retinitis pigmentosa

i often stay up much too late.
after eleven p.m. i become an anatomical genius.
sometimes a taxidermist.
sometimes a serial enucleator.
either way i stop being tempted.
i use blood and vitreous humor as finger paints.
after two a.m. i become a greedy apothecary.
i brew sickness from tea leaves.
i steal babies from their cribs.
the lack of eyes thrills me.
some things can't be found in a supermarket.
animal hides. the right kind of tea leaves.
the solitary thrill. eyes.
where do you get yours?

joyeux noel.

i get confused so easy these days
just trying to figure out the right things to say.
i used to think i was a genius but
i don't when to talk or when to shut up.
so here's a secret you never knew.
some late nights i stop being over you.
take it as a compliment, bien-aimée.
you're the sweetest heart and the brightest shade.

his mother doesn't want to get any more cats, she thinks it's too sad

he spends his time looking for dead animals.
in the woods behind his house.
once when he was little he found a bird.
it was late in the afternoon and the
sun still hadn't come out.
he'd never seen one up close before.
a dead body. a bird.
he poked at it with a twig.
crouched there beside it.
he picked it up in his hands and held
it against his chest until he could see
the bird move quietly with his heartbeat.
he wondered if it was alive again.
he didn't understand. it takes more
than a heartbeat to make something alive.
he put it down and stood there for a while.
"jordan? jordan!" he didn't understand.
why did he have to leave?
there wasn't anything more important than
standing here. holding his twig.
staring.

he still looks for dead animals.
in the woods behind his house.
a mouse maybe or a leopard frog
to hold up to his heart.
his hands become the same color
as its skin. nothing mourns.
there's nothing more important than
pretending it's alive again.

i talk to myself at night

hey, what are you looking at?
do you know what it's like?
what what's like?
being called, man.
called by what?
come on man, just listen.
i can't hear anything.
whale song. clear as day. come on, man.
i still don't hear it.
ah well. maybe it's just me.
hey, man —
what?
have you been having a lot of dreams lately?
yeah. it's flaring up again.
what are they like this time?
well sometimes they're really sad. but sometimes they're not. like sometimes they're really realistic. and then i'll look out the window and they'll call me.
call you?
yeah. telling me to come down to the sea. sometimes when i dream it's really realistic. like i'll be talking to you and then i'll look out the window and hear it on the wind. clear as day. calling my name in a way more beautiful than anything i've ever heard. whale song.

may cause marked drowsiness

i still remember fondly back when just looking
hurt so much. i never knew what i was
doing. now i just listen to unsentimental
records about birds and the snow.
i can hear the rain in the background.
the last presidential address. all my
professors telling me to make something
of myself. the words we always used to say to
each other coming out of other people's mouths.
there is a track called "love song."
it's 55 seconds of a music box
playing some tune i don't know.
and when it's over i want to hear more
but it's over.

咖啡haus: a true story (or: how a man from boston and his piano changed my life. http://www.myspace.com/thetumbledsea )

they say that music cures your pain.
like the kid playing the saxophone and
spinning in his socks across the wooden floor.
the best friends with frizzled hair and
alpaca hats who pluck their little ukeleles
like they can't afford guitars and don't care.
entire symphonies pouring out of one boy,
one voice, one pedal and one violin.
the guy tapping his conga drum and the
girl on the acoustic singing pop songs
that sounded good on the radio but will never
sound as good again after you hear them like this.

what they don't tell you is some things
hurt no matter what.
like the way singing duets makes me feel.
the way the point of my sternum hits
the uppermost vertebrae in my spine.
the children whose hands i'll never hold.
how i can't seem to make my friends smile
the way all my other friends can.
runaway cats, dead sleep, the hidden part
of myself that i forgot i can't show.
so i'll just sit here. i can't play the piano
but i can listen to how the strings sound
when they ring.

