I know there are Those, but they are not him, and he is not that.

And, in my deepest animal, I wish it were-

Careening, demanding, needing

me, my arch-in-back as

I twist before his Readiness, his angst.

Hoping for the best only to find nothing;

a shrew to tame for my own dear desire.

Play summoner
with brass horn, with
steel string and pickup

Make dark the room
while ghosts come
through, while soul simmers

Locks on windows and
the clock set fast so
it’s on time when it
moves again

Things are too short to settle for.
Things are too long to settle, too.

Ghosts come through and
quiet, for to not disturb
the summoner played

Time is arbitration
timing, arbitrary

There’s fire in all of it,
though,
sprouting from the devil-box
and bursting from the big
brass bell

And it would bring you to tears
while the ghosts come through,
and now you’ve lost yourself,

and that’s just fine, because
here we are again.



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

You are my sunshine

when skies are grey

but sometimes I just

need a break

from all those harmful

UV rays

you bleach my hair

you tan my face

you dress me down

you keep me baked

and then when all

is said and done

the moon’s as pretty

as the sun

before we fall asleep
you look out the window and notice
the first snow of winter
finally falling
it thinly coats cars trees streets

and before we fall asleep
i pray it will stick till morning
so i can see the paw prints
of the black cat i just saw
running along the fence.

I wore slacks for 12 hours today and
costume changed my tie once for
a nicer occasion that required a thicker knot

I sat with my back more rigid than it knows how
And did not cross my legs or
put my elbows on any tables and
I refrained from using the word “bitch”
Even when the lady was being one

I was napkin lap charming
Speaking only softly and
Always peppered with compliments

All the while

I was quietly counting
The oddly growing number of
small rough blisters
On my fingertips and hands

These muscles ache and stretch
they are the Devil’s Sinews,
the machines of a vengeful spirit.

My heart, clutched by blackened bones
is pounding and burning,
my stomach spraying acids from it’s
pores

I would scream if my lungs would not
brim with pesticides.

I would kill if my hands would
stop ripping my skin from me.

I would eat and tear and scream would
my body permit me.

Instead I smash my hands on concrete
until they are but
pulpy stumps.

Instead I break myself apart.

water slips between.
you slip quickly between my fingers as i grasp
for you.

For every stupid girl who let herself fall

Unbeknownst into the

Clutches of yet another reprehensible fool,

Know this.

 

It gets better. I know it sounds cliché but I promise. Maybe not

Tomorrow but some day, you’ll look back

 

And realize that nothing was ever really so bad.

Let yourself move on and you will see,

Life will go on.

i don’t know if the
road to peace has any
mile markers on it but
i’s counting my footsteps
up ’till today and i
wish i knew how much longer
to go cuz i’m so so tired
hiking from atom to atom
to the tempo of all of the
multi
cellular
war
drums
and
their
chanting
sounds so beautiful, some
times
and their eyes are so
beautiful some
times

and i get up
things spread back out
and disappear
and that beauty is replaced
with waves of electrons
and even then things are
beautiful some
times
and lo my thumb hits the air.

I have no beautiful words,

only mindless ramblings.

A drifter’s soul

and a coward’s heart.

A genius’s mind

with a drunkards ethic.

I am nothing

and everything.

Loveless

and loved.

Death is welcomed,

and denied.

Fuck my mind, it’s useless

Break brick wall me right in the chest like gods own bulldozer
Make me many windowed
So I can throw my dusted moon caution
Towards the wind and clouds
And watch it catch night sky in staircase pattern
Meet me halfway
Between my windowed chest
And my big yellow moon silence
Look me right in the storm eye
The calm inside the restlessness
My moon unmoving lips
And bring me home

That gentleman in the corner,
he is insane, I think.

He is eating buttons
like they are candies.

He swears they’re all he can afford,
but I gave him a bag,
last Sunday,
of the finest M and Ms
this side of the Mason-Dixon.

And yet he eats his buttons,
now, and his shirts don’t
stay done either. And
by the time he sews them up
he’s on to another.

But I gave him candies
not a week ago.

So let him sit in his corner,
I say,
and let him, bare and breathless,
chew another little hunk
of plastic for all it’s worth.

He deserves it.

As another man in another life my
soul was up for grabs but
I got it back and now
It’s safe in a trust fund,
lock and key and all of that.

If I got the bank-man right
I’ll double my investment
in no time
(say a lifetime or so)
and that’s perfect, says I.

After all I’m not using it,
and since a lifetime is
exactly how long I plan to live,
I’d say things are working out
precisely.

As long as this bank don’t fail,
that is.