from bed, at least i’m not angry anymore

i used to think you’d show up when i left.

visions of a blustery fall day burial scene with cracks of thunder and would be lovers hiding behind trees while my family collected woulda, shoulda, and couldas

these thoughts brought comfort when slitting my throat seemed like a viable option

but

i forgot to rent out a sign to design the image of me i’d assign so you didn’t have to contemplate what i gave

absorbing left me dry

taken for granted

as i lye motionless you don’t deserve to cry while they lie and you skip over the dry sky that left me wanting more

now you’re heading to the store to buy what you were quick to deny

and these other assholes who take out billboards and broadcast simple tasks get your adoration in a shallow nation where everything needs to be spoon fed

here you fucking baby, planes coming in the hangar

i’d jab that spoon deep and carve out your esophagus, wrap it around your neck, and kick you over

the subtle beauty trapped in a clavicle bone draped with falling fabric riding up-and-down

is lost on you

not to be found in this fast forward fuck-fest where fake tits and cock sucking scenes are what you need to understand attraction.

told what to do, who to clap for, no fucking mind of your own to understand that passing fancy each day is what made you smile

keep nodding off to numbed out numbers coming through a real-to-life screen where i finally fall in the background

the worms will know

from bed, a love poem: beer, fear, and drawing you near

my fist crashed through the beginning of a precipitous night bash

a pyramid equation, century club persuasion, fifty-four cans, ten at the base, that’s quick math, and, believe it or not, this isn’t a blood bath

it’s a love poem

lenses were stirred

eyes fixed in one motion, i was next to you

a soft hushed walk home, i was with you

listening to bob and tongue-tangled blue time lapse, i was in you

pants went up

my anticipation and perseveration flew

was hello a goodbye?

breakfast fare late in the night, catching friends entangled in new sight, and our hips were locked

challenged, not judged, and free

we shot darts and moved across country

you stood in light and laid with me in frost bitten-faulty fragile nights

exposed

caressed

left open

undressed

work, accomplish, and build

they came

one at a time

found ourselves in the daily grind

we shed our baby fat

calling forth new life

two became three, became four, and built to more as we raced around the country

i remember when you first painted your face

thirty-two years into life

i thought mine was over

we changed

together

gathering steam to pound back across states to find a place where we would rest

fate

you listened and touched the words falling with frailty from a mouth designed for wishing away time and wondering ‘what if?’ daily

i don’t do that anymore

you’re in store

for fifty-four more

the cans were recycled in stories for the ones we tell time with

every touch of morning you’re the one i rise with

pyramids confirm you’re who i wonder with

wander with

devour life with

and who i’ll cease physical pleasure with

leaving this language of our own for others to decipher

a common logical qualifier

love

from a chair, time gets stuck in the breeze

a moisture licked breeze kissed by emotion brought the smell of switching situations into the air with cloud rumbles and streaks of light that kept us interested in a changing affair

we sat on creaky back chairs

searching through cob wedded screens

switching focus from distant swirls to shapeless matting

through and within

what was captured in each?

your hand searched through your knotted and unwashed hair, the world knew

i was reluctant to acknowledge

it’s going to rain

passing time for the inevitable

love limply hung above us, waiting to blow away

your sighs matched my lies

neither of us spoke

where would we start?

talking about the weather is what got us here

your chair continues to rock as i hear footsteps follow the howl and slamming door

i sat alone

watching our clothes drench

we’ll leave them out for another day.

from a waiting room couch, watering holes

i can’t continue to forgive the slight hand motions you use to dismiss this wrecking ball crew of self doubt i shower myself with while starring in a mirror admonishing stray dog emotions, i try to leash and tether these carefully constructed cuts in carved out parts of my past to something more solid than the puff of smoke blown, choking through another night wishing i could sit with cafe lights and angry cigarettes, servers seven curses that they could give a shit i have to wait

i don’t have to

this is where i feel home

grimy tables and sticky seats, i’m no more needed than the powdered parmesan that parks itself on every pizza-place table,

nice to have, less noticed when used

you can do that too

use me

though when you’re done

would you pass me along

i won’t forgive you, i will thank you for the direction

from a couch, pride in a picture

her hands grasped a sign made with might, laughter, and community. with a single emphasis on what is right and sought after with humanity

equality

rainbow lips pursed, what’s next?

