in the chorus you said
he was your daddy
and printed on vinyl
with all that passed
you’ve got to play that track
still
it’s your most requested
biggest hit

that night we toasted
to liars, and
everyone looked around
then to their feet
and i added,
“for wasting all our time”
and everyone felt like i
was talking to
just
them

then, when the stagehands called
and there was no one at the mic
i knew you’d felt your mortality
i knew all your songs had died
and they’d find you at home
pulling out a strand of hair
every second

i let it rain on niko bellic for ten minutes
i felt like Vonnegut
watching him stand in one spot
shaking off the rain

sometimes
you find yourself
washed up on a foreign shore
and you must get to know
the indigenous people
the language
and look around
and blink
as if you’d woken up from
a dream
as if you’d been here
all along

forgive me, please
for basking
in the luminescent haze
and shaking hands
with the deciders
of happiness
of pain
for today they smile upon me

forgive me for not stopping

every time you gotta fight
to keep the cold from sinking in

the shiver lies dormant in your spine
you don’t wanna let it out

this time, you were doing so well
save one gust in a blustery storm

and now that it’s snowing
the shiver wont wait to get you

you let it out, you damn fool
and now it shakes you wherever you go

try and sleep it off, make it go away
spend time under artifical suns

how many times has it been now?
and with each time it takes longer

longer to sleep off
longer to get warm

it’s some dumb drunk and me
in a gas station in a city of snow
with dullness and silence
humming through the radio noise
under the heavy business lights
you can see our many bruises
from tripping in our modern hamster wheels
and he stumbles crooked which makes
me wonder who knows which way is straight
anyway

this time,
i say:
the coffee is free

the fun police aren’t fun
until you’re one
and you begin to compare
what is and isn’t fair
“why should he be given free
what cost so much for me?”
and you hate what loves you
and become jealous in your dreams, too
living in a human zoo.

me, over here
my mouth numb with ecstasy
i am lazy
but i am not dumb
in the jungle you can not
remain easy

i’m so tired of finding
disgusting things in the
most beautiful places
hidden in secret cavities

i can’t stand to see it
i just can’t stand to see it
this perversion makes me
want to die

in a place with a beautiful sunset
only to find the deepest destruction
behind one single cloud
that engulfs everything, eventually

and where would i find myself then?
the most profound despair
found in every smile
with less will than i have currently?

from where would
i draw inspiration for
a single breath?

maybe you’ll have cats
just to mask the smell
of the dead bodies
buried somewhere
in your cluttered home

you’ll blame your short
breath on the asthma
when really the child
inside you wont let you take
the medicine for your
corroded
heart

and the last time i saw you
you grew cold in my arms
and no love could be enough
to fill your acidic chest

not mine,
at least.

he came to our party drunk already
he grabbed a guitar and joined our songs
singing blues and bashing chords

reality came knocking
the police
the landlord

he answered the door like a madman
screaming “i’ll kill who
ever it is!”

a struggle ensued
he screamed “wetback!
spic!”

at the mexican landlord
and
it was a drunk struggle

until the cops came and
we all ended up on the
street but the cops never saw the knife

well,
he’d pulled it on the landlord
before his girl got him to the car

he was still screaming
“i’ll kill you!
let go of me! you bitch!”

we decided, via telephone
to avoid the cops, we’d party
onward at another domicile

i believe, this was our first night
together (you and i),
and when we got there he was still mad

he shattered the glass door
of the apartment complex with
his knife

he ran off into the woods
after changing clothes in his
girl’s car

i told you how much i admired him
and you were so afraid when the cops
came to the second place, too

and here you are getting engaged
about to fuck for the first time
because you’re getting married

at 22
what a joke;
i still wish i was him that night

his book, by now
was far too long to be read
in full

no plot was evident
he just kept writing

his hurried fingers
whirring inside of
his pathetic house

tim

triumphant in the night
i am breathless by your
majesty
truly befitting of so
many eyes left wanting

but still
your spine
does arch
with the waves of my
electric touch
masterfully wielded

my name rides particles
into your lungs
as you gasp for air
after years stagnant

and in this
i feel like a beast
and you do too
as i find my hand
on your throat

this rush is like a drug
as the teeth sink in

and i grow wary
to say the least
as the ecstacy
flows through our
veins
of what parts of me
are left in your
memory-foam
mattress-top.

what is there, really,
but chess with joe?

he’s got your back
to the wall
and you say
“fuck you,
man!”

he’s got you coming
and going
both ways
but you’ve still got the
fight in you

and it goes like this
all the time
on under the blanket
of night

on an occasion or two
you might win
joe might grin
then you will go on
again

on still under the
blanket of
night.

once two ghosts were talking on the phone
it was the saddest conversation in the whole world
then one said to the other “well,
i’m going to hang up now”
and at the dial tone the pain engulfed them both
and on each end neither could really handle it
so they disappeared as the first snow hit the ground
and the dial tone played on
to homes haunted no longer.