,
Her head, hitting her kneecaps,
She screamed her intense screams;
Muffled in her own bent body,
Some spectators thought her crazy,
She continued her whails, and soon
A small crowd grew in front of us,
One man pulled her straight in her seat,
Her hands, her face, her her legs and stomach
Were all drenched red with blood.
No one ever heard the gunshot;
They traced it back to its origin,
Two hundred meters away,
Fired from a building by the stadium.
The bullet just happened to land where it did,
And the game went on.


- Jamie F. Nugent

A small girl came up to me today.
She looked up at me with her big, blue, honest eyes and simply said;
"Hi, can I ask you something?"
She didn't even give me time to respond before asking, quite matter-of-factly,
"What does love mean to you?"

Well, I guess I had to think about that one.
"Trust." I said.
"Love, to me. Means trusting that your love for others will be taken care of with careful hands."
She looked up at me, not knowing at all what I meant. She just told me,
"Thank you miss." and walked back to the playground.

I found myself thinking about what this little girl had asked me. And I found myself thinking, I am so dumb.

Love is a lot of things. Love is a color. Love is a type of dessert. Love is sweet as ice cream, and it can be just as cold. Love is the scars on my wrists, and love is the bruises on my knees.
Love is the way the sun shines on every single one of us. There isn't a person that the sun refuses to shine on, so, I guess love is honesty? I don't really know.
But I know our love was infinite. We lived in infinity for a year and three days. Our love was also tears at 3am, and 9 hour phone calls with no sleep.
Our love was no secrets, we learned to spell love as Y-O-U and never as I-O-U. Your love never owed me anything. My love never stopped giving.
Love is non-judgmental.
Love is blind.
Love is deaf, love is irresponsible.

Second loves, are different.
Second loves are awkward, because they try to fit themselves in places where only the first loves should fit.
He tried to fit his kneecaps behind mine, but they weren't shaped the same as yours. My body before you hadn't been, imprinted. But the first time we spooned, yes, I just said spooned, your kneecaps created crevasses in the bends of mine. So when he tried to fit his fingers in the spaces between my own, I think he found your fingerprints still etched where they should have been washed away long ago.

Love, is a crack in the sidewalk.
Love turns your heart stone cold.
Love loves to see you suffer, and love loves the see you go through all the pain of broken-ness.

Be careful who you give your love to.
Be careful whose hands you drop your heart into, because some hands are too big and too strong and too unforgiving to hold your heart with the tenderness and care that it deserves.
Love will kick you in the stomach, and stab you in the back. Love will twist your words, love will make you lie.

Love is a pen and piece of paper.
Love is in every poem that I write.
Love is words, that sink into your blood and travel through your arteries.
Words that make your heart pump.
Love is your heartbeat.

Today, I walked up to a little ******* a playground.
I asked her, "What does love mean to you?"

And she replied, with absolutely no hesitation.
"Love is how when you fall off the monkey bars, you get back up and try again. Because even though I keep falling, I really wanna get to the other side."

Along a narrow, vacant street at 2 a.m.



Underneath the threatening lights of peril



An act of ******* was taking place between



A beautiful cigarette and the orifice of my lips





Halloween had not yet dawned upon us



Yet as I walk Jack-O-Lanterns smile at me



Displaying minor quakes of bloodthirsty evil



While a serum of scorn soaks my tongue





With a heartless trick of ice, cold malice



Summoning the entire town to its kneecaps



Devils regurgitate lullabies resembling the sound



Of nails ****** a chalkboard sparing no mercy





Arousing the hopeless romantics



To awaken a graveyard



And **** the corpses until they're



Resurrected from their comas





As the nymphomaniacs ice



Their frozen flesh with *****



Painting an ocean of abstract thoughts



Across the edges of their frames of mind





Do morticians make up the majority



Of necrophilia related crimes?



Maybe so but, I bet they had never felt



A ****** so dry and so cold





Yet still the thrill of chills tickle these criminal's spines



While they measure their screams careful not to awaken



The beautifully disgusting corpses that lie before them



They turn their heads only to find a pair of scarlet eyes





Gawking at them from within a cowardly shield of fear



Darkness was it's home, Mother to all its desires



In my opinion it was just a phase; A massacre encaged

Sometimes it’s something, as 
Simple and clean, tapping my
***** hat forwards, and 
Kicking my back heel against
The wall. 

