The deeper I pushed you in to my pockets

The more tangled you became
And

Every time I would pull you apart
There would be an increased level of frustration

Agitated

To the point

Where I was pulling
With scarred fingers 

And no regard 

To how much tension you could take 

And 

Although I always know 

Phone right front pocket
Wallet back left 

Keys front left
Love 

Always gravitates from different pockets
Throughout the day 

See 
I don’t know where love fits 

In what otherwise
Is a logical system of organization
And there is no designated spot
For my headphones
But 
I never leave the house without love 

Because I need something to distract me 

From 
Monday through Friday’s 

Mundane walk to campus
I have used love 

To drown out distraction
Just as often 

As it has been distraction

But my headphones can not
Drown out love 

And believe me

I have tried
I

Go through headphones

Bi-monthly

Losing them 

Easily 

And often feeling a pang of guilt
When replacing one 
I have not lost
But will not look for
I have found myself
Loving three people at once 

And some days

I put on a jacket
With that many pairs of headphones in its pockets 

I can be that haphazard
With where I place my love
Sometimes 
I think I’ve fallen for
An entire airplane’s worth

Of women 

Who I will never talk to 

My headphones
On my last flight
Were cheap and not useful

And until I can invest in love
I will not get the quality of music
I want
But I find myself 

Addressing my letters 

Just as often as I find myself 

At radio shack 

Which is rarely
If ever 

Because I know

That the moment I spend more than 20 dollars on a pair of headphones
I will be in constant fear
Of breaking or losing them

A man crashed his car in to a viaduct
with fervor and purpose.
He died instantly, but his
viaduct still stands, still holds up
the things it’s meant to

His car was totaled in the paperwork
but a junkyard man will
make that old car right again
and sell it off new-used, no
question.

His mother is screaming and
his daughter does not get
the concept of not having
a ride to school or a bedtime story
or a father, in fact.

At least they get the money, though,
from that big fat half-mil term-life.

And at least he got to go out big
before he had to collect his pension.

Not that there’d be anything for him,
anyway.

“The first time I put on the black silk panties, I got a hard-on right away”
-Julian Beck

I would like to spend time as a Drag Queen
Sing I’m so pretty in the mirror
There is a beauty in a façade
And kiss myself right on the reflection
Leaving red lipstick stain

I would like to tuck
And tape
And support, support, support
Six rolled up wads of socks
Underneath wonderbra
On wonderbra
I would like to lie
About who I am
And be called
Beautiful
Or sexy
Or atrocity
Or abomination against nature
I want to be freak
And hey mama
Or
Get the fuck out

I want to don the mask of the drag queen
And hold my persona together with nothing
But a thick cake of make up
Turning
1 am at a sleazy bar
Into fireworks
Using nothing but sequins
I want to be that threat

And when I wake up tomorrow morning
I want to be so still drunk
That I mistake 
my black eyes for make up
I want to create
The entirety of who I am
And wear that person’s heart on my sleeve

I want to be

A drag queen
For just one week
Maybe a month
I want to step out of this body suffocation
And be the pearl earrings fur coat
Grandness I cannot embody
And though I am not made of bright lights
If I
Age seven years in a day
So be it

But if I disappear
I do not want it to be
Gradual and subtle
Just one flash bang
Blinding week
I would like to be
Grand