For Emmaline

You are like a car crash
and I am a train wreck
and you just for a moment
tried to align our paths, to
crawl onto my tracks and
brace for the impact.
But it will never be that
because I can see the inevitable
from way way back.

Part II

The Octopus came to you in a dream
and touched you.
He lit you a cigarette. He said:
but you didn't hear him.
His accent was thick,
His words further impaired by
the clacking of His beak,
which you fixated on.
You wanted to listen.
He was telling you the future
which has always interested you.
But you couldn't.
You always have been ungrateful and
it was sinister of him to assume otherwise.
The Octopus queries you.
The musculature around His oily eyes twitch
and you imagine the orbs
rolling without focus.
You wonder, do they move independently?
He could see so much, if he tried.
Do they?
The Octopus eventually tires of you.
He gathers his props and
prepares to leave.
You are saddened.
Even though you don't understand him,
he always seems pleasant enough.
You always enjoy his visits.
As he moves to the door, you
reach your hand out.
You open your mouth.
But he is already gone.

The Octopus.

You, the octopus.
You with the broken teeth, with
your closed tight jaws of regret.
You, the monster who has only
a past and a future,
because your present is unaccounted for.
You, the octopus,
with your tangled paws of inadequacy.
You, the sea demon
with the rage they speak of in legends.
With the sour beak of hunger and
the slow movements of an untold weight.
You, the octopus.
Terrifying because that is all
they have ever made of you.
A sadistic beast of you,
an unfeeling mass of sinew,
a thoughtless pulpy death machine.
You, the octopus,
you remain silent.

Drug A

This is a dangerous, illegal substance.
and so we say, "yes."
Give it to us, we
must have it.

Learn everything now.
Learn every piece of it.
Do this in a white room.
Remove all stimuli.
If you don't completely internalize this,
you will pull apart the patterns
all around you. It will be worthless.
You will gain nothing.
Bring someone who always
agree with you.
Discuss everything.
Don't move at all:
there is no reason to.
If you find your head is buzzing,
listen.
Buzz back.

Untitled# 92

rubbing our bodies against
eachother, pushing
flesh together repeatedly.
to touch
and retouch
and adjust
just checking,
but scared.
we understand fragile.
we play with this in our hands,
this round idea of failure.
to impress you.
we lay together like children
with that childish wild flying trust
a future which is always
secretly holding hands with terror
deep and clinging, something defiant
something a child would never understand
but that we do.
that this is the most natural
to be WITH rather than WITHOUT.
we understand it is not forever
it is not long enough, forever
so we devour
we press harder.

Monday nights.

when we walk in a pack
we jangle like janitors
our keys swinging with our hips
the sound of defiance.
we are the working class.
the tough guys in the opening sequence
strutting to our next drink
in slow motion like.
we own this town with
our low expectations and
open bar tabs.
our work boots and
dirty t-shirts.
daughters love us and
daddys hate us and
we are drunk and
indifferent

A day alone.

girl sits, says
nothing. is eating.
boy comes in sits.
also says
nothing.
she says,
something. a dilemma.
boy says nothing. is not
even listening. girl says
it is resolved. thank
you for letting me.
boy looks up calmly, says
I have a consultation fee of $5.
every additional minute you
remain speaking to me is another $2.
I am considering this a consultation, so
five more dollars.
she asks, and then
don't answer!
he speaks to her further, explaining
how the billing would work, saying
for this there will be a surcharge.
she opens her mouth, closes.
he says, that I will not charge you for.
that is your freebie.
the last.
she wants to say
thank you but
that would be another two dollars.
the phone rings.
it was a role playing game.
caller asks, well,
did it start when he asked
why you wanted to kill him?
for this

The Current Date.

she had asked the sunlight for forgiveness
and he had given it to her.
she received the message.
she reveled.
it wasn't just you,
it was also the unobtrusiveness of you.
the lack of you.
it comes to you so simply and we walked;
moving as one, in
the same direction always.
easy.
and so I love you.
now that I can see everything
and all the math that has eluded me before.
just easy black lines
just totally calm phrases.
totally harmonic, floating drifting
choruses. The refrain.
you took yours to go. and you left.
easily convinced the next wonder
would be even more wondrous than the current.
twice as wonderful as the last.
Getting better all the time.

An Open Letter to Michael Harrington

Exit, M. Harrington.