Sometimes it’s the dank cavern
Of a Dodge’s backseat. 
The frozen entrance to the
Diseased freeway, breathing words 
Of tragedy and paranoia. 

But, sometimes, it’s
The painted landscape of a
Beach, that hung in the
Girl’s TV room, Lodged in place. 

I contact my mind’s
Travel agent, to find it, and 
Wearing Ricky’s sweatshirt I
Stare at the open water. 
Mindful of sharks,
And the smell of ***,
Or sometimes, Svedka. 

Or I’ll stare into Sam’s eyes,
Wishing instead to be 
Spying the bottom of
Jacky’s bottle.
Or Mary’s bowl. 

And when my *** hits the ground,
I’ll look up, this time,
And just like last time, the
Trees will melt. Dripping like
Engine sludge, onto a pavement.
Behind the pool of
Vaporized reality, walls of
Fire rise, so I’ll sit
Back a bit. 

But sometimes, it is too much. 
And I’m down on my
****** kneecaps, 
Appealing to the apparitions. 
Begging for a 
Box of wine.

I built a home for you, out of me,
when the bricks break
it is because I have been raided. The blue sky's
not even immune to cloudbursts
the humid air lifts
to resemble some form of heartbreak.
Call it
a mushroom cloud, I go off almost nuclear.

The truth loves me enough to reveal itself
the truth loves me
even when you do not.

I've decorated the staircase with it
and discovered rope-burn,
calluses like children wanting you to just watch
what they can do
watch a ceremony. What fathers create.  

I've padded its feet
with snow, the whole summer leaks with December
and my kneecaps are rotting wood.

Creaking
using garland as a noose
you know when I walk and when I sit, the truth
cannot stand for not knowing.

I've not let it lay down either,
this ****** affair. My
walls stay white and unheard of, untouched
yours are only
the cream of glue, I should have kept the doorway
shut and tied to you with a string.
Not even the truth can dissolve over a lie
(but I can, I can, I).

But
when God smells fear, he makes it happen
and God can be
a man, a woman, a lover.

A bill becomes a law through a process not unlike wet clay curing in the sun, seasonal labor filling the fields in springtime, a drop of sweat absorbed thirstily into a towel, a stain spreading across a tablecloth.

A bill becomes a law eventually, but often, not in time. A bill often fails on the floor, as do some people, as does, just as often,
the attempt to revive them. The attempt looks an awful lot
like a senator's face, energetic and gray and doomed and
looking for any advantage
when the needed advantage is in the ether
and still immaterial until the tenth of February.

I notice the bumper stickers, and I've deputized a Google Alert
to tell me that the popular mass is wakening.
I can also tell when it yawns,
or prods a rib for a pain that wasn't there yesterday.
I can tell when the popular mass has slept funny.
I can tell when it would rather not wake up at all
but the light is streaming in through the window
and the house is full of the sound of the dishwasher.

Pain on both sides, in both ribs, ignored
because sometimes it just happens - pain,
that is - and is a part of getting older,
like how you can't put peppers in your chili anymore
now that they don't grow on this side of the planet,
and there's nobody left to tend them.

I would like somebody to tend me, too,
but the law that sanctions that workforce
is still in committee, and mired in a dispute
about who deserves love.

This one goes out to all of those lying on their kitchen floor
once everyone is out of the house, lifting their legs and placing them on the countertop, listening to their heart ticking
and trying to discover if it reaches everywhere, if they can hear it
in their ankles.

This one goes out to their savings accounts and their kneecaps.

Here's hoping they make it.

Flip flip slide slide
grind grind pop pop
concentration.

hours and hours
sweat pours
bruised ankles bruised kneecaps
scraped shinbones scraped elbows
scabs and scars.

shirts and jeans torn, worn;
shoes a tattered mess--
laces shredded to bits tied desperately
clinging on to lapping tongues.

hair matted to skull sweating within damp skullcaps,
whether be it helmets (by choice or restriction),
or fitted baseball hats turned backwards,
or cuffed beanies in the dead of winter.
(father says the latter choices work well to soak all the blood up, I always roll my eyes in naivete.)