i think you're just taking this too seriously

hey man, sorry about that. i just got real
disoriented for a second there. yeah, no,
i'm fine. what were we talking about? right.
my ex. my ex-what? exactly. haha, i know
that's not what you meant. what did i mean?
sorry man, that was dumb. i shouldn't be
talking about this right now. i keep losing
it. you know man, just my vision keeps going
in and out. i already saw my doctor, she
told me there's nothing they can do. i keep
forgetting to focus. focus my eyes. and
when i cough i keep losing my grip. all these
things i keep when i'm sick. i can't hold on
to anything when i'm well. it feels like a
movie-set model of hell but at least i can feel it
so i don't want out. hey man, i'm real sorry about
that. what were we talking about?

two weeks and counting

sometimes sickness grabs you by the collar
throws you up against the wall and cracks
your sternum in two with his elbow. it takes
weeks to heal. all i can do is lay in bed
and think of my favorite things. friends.
windy summer days. pet cats.
books to read. red cars. holidays.
but sometimes we can't have all that. so we
take what we can get. friends.
the last days of autumn. a warm bed.
a new kind of piano. red flannel. two hours to sleep.
when i cough my sternum bucks back into
my spinal cord. i feel it when i put my
hand on my chest.

love song to punk rock (or: in which i reference a bunch of punk CDs that no one knows about)

i found these stacks and stacks of CDs
with these angry dudes yelling obscenities
wearing plaid pants and ripped shirts and messenger hats
and i wanted to be angry just like that
but i always heard the lyrics wrong
and all the songs were only two minutes long
but it's okay, i know what they're saying now
about getting bloodied up and being clamped down

and i learned how to rhyme like a preadolescent
to stick with the booze, avoid antidepressants
i learned about the american jesus
and exactly where the path of hate leads us
i learned how to dance and how not to sing
and how to clean and ruin everything
and i learned i was born 20 years too late
but my heart is strong and my edge is straight.

no more children (or: in which i start at the end because i can't write a coherent story for shit)

hit me in the back like a sledgehammer.
you know me, i don't believe in bulletproof vests
or painkillers, no talk-around bullshit.
burned back. concrete. where is this?
at least we're all here, right?
the few who didn't explode.
but you know as well as i do that
these assholes are never gonna let us go,
so we might as well show them what's what,
swallow the blood,
buckle our shoulders back together,
pretend our hands still work,
punch their teeth in while we're still alive,
fuck them up because it's our best chance to
no, the only reason left to survive.

on friday i found jason singing all by himself. the pond was frozen. bigfoot appeared.

don't know how to explain it except it's
sort of belated and pretty pathetic
but it's okay, i've gotten into the habit
and it's okay if you've gotten used to it.
maybe i'll take john k samson's advice
and praise the things i can't forget
by remembering, sliding on driveway ice,
falling down, standing with my back soaking wet,
by asking the past four years where i left her,
and what the hell i've been saying,
by following women down to the river
and praying

distress (post-revelations)

you keep telling her
that it's under control,
that you've stopped seeing the fires,
enemy patrols,
hearing the bombs go off down the street
killing kids who refused to retreat
but when she's gone you put yourself back there.
fifteen years doesn't make it better.
you can still see the ashes in the air.

but you have the cure, the haze,
the calm in a little glass bottle
you stole from some army hospital.
you keep saying
"this is hell, this is hell"
but no one understands
and that's not what you need to hear.
you try to still your shaking hands
with drugstore heroin,
make the safety disappear
until you're free to fire at will.
but you just keep on killing that kid you killed.

this is not something you can handle.
there is no reason, no excuse.
but you'd rather live the dilaudid lie
than have the only truth you can remember
dissolved in the fluid inside your eyes.
and you've already sent out the SOS call,
tracked the letters in the static snow.
you keep saying
"this is hell, this is hell"
so i'll say what you need to hear.
true and sober.
"i know, man.
i know."

