'there is unfortunately no free wi-fi in Heaven'
i left my brain on a bus driving down alien highways
next to a girl whose name i think started with the same
sound that sex makes when both parties realize
the full extent of how much they fucking hate each other’s
body parts touching so intimately. sweat tastes like salt
and cum isn’t much better and there’s this bar that i know
where all the guys laugh and clink bottles over snorted
chortles and smoker’s cough, quite literally pissing
themselves over rape jokes and obama’s neo-fascism.
look how far we’ve come; jesus would be so proud of us
and last night i ate a bar of xanax in the name of piracy,
googled ‘quality_time_with_my_friends.torrent’ just to see
if there were any seeders awake at this hour. your home
is wherever the fuck you want it to be; plot your heart
on the political compass and make your art your true north;
what a mess that will be,
what a glorious mess
that would be.
P.O.V.
I saw you lingering
over a pint of lager,
staring listlessly
into a frosted glass.
Your eyes were stars
gazing away
into a distant memory
— somewhere
back in time.
\
You died on a Tuesday,
when trees hung bare
of leaves - lamenting
the end of summer.
The air was still,
as even the wind refrained
from calling your name,
in a sustained rest
of sound.
\
I’m on my third glass of Stella,
and I feel his gaze
dance across this empty pub.
His eyes feel like fingertips
softly tracing
the length of my spine,
smoothing away my frayed nerves,
and I take comfort in this feeling
— knowing
that I am not alone.
most common superpower
basting in the desperate bounty
of despair multicolored
mojo surrounds
crawling through weeds
outside your window while
you scream for
another
never knowing when
to stop the monkey on my
back is howling drunk again
passing time
‘til the fever reheats
debasement humming thru
the veins seeping
in my head
gotta getta
hold of me
Bed of the white pickup truck
He wishes he could breathe fire,
he wishes he could kill me with possessive distance
he wants to play with me
dirty fingers crawling up the bruises on my leg
he chews broken glass like tobacco
his resolutions unfinished, his boots
marking an unending howl
he kisses my fingertips but his actions
are meaningless while I flee from the bed
of the white pickup truck where you drive
by and my heart plummets, a airplane
scraping down my ribcage
he dreams about New Jersey, more
an idea than a distance, or a action, or a
admiration,
He is soft in that dead-glow
pushing himself into me trying to relive
the harsh boil with pressure and pretense
He peels me away from myself,
I saw all the signs – a song on the loud
radio, the curve of your neck while you
look away from me and watch the television
disengaged, the car dead on the side of the
road,
if time were a distance I would
run across the world, unburden myself
with the vacant look in your eyes
boring into me,
I have let a cowardice thief into my bridal bed,
sweet edifice,
I am left with only the precipice
before me, and the realization that I must jump.
Impala.
Still rocking after all these years, the window
only went half way down, kept me glued to my half
baked fears. Cracks went up, and down the
dash board, floor boards lined with Pepsi Cindy spilled.
Only one rear view mirror to speak of, in 1980
I suppose that was just enough to keep it up to snuff.
Vinyl seats made of cracked pleather, seems Mr.
Harrigan didn’t want to spring for the burgundy leather.
Rust set in when I was ten years old, inside the trunk,
just past the spare tire, was a damp little town made of stiiiiicky,
gooooey, green mold. A hole in the muffler, a dented
fender Grandpa made. We patched it up with furnace cement.
Summer days, the back of my legs were burned,
staples across the ceiling from where the glue came free.
Visors broken, I couldn’t see, no air conditioning, at
night on Ocean Parkway, I always felt the wind pass through me
Wooden box up the middle, with brand new speakers
Dad found in the garage. One day he climbed a pine in the
backyard. A rocket stuck up a tree - “Andrew, if I fall
the Chevy’s yours” - I was four, not quite old enough to drive.
the pallid lord
Between four walls of flickering glass sits
the pallid lord,
ruler of his own lurid lair
of metal and sparks and crystal ball circuitry,
king of no spirit,
commanding from the throne
behind his eyes.
Irises are fried by the nuclear glow of monitors,
He sweeps from surveillance screen to surveillance screen,
as they flash cathode rays that beam out technicolour lives;
look:
there is a teacher who talks a young angry man out of suicide,
there is a resolute and holy girl climbing the Dharamsala,
there is the broadcasted river of life.
They are the apostles of social behaviour,
the last hope for this one
born without a certificate,
or a mother’s reason,
or a father’s history.
And he watches the flashing displays dictate
how a soul can belong to Earth,
and wonders if he followed all the moves
of the pixelated people,
if he pushes far enough into the picture,
could he be human, too.
sometimes I feel like
rain when it turns cold
but doesn’t want to
like god when he shut
his eyes to blue whales
who swim in whiskey and
force their brothers to
toss out innocent patrons
with drunk friends who call
out to flits and dredges
that it’s time to go home
and fuck because that’s
beauty, in a certain way
post structuralists and
the decomposition of the signified.
the signifier floats arbitrarily
connecting meaningless coughs
and grumbles. what more are words,
splotches of ink or data on a hard drive?
no, my words are less than that.
seemingly, words become a tool
for an illiterate drunk’s massacre of art.
art for art’s sake or death for death’s sake;
there is no beginning to this story
except a mind sinking in the sand.
dark ale and lingering illness,
the evidence of my dying flesh.
i keep myself prone, trapped in bed
only moving for the chemicals
comforting me. yet, i don’t know
why i’m running as i’m safe and
making myself a way. survival’s curse
and potential contradict each thought
as i sink into shadows again
with my mind outside the ceiling.
All for not
Searching under the debris of my skin,
it seems loosely tied to me,
this shell, this husk of what remains
almost seems a waste,
a shame, I’m drifting in what can only be described
as—second thoughts.
Lucidly I do long for my youth, hoping to find
just a piece somewhere here
just below the surface of my aging shell,
only to warn it
to bloody run like hell
for what I’ve lived through seems
cruel and indifferent—
This life so far
seems fractured, tempered by my lonely fear,
its completely entranced by the stretches
I’ve had to endure, of not fitting in,
of not measuring up, of not following
my heart and meeting my dreams
at least halfway I dare now say.
Sullen, sallow, spent
uncompromised to death
compelled to reach the top
for what I ask, for what—
All for not—
Life’s ragged road twists and turns
leaving me with scrapes
and a severe case of carpet burns
the plots bend and slap against my skin
against my thoughts, against my wishes
to not engage, but here the page gets
divided into that which is seen by all
and the tiny pieces I hide under my loose skin,
a dried out shell, a husk not worth
keeping intact, a life almost ready to forget,
the time to test the waters and interact
with you seem almost through.
Too short, too short, too damn short
to think, to pause, to export anymore
of my feelings out into the open, to be shared
for what, for not, all for not—
How to forget everything day 63
insomniacs collect more debt & cancer
than most any other pretender who props her eyes open
with sticks of brown dynamite
carves words into the labels
all the boys look like cigarettes
it’s natural to want a match
I look at life with a new cocked swagger
a new perspective
pillow hair & muttering that I wear like the model
I starve myself to be
if I could sleep
none of this would be worth it
I would know better than to throw stones at my own glass bed
today I’m building a cave for the bats thrashing around my head
they deserve some rest
(teach me how to cry)
I deserve a place to empty myself
but no one explained amends properly
(teach me how to lie across someone’s chest like that)
& it’s time to reorganize my closet for next fall
those lyrics are talking to me
& I’m yelling at energy drinks in the middle of the aisle
my inner child’s begging for some nourishment
keep throwing Skittles & sour looks her way
want to starve her like the bottle
(teach me how to talk to her)
but mania is so fun
like constant masturbation
or an island made of chocolate sundaes
join us
forget them
(tell me what to swallow)
someone always cradles my neck
brushes a strand away my ear
a warm vibration rumbles through the canal
to the last functioning part of my brittle brain cells
& it booms
this is not how you forget
teach me how to kill my God.
Your lack of respect
For my uneasiness
Is becoming harder to ignore
When your tip toes stop
Teasing the edge
But jump off the ledge
Landing deeper
Than I thought you’d ever go
I can’t choke back
Any more retorts
I’ve come to despise the taste
They leave with every parting
Fingers itching
For the door
I wonder if they’ve even begun
To notice what’s starting
Switch
ill miss you for awhile and then ill be over you and then ill wonder where you are and eventually i will forget about you.
these switches don’t have indicators.
they happen subtly and silently like all else.
every second there are switches going up and switches going down.
buttons being pushed and levers being tugged.
the sound of a car engine starting can mean two very different things. for awhile it will mean freedom but then one day it will be the love of your life driving away and you’ll be left wondering
when did it all switch?