The paved driveway, where on my eighth birthday
a shining basketball goal sat at its full height
towering in the mountain sky--

stood forlorn in place as wide eyes glued to the pavement--

where shoes stood atop the gritty surface of a wooden board
with wheels attached to gleaming metal axles
rolled smoothly excitedly across the pavement in perpetuity.

destiny.

liquid
substance

rocks
substance

smoke
substance

can’t remember
substance

which substance?

abuse
abuser
abusie

abooozie
*****
abuse

fill up my cup
abuse

fill up my pipe
abuse

fill up my syringe
abuse

fill up my veins
abuse

fill up my heart til it’s beating hard enough for me to feel alive
abuse

feed the mermaid in my kneecaps with glitter liquid
abuse

any kind
abuse

to make me forget
abuse

just want to use
abuse

to make me forget the pain
when he lays hands on me
lays his own
abuse
on me

someone once told me, substance abusers are weak
face your problems head on
why do you need to see stars before you wake up
why is coke your coffee
why is whiskey your orange juice
why is **** your pancakes

and I say
if I am weak
then how come I can cling onto the clouds

perhaps, if I could live to be 1000 years old
I will have clinged to the clouds long enough for them to get sick of me

but for now, those clouds are my demons
and I’ve never loved the color red
so much

I kneel
kneecaps cracking, head bowed
under the heavy breath of your adoration
eyes ground into the dust each footstep rises

I am dirt-blind
but the crows can see, my ears bleed
how they cry and scream, weep and admire -
they enshrine him; I, unwilling, immortalise.

I keep
my eyesight clouded, looking down
the soil is my church, inadequacy
a mired crown.

i smoke the ******, people take a wiff
i cant tie ma shoes but i can *** yo *****
i walk that streets wit my boombastic reggae styl
we go to ma doops bungaloo and he says *** and stay a while
we find some bittys wit a fat *** and tell them theat they fine
they say we're creeps witout jobs we say they need some wine
turns out they werent down to *** like an assembly line

tired i go home down tha empty reggae street
i light tha ****, i light tha spliff till i cannot feel my feet
a car puls up i drop my cup they say to get in the backseat
im ****** about the cup it had my last brew and i want to drop a **
i owe them money i have none they brake ma kneecaps what fun
they throw me out the car, away i scurry
she got a big ***** so i call her big *****

You think you're a badass?
Shout at us all for no reason?
Blame me for your problems like I give a ****?
Take it out on my family and expect US to be sorry?
Well *******, you and your weird *** hair do.
I never had a beef with you
I didn't even know you!
You believe what others say about me
Well come at me now what do you see?
Am I all that they said I was cracked up to be?
Get the ******* message, I don't mess around, you hear me?
Or do I have to bash your brains into the concrete?
Would that be enough to get the message across?
If I blew out your kneecaps out would I feel sorry for your loss?
Hell ******* no, I'd blow your **** legs off!
Wait, ***** that I,d take a handsaw and cut em off!
Break every single bone in your ******* hands
Smash em with a hammer without a second glance
call 911 now that you can't touch a **** phone!
how would you like it if I barged in your home?
Sayin I'm all that and the president too
Yell at your family and blame you too?
Like your haircut? Let's see it all over my wall!
Hold the phone ******* let's give your insides a house call!
Oops, was that your gut, let me rip it open for you
You won't need it after I get done with you.
*******, you thought that this would go down smooth?
**** that, drink some barbed wire too!
Let me tell you this just one last time
Make my girl cry again and I'll make you wish I'd killed you..

Distress signals emmited from bioelectronic tendrils
blades under kneecaps
seeping into taste
smelling like Spring.
So many bodies kneeling on innocent grass
lined up and lined on
sitting in pews at the park
the limitless stretches of people and people
and everyone
everyone was there!
How magnificent! for the whole world to get together
and have a nice evening at the park
billions of feet stammering on billions more blades of grass
smelling like spring
smoderling summer sun
filling air rotting
sad little whimpers
inaudible under the mumble of the world
over the look in their eyes.
The heat jostled air
radiation poison
burning away life itself
keeping us all warm and alive inside.

so many people
everywhere and all around us
-- I had a thought
I wanted to write it down
before it got lost forever.
I tried.
The words twisted around as I wrote them
the pen melted in my hands
so that the the silly
silly silly words
stupid arrogant words too proud to be written down
I tried to make eloquent or something at all
I tried I tried
trust me i really tried
i didn't mean to be such a cottonmouthed disappointment
those silly words all swirled around and about
begging for anything real.
Hissed for one last moment
before the sun and the sound and the agony
twisted and snapped
melting away all that was
of the words on the paper
ofthe ink in the pen
of the shadows in my brain.
melting out dripdripping
tears as black as silence
blaring like ambient noise
I wish the words would understand
that the real real the world the real greybluechemical world
didn't want me living in it
anymore.
I don't know what I did to Life
to make it so upset
but I guess it just didn't want me hanging around,
said I never fit in well with the crowd.
Go find some other reality to bother.