Don't you remember, it was weather like this last year that sparked us. There was the same doomy disintegration of inhibitions and the winter months both, when girls wear short shorts and flips irregardless of the temperatures, based only on the sun being out.
It is the time to sit outside, or inside, and read books instead of watching television.
These memories are from before the days you shamed me.
Or, I shamed you.
Whichever happened first.
Isn't time funny? The way it erases everything. Do you even remember the things I'm going to tell you next?
This is when we were still almost sneaking around in secret.
When you would come to my window instead, if you had been invited through the door.
When I would wait quietly for you to wake up, not eating because I couldn't afford it but sucking my nutrients through cheap gin and grapefruit juice.
When men in motorcycles were still whisking me away for hot dogs adventures.
When I still always had the flask. Was always sitting in the driveway. Was always walking to or from somewhere.
This is when we were born, sitting on the porch together, doing things I can't imagine now like discovering each other. Like, making out.
These things in secret, under the cover of darkness or rainclouds.
I remember the time when your voice on the phone was still a sexy surprise. When I knew your schedule perfectly. When watched you through a reflection of your reflection and sat on the stoop outside waiting for you to walk by.
This was me, pursuing you.
Eventually we began touching each other. We used to get breakfast and hold hands. I don't remember who said I Love You first but I get the feeling it was you.
We walked home in the light of the morning. We talked about having two kids together.
Two boys. Tom Ward III wanted to bake our wedding cake for us.
The is when people still accepted me. As yours.
It is hard for me to relearn my place in the summertime, because last summer was my favorite.
These were the times when I was still hanging out with your friends because they were our friends and not because I wanted to sleep with them (or so you say now.)
When you wanted to go place with me all the time. When I was still in awe of you. Afraid of you (in a way that is different from the way I am afraid now.)
When you still acted impressed by my Polaroid skills and we used to nap together on the orange couch.
We had such dreams then. I was going to be a writer and you the photographer. We were going to travel around the world together. Reviewing restaurants.
We were going to own our own book store, with a cafe that I would run and a printing press where we would publish ourselves and other worthy and obscure young people.
This is when we shared dreams and ambitions.
Before you became confused and thought you still loved me when you were just horny.
Before I placated you because I cared more about your mental instability than mine.
This was when we sat in the park and drank a six pack.

The Eulogy, Part I

Cycles of hope and regret do not apply here.
You were always lonely,but
never desperate enough to trust your own judgement.
You were violently in love,
violently out of love.
You could never escape that sinking feeling
as time passed and you could not.
You watched the mirror, waiting for something new.
The comfort and familiarity came to you
flickering in the glow of the florescent globes
which framed you.
You would not look away,
you were all you had.
You ached for someone who would
litter you with scraps of paper
saved with the hope of importance.
You wanted that spinning clatter,
the beautiful noise of
careless clutter.
But still you decided to run.
Every day you ran.
You just shouldered your way through the interactions,
you soldiered on.
Your tongue was never welcoming,
only inviting.
You punished yourself
for your own shortcomings through them.
At some point you should have laid down arms.
But you strayed,
you walked away.
If reincarnation was real it wouldn't matter.
You keep making the same mistakes,
or you wouldn't be here.

The Eulogy, Part II

You could look into the world
but there were holes.
Always those strange flashes of no origin-
that sourceless boring brightness.
To blink would had been weak,
to squeeze your eyes closed and
seek out a personal darkness
would have made you an outlaw.
So, you could never see everything.
But you did try.
This was never a world you could trust,
or even believe in.
Everything you thought you knew
just banged around your skull
while everything else lay beyond your reach.
Your memory has omissions.
Secretly you were scared that it had been your choice,
your way to lie and also maintain an innocence.
Standing under a scalding shower
you often wondered what the facts really were.
When you spoke, you were never entirely sure
of what you were saying or even
if we could hear you.
You drank because there had never been
anything before that.
Of course by then you were dying,
but not nearly fast enough.

The Euology, Part III

You were always so selfish.
You never stopped.
You were found - limp and listless,
at tired copy of what you once were,
an empty shell with no sense or no care to.
Your eyes rolled slowly, side to side
reading whatever message had been
scrawled across your mind.
You imagined a hand on your shoulder,
but only because you had to.
You acted like you wanted to live
but you just didn't want to die alone.
Your body stiffened over time.
Your back arched and your fingers curled.
Your eyes became milky
and stopped their desperate sliding.
Your mouth moved like a fish, gasping
but not breathing.
Something inside of you had changed.
Some parts of you were sick and tired.
Were walking out.
Your head tilted back howling, silently
even after your heart beat abandoned you.
Even after your blood had slowed
to just a memory of movement.
You had pleaded.
You were asking one last time
for that second chance.
But like always,
it never came.