你为什么不找我？ （或者：最近你好吗？）

i locked myself in my room
for a week
felt like walden pond down here
for the clarity
i looked at old photos and i
felt the same things i've felt for months
i kicked out all the criminals
and took back the solitude
i read about how evolution
does not have an apex
we are not the best we are just
the newest model
here's a truth
we look just like we did 100,000 years ago
and we stare at the same uniformitarian seas
for hours and hours
here's another truth
the one thing that makes us unique
is our ability to imagine
what our futures look like


i lost my future
maybe if i retrace my steps i'll find
where i left it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Fc5AMZpBE skip the interview part at the beginning

i'm losing all my friends.
i'm losing them to self-consciousness,
quenching of the puerile thirst,
long distances, much too long
for my whispers to span.
i guess that means it's just not in me
to be a father.
i feel like i've been caught
in a trap made for fools.
the one spot of optimism
i forgot to rub out.
i used to resent it but
i miss the black and white field.

i am not your guardian
or your best friend.
i'm not even close.
today i am only a man who knows how to feel.
i've already dug myself the grave.
just do me one last favor:
before you wave me goodbye
ask the caretaker to keep my plot
clear of color.
i froze my body to make sure nothing would grow.
here i am condemned
but at least i am on the mend.
so i hope you'll forget the things i still lack.
like color. like friends.

will you weep when you feel this love you have killed? oh, until we all come crashing down, we are what we are. (or: who killed the neanderthals?)

there's no security in our dorm rooms
or our miniature refrigerators.
this is just one way we learned to cope.
sometimes it's enough but sometimes we get hurt
and they tell us we have to learn from it.
but i'm not strong enough to cope
and i'm not smart enough to learn.
i feel like a pre-human,
gracile in form,
with the bits of my brain in all the wrong places.
they say we took over because of our
"complex social milieu."
but i can't figure it out.
how to relate to everyone else.
i'm 1.6 million years behind

millions of years and all we've got
are badly built backs,
haphazardly built brains,
opportunistically built guile.
but who's doing the building? and why?
where were you when it all went down?
i hear the snaps and pops already.
my back is killing me and i can't
organize my overflow of ideas and i can't
stop wanting to kill small animals.
they never asked for our approval.
just threw us together and waited.
one day we're going to go extinct and
our miraculous brains can't do a thing about it.
they never asked us.
they never asked us.

dr. spencer reid (or: the cutest puppy you have ever seen)

unafraid of the air on your ribs
equipped with sleight-of-hand,
bad aim, honesty, a snapshot of the abyss,
some empathy you dug out of middle school
because crazy is no stranger to you
and the smart ones are the best liars
when she can't distinguish your smile
from the truth, when she asked
if you heard the voices too.
and we all get nightmares.
even your best friend.
even me.
and no, it's not fair.
sometimes eight girls die and you don't know why.
so just think about the ones you saved.
close your eyes and believe.

it gets a little hazy from here

i stand in dirty bathtubs
there are ten pints of blood
in the human body
he's lying on top of the lockers
what if he sees me
close the shower curtain
don't let the cops in
he's a big guy
how did he get here?
how did he get me?
my wrists are free
and why, fucking why
i should be terrified
but all i feel is the drugs,
and my insides have turned to sludge
i don't know where i am
so i cling to the shower curtain
and watch the door
and when it swings in
i see the sunlight on the floor
i just want to sleep, throw up,
something but
i can't lie down, there's
not enough room in the tub
so i cling to the shower curtain
i can barely stand
my friend is dead
i can't think how
can i make her alive again

今天晚上她要去看谁？ 今天晚上她要去看谁？

depuis que tu as sauté dans la seine,
je voulais t'appeler ma reine.
je sais que tu es catherine,
mais suis-je jules ou suis-je jim?

he was a big guy. i fucked up. so he killed my friend. i don't know how he got his hands on me.

I need to move past all my wrong decisions.
but I'm stuck in the military sense of mind
of "leave no man behind." not even the bad parts of them.
So I go back, even if it means using the good parts
like a helmet on the stick,
and it's a crying shame but
not one I'll be crying about.