And then it all set in,
0-60 in a second.
Here was your happiness
and here you are now.
And what an amazing distance that is.
when did those years go by?
why stand so sad with your soul in shreds?
Too afraid to set the strands on fire
so there they hung
ethereal chains jutting from every cell
chains that are a feast that you can't stomach
chains that are that sad song you can't listen to -anymore
chains that are that tear in your eye refusing to fall
all the loves lost if only you had just loved
who is this person in the mirror?
this blackeyed monster with eyes like sadness
and sleep like terror
with ink indignant ashamed of what you wrote
what you wrote deep down under those chains in you
mirror neuron pain must be felt
sadistic black mirror chained down and burning burning and melting and burning
and rambling
on and on and on and on and on and on
and you probably stopped reading long ago.

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I wasn't mixed; my parents are just different
shades of the same color but she doesn't believe me,
and the man behind the counter silently agrees.

the old white lady that always takes the 5 train
stares at me curiously, her eyes say they don't trust me
and I don't understand why. I never thought I had to
explain myself to strangers or that my race was the most
interesting thing about me but that's always the
first question everybody asks.

my aunt told me the other day that I was jabao,
in other words, nobody knows what to do with me.
I am unidentifiable. my skin screams the sun and
stars too small to recognize; it says I am the product
of a collision between the blackest sea and the whitest sand.
some parts of my body sing a ballad so dark only certain
people would ever want to listen to. maybe these are the
parts that the old white lady on the five train is scared to
listen to. maybe the curls I tried so hard to straighten are
what terrifies her, maybe the black in my kneecaps keeps
her up at night, maybe the sound of boisterous music in a
language she could never understand makes her skin jump,
sends shivers down her spine makes her think twice
about who I am.

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I was jabao, a mix of summer glow and
muted winter skin. but she doesn't believe me; says
she has never met a Dominican like me, that in some ways
I must be a mixed breed. and the man behind the counter
silently agrees.

(h.l.)

Build me with frostbite covering my heart, build me with a snowflake constantly falling from the roof of my mouth, build her with an addiction for cold weather. Let every person I miss for the next 20 years smear a dab of daylight on my sternum, let me lick my canyon deep wounds with the honeycomb tucked in between your teeth.
I want to stick a panic room underneath the chalices in my palms so they aren't so timid once I hear you talk about wearing Sunday clothes when you had your first beer.
I want the next girl I kiss to have lips like daylight and her hands to be warm, her legs to be every Summer that lasted just the right amount of time, build me with gunslinger fingertips that touch and touch and touch and stay steady, build my footsteps with the sounds of a rainstorm knocking it's fingers on the ground of an empty parking lot, build her out of prayers for a flood.
If I didn't bruise so easily, if I wasn't looking for a way to be made of a river, if I needed the silence to mean something, then I would ask you to build me out of quiet revenge and goodbyes that stick in your sides like tree branches, I would need you to build me out of reasons to believe instead of reasons to be afraid, I would turn my kneecaps into strawberries in exchange for potter's hands so I could mold you a bulletproof spirit. I want to spend the rest of my life watching the clouds, I want to have a voice as steady an oak tree and I want to see the sun cry rays of light so hard that it has nothing left in it but happiness and tugs the sky so tightly it turns purple.
We are nothing but a list of demands.

I’ve begun “The Wasting” once more.

That ragged uncovering of bones and peaks and ridges that crop up along my spine and shoulders.

My scapulas revealing themselves like the bed of a lake as the waters recede.

Indents beside and under my kneecaps, hollows that match the ones slowly sinking themselves back into my cheeks.

And the hipbones…the things I truly crave to see through the paper thin layer of my skin…

Those…I’d starve myself to waifish proportions just to graze my hands along the mountaintops of those things, those sharp little things.

I lose my hair and my colour and my shine just to dig my fingers into the hardness of my breastbone, just to know that my jawbone is an overhang, just to plunge headfirst into the thrill of being thin.

“The Wasting” and I are friends, and I want to drown in her.