a kiss, whisper, or curse?

another step

fingers slipping

her eyes pacing around, intensity in song and chants resound

it’s her first time

another step

the dark witches chant for souls, grandmas sit with leaning goofy-slogan signs that still align with lifelong goals, while a feather frocked free bird frolics wanting humans to touch on common issues

she catches waves of ho-heys and hey-hos

knees adjusting

her mouth opens to join

she knows what democracy looks like

she tells the world

without a vote

she steps on

fists find the sky

her face widens and eyes smart to stages where leaders do their part, words are lost to be found with education, but she feels the cadence, fervor and intonation.

her hands find one another

a context for pussy

poems from cats, another trick from that hat

explaining

discussing

her steps continue

home

sitting, her couch of comfort, with bent and employed signs, sighs.

her mom turns on the news

‘that looks different’

she stands, shoots her mom a look and then upstairs to lay alone

images and words

she walks herself to sleep

from a couch, little ones to tend to

catch the pieces of my distorted fairy tales that don’t suit you, or throw them away

now?

now you don’t care?

once they fed your wonder

get along, get along, get out

wander back down the palm waving path of those who believe in you

destroy every scream left as we continue fighting the lying of the light as cradles rock and the torture of darker hues brings about change we were destined to encounter with bloated bellies and fake coin counters pried from the earth our worth they grade

wide birth expanding our pay as we’ll wade in swirling water drains when the final flood finds you

you can only run so far, so long, and i bid you farewell as you grasp to the last breath of your past that failed

blaming the ones you resurrected in search of a tail that you would lead

eating each other

onward

folding to nothing except the examination of every atom never belonging to you

you were special right?

chosen?

i forget

who are you?

from a couch, pulled from the past relevant for the future, our present

**Cleaning up some ideas, i wanted to get this on this site to go back to.

Bonus, enjoy.

Written July 9, 2016:

To the death

Cities dead

Our children learning geography through humans eating humans blaming humans assuming humans racist humans scared humans.

Red

No, we can’t go there, children were shot, Mickey left the castle believe it or not, a new town marred and sandy hook scarred. Eiffel tower? and now the lonestar? St. Paul, New York, wait, let me stop.

It’s everywhere, where I’m not.

Oh, it’s here.

Less bullets more minds.

Why does it take death to realize

It’s racing through you when you first rub thighs

Inhaled between your infant cries

I can only surmise, you’ll act surprised when I say I see it deep set in those eyes.

Blue

The ones who kill others they haven’t met, willing to take a chance on a half baked bet

Fed through the tv set.

Aspersions cast

The stars of this show.

We are taught not to regret.

It’s in the mirror

A faint windex smear, I thought I scrubbed hard enough to make it clear.

The filthy ignorance of generations passed.

God damn Mississippi can we at least get past the spread of color on a gay mans mast or hue of human skin, please, at last!

Green

What were you told when you were young?

Face your fears and they’ll be overcome.

Face them with confidence, poise and grace

Not the end of a gun or scowl on your face.

My team, your team, the team that won.

We lost

A stain on cities, the cost?

Do you see your place in history?

Understand you matter?

Is this even reality?

Orange

Struggle to know that we are killing one another, killing one another, a child has a mother and you are killing my brother. Assumptions, gumption and praised ignorance

Come together!

This doesn’t make sense.

I don’t believe things are this bad, it’s illuminated by this new fad. Pop culture stupidity, video game invincibility.

Yellow

That’s a child, your neighbor, police officer – you can name them.

Black

So what now?

We can keep collecting cities, looking at kitties and all shapes of titties. Or, we can galvanize, open our eyes, stare in surprise about the reality that came from lies.

