can't let go

i can't let go of the South,
the drugs, i think,
i can't live without

can't let go
of yr feet dangling from our window
last spring and
yr homemade earrings,
i'm pulling

at yr lobes,
i can't let go of the empty Pimm's,
skeletons, who needs them,

and dreams, what have you,
i can't let go
of words that have no meaning,
i keep searching, searching

through broken things,
yr ankle, three places,
my empty Miller cases,
this place,

i can't let go
of the smell on yr pillow,
the idea of home
and the songs we sang about it

i can't let go
of the water, the trains,
the tracks that lead to this pain
i can't let go

the innocent pains we cause and the crimes of lacking passion we commit

i've figured out the pattern of
letting someone down
in 6 easy steps

1. give someone your heart (fall madly in love)
2. get let down (experience loss)
3. hurt (wallow in this step indefinitely, continue to step 4 simultaneously)
4. take someone else's heart (in hopes of a savior or a distraction- you are mad here, you don't know any better)
5. continue hurting (classical conditioning in preparation for next step)
6. let them down (unknowingly)

step 5 is a blindfolded reaction
the innocent crime step 6
step 3, well, it never really ends
sometimes we don't see the pain we inflict
a rabid dog kills with a lack of understanding

i do not know what i am doing
i have not been sober for
a long time now

it is much more complicated
than these 6 steps
but i am hurt and turning mad

did you know tears are also effective
for cleaning wounds?
did you know
it is human instinct to suck the blood from a cut?

my paws are sore
as i tread on your chest without feeling
my nails in your skin
too preoccupied with my own feelings
to let anyone in

poems about you

everyone falls in love with me

except you.

blood orange

i took you in pieces,
my blood orange,
your bright colors
still scattered 'round my bedroom floor

my dog teeth sunk right into you
my swimming fingers peeled you layer by layer
naked, i sucked the life right out of you

your citrus scent still hangs from my high ceilings
the taste of your fruit hides under my tongue
my hands are stained red
shame-faced
and we both know why
i can only call you my blood orange

self same

at 11:11
i wished to be healthy

how narcissistic,
it's 11:13 and i'm giving away my wishes
inducing my own sickness

i am Ouroboros,
uninterrupted egotistical cannibal

i never stop talking
to strangers on the street,
men in bars

can't stop drinking
like i said i would,
keep dragging on these scars

Goddamn, i go on and on
listing reasons why
i can't move on

"i didn't even believe in the death penalty, but oh yes, oh yes"

the bodies fall like days do,
quickly, in the blink of an eye,
my, how your baby has grown,
my, how you've always wanted the best for him,

string 'em high up in a tree, with the rest of them,
remember the first time you noticed his fingers becoming calloused,
the first time his knees bled, and how he ran into your arms,

he is your baby, in the name of the Father, he was blessed in the water,
oh, how they've chained him to the chair and set the locks on fire,
oh, how you tried to save him from this city, covering his face,
always covering his face when you carried him,

the day you lost control, don't you ever forget it,
his puppy dog eyes wet and blackened on the courtyard,
your sadness and frustration, and how you wondered,
wondered about the other mother,

the verdict is unanimous, the boys are animals,
they have ruined our city, and for years you held him in your lap, watched it on the TV,
hang 'em high! hang 'em high! no one will never hurt my baby,
we are all anxious for death, we are all angry

now, in the waiting room, you are shaking,
thinking of how gentle he looks when he's sleeping,
he is still just a baby, your baby,
did everyone forget, we all carry the weight of our son's bodies?

remember the day they put your rabid pup to sleep,
how they called to hang him, never looked in his eyes, never saw him as human,
they held him down and quickly tied him to the table,

we are all so anxious for death,
we are all angry.
but you, never forget those eyelashes, those first steps, those tiny pairs of shoes,
look deep into their eyes, never forget the weight, look deep into their eyes.



---
"I have seen people who were hung and that is not a sight I would wish anyone to see. I often wonder where does all the savagery originate in these young people, the seemingly endless callousness that allows one to take a life so easily, and to end their own if caught. There must have been a point where fighting and forgetting about it ended and picking up a gun and killing a person replaced it. Where someone gave up on being a good father or mother and decided to be a criminal. I feel sorry for them because being a father and grandfather is the greatest part of my life."

i, flightless bird

stranger, will you mug me?
stranger, will you take my body?

i'm always looking for him,
always comparing the length of your
eyelashes
to his.

are you the hawk,
and these my feathers
strewn about the yard?

Saint Anthony and Other Ones We Trust

1990, when, as a toddler, i swallowed my mother's pills beneath our kitchen table
and our yellow-ish Volvo station wagon (or maybe not) sped down Old Watson Road
at ninety miles an hour
the car was airborne to Saint Anthony where i was pumped and charcoaled

we call these miracles

Thank Blessed Anthony, the same Saint
who cut the insides of my throat with a dirty knife and left me to die

Anthony, the same Saint,
who pronounced me dead on arrival,
who left me drugged spitting up my mother's blood for three days

we pray to Who.
We ask, where were you?

what heat did i let off
running around the morning school bus
and what of those home made videos
age eleven
already angry and self hating because
i was not "she"
and no one ever told me

what of the millennium Sundays
we prayed to God and stole from the children's church
we excused ourselves and kissed in the bathroom stall (until Grandma made us stop because (i think) she knew what we were doing)
when he and i climbed on top of that shed
you stood a few yards away eating potato salad and defining judgement
i lied still and quiet while he rubbed against me
just a kid already angry
because no one ever spoke up
we just prayed to god

diagnosis (audio originally)

see
the problem with me she says
the problem with me is that i live in a primal state of defensiveness

it's my mind
all the time it thinks we're under attack !
guard up ready to fight

see
she says this when i talk about you
she tells me i have warm energy
she feels it pushing against her palm when she waves her hand in front of mine
we feel each other without touching
she's really starting to know me now

one time i closed my eyes and she imagined a Clydesdale horse kneeling over my body and gently lying it's head upon mine
she whispered
and i could feel the whiskers
i could feel the weight

see
every so often i ask her why are you taking your clothes off?
and she tells me she is not

i am present again

there is a brindle horse standing in the pasture
it looks healthy

beams of light are shooting through my insides
the sounds of bank vaults unlocking
bright gold

see
i thought she was kind of crazy at first
always calling me intelligent so smart
i told everyone she's crazy!
but i still keep coming back

see she might just be on to something, here.

On mandatory drug tests for welfare recipients

we all have our drug of choice,
you have your children.