I'm stuck in the basements of horrible dreams.
these days my friends' eyes pass right over me.

and these days I'm so scared of the cold.
tell me, when will the winter end?
when will it be summer again?
when will I stop needing a friend?

"at six miles up you will explode. at sea level you will be drowned. beneath the surface the monster will have you."

i had cassandra in my room.
she was way past drunk.
could hardly stand up.
she slipped out of her dress and told me
to sit down.
i smiled and asked her why and she said
"because that's how it happens."
her dress was red on the floor.
then she began to weep. spilled her wine.
i sat next to her. asked her what was wrong.
she said "why don't you believe me?"
my fingertips were resting on her back.
i told her i didn't understand.
"god damn," she said. "god damn."

"you still cross my mind from time to time, and i mostly smile, still so set on finding out where we went wrong, and why..."

i went to a funeral today.
i was the only one there,
hundreds of feet above the crashing waves,
breathing grains of air.
the cliffs are no whiter than my reveries,
no blacker than my memories.
i look down and ask questions of the sharp rocks.
because there's nothing in the pine box
and no ashes in the urn.
i wanted to sing the eulogy
but there are no words, no, there are no words to say
over a dead anniversary

the noir writer

i can't go outside.
the second i step out the door,
lay my eyes on the things that are real,
i'm hit with it.
vicarious paranoia
the little blonde girl on the corner
and the trunk of a car.
the man with a torn coat
and the gun store down the block.
the hobo sitting against the wall
and the blithe brutality of highschoolers.

i hear the music in the background.
fantaisie in the key of schizophrenia.
i'm solving cases that i invent,
right inside my head,
and it's too fucking much

i need a computer screen
a constancy
a place to capture my concentration with a bear trap
pull its mangled leg free, nail its wrists and ankles
to the blank page in front of me.
let its blood drip onto my keyboard.

i see murders in everything.
i see guilt in every passing man
fear in every woman who crosses her arms
and i see murders,
ones that haven't happened,
ones that will never happen
not yet

introduction to how much of a jackass i am

today i'm a makeshift version of me
with not enough knowledge and not enough sleep
i whittle my back down and make bad decisions
with unfailing strength and unnerving precision

fuckin road trip

three full and crucial years have passed
but now i'm being forced off the wagon
and into relapse.
i thought it took time to build and rebuild.
why are you handing me your guilt?
the pieces you give me — they're pure. they shine.
but my guilt is dirty because it's entirely mine.
don't tell me the last three years didn't matter.
that all you really need is six weeks
and a couple of common interests.
look through the last three years
at the people i found.
don't think for a second i'm ready to put them underground.


here i am, the elephant in the driver's seat
i've got no room to move and i have to keep my eyes on the road

i was right. fuck, i was right.

these days all i see is carbon and lead
and there's no room for a child inside my head
my hair is all wet and my shirt is torn and
what would it be like if i still wasn't born

these days the air is always too heavy
and when i try to move on it just won't let me
and i can't lift my knees up off the ground
and i could really use a friend right now

"so strange" by the motel life is one of the most beautiful songs i've ever heard. http://www.myspace.com/themotellife

i think we both built it up too much
hoping truth would be something wonderful
and finding out that it was just immediate.
no delay between our feelings and our words.
no interval between when i fall
and when my knees hit the carpet.
there was a pause right before the door slammed
but it was just long enough for me to say.

now the city buses are just empty enough
and the friends i've left behind
keep leaving me behind. and i've heard
that this world is just too beautiful
for anyone to understand
but i've seen the shades and the scratches and the spots.
and i understand.

it hasn't changed in five whole years.
the door is still about to slam.
but it's waiting just long enough for me to say.
i'm sitting in stasis and dying on the floor.
didn't you know?
this world was made for you.
these words were made for you.
i was made for you.

there was a pause right before the door slammed
when you bit your tongue
but it was just long enough for me to say:
"don't you realize that all of us leave something behind?
we're not going to see each other again.
don't you realize?
i am lost with you."

hurr durrr

i was