White

We don’t hate one another.

We’re Afraid.

from a couch, a shorty

stranded in a city made for me

the pilot who brought me here was sure i’d have a key to unlock the mystery buried in the sea of starlit sunshine that sunk our treasure it’s glowing beauty is all i remember in passionate riptides it was pulled out further and further and further and i gave up watching and decided to leave

**A draft that didn’t see light, not sure of date:

i wake up half baked and the world gives me time to add and equate the benefit of doubt due to the color of my skin a lapse of reason a few minutes to begin good intention seekers nicely imprisoned for laundering our whites, not the socks in the duffel, yet an equally angry vet wondering where the rules went with an ever changing board designed to adapt to rent its slipping away and the fear and intimidation that still sit silent in alien suburbs where they don’t see torches as necessary defense i’m the lucky one spewed out washing my skin duty delivered and i’m stuck within clambering to the next of kin where do i go? i want to help. i’m not one of “them” the great forgetting wasn’t lost on me i’m decidedly pretending i haven’t added to this. the start? polish and Italian joke books in 2nd grade, mocking street slang, defining identities by the size of their nose all the while being told ‘but you’re not one of those’ i wasn’t overtly taught to be racist, so i supposed, its who we are under the clothes that i wore in an effort to avoid confrontation i didn’t know why you couldn’t eat bacon. i should have asked. but when you’re born with privilege that you don’t even know math equation symmetry is all that’ll show.

adjust our lenses

feel the flow

all are one toe to toe

from a chair, facing east

i flipped you over

the frail fortunes you forgot to protect broke in fanciful little pieces and spread across the floor

i enjoyed watching them spread

mercury thermometers dropped from school scared children’s sucking mouths causing silver ball bounce suffers nothing compared to your display of degraded dances vanishing across dining room floors

i smile

cross legged sitting and staring at your entire sacrifice spilling on marble and granite

or is it concrete?

it’ll all be considered tacky someday

your vulgar view of thick magazine photos sent to high priced zip codes

exclusively i watch you linger in dim halls stalling for the right word to describe your molding

children watch waiting anticipating the direction they should fold their hands, does the head go down

bobbing like yours for new wood floors that match my memory of farmhouse’s that used to serve a purpose

i harbor some resentments

more contempt

for counterfeit measures and window dressing feathers falling from you as you parade like a puppet pulled by abstract concepts created to control

i shouldn’t care

why am i riled by your reviled rhetoric?

that’s the question

i do want an answer

it’s that you affect the whole

we all need a push and pull up-and-down this vacuous poll not another poll to show us the polarization of people working to provide pretenses for the next generation

maybe it’s that splatter you left behind oozing out, an amoebic matter membrane without defined borders merging and emerging recognizing it’s all concocted

i should have left you on your back

from bed, the plate is loaded

the line between love and unkind voices

voices that shake at a moments notice hoping we will go away during their midday walks to the food truck, ungratefully George Jeffrsoning it to the window hoping it’ll shake down a smile

it doesn’t translate

it wasn’t even close

he tries again assuming trips to Mexico count as language emersion experiences ordering tacos with american cheese

assuming

unseen eye rolls

he wraps it up and flip back his tie

you can do it in reverse order

the dramatic tie bit

or, is that later tonight

he gives the eye to a flipped gender he thinks he engendered while discussing the ‘nectar of the gods’ (his words to be sure) he’ll be gurgling with four other bloated fucks who look like him

unscrewing little black caps and discussing states and years

your status is clear and clearly defines the time you think your curfew is while you leave behind that high school sweetheart story you smile through after your first morning coffee to show you have enough sugar to kill the economy of both countries and reconcile erased travel trip nights ‘networking’

the caps piled up

your lease on life and luxury car allows you to make it home without a question from that swerve on your phone

you

you stumble in lingering with that last stop complaining she is acting like a cop while self serving yourself in the mirror through shaken and stirred lenses

she’s crying

you think it’s irrational

go to sleep

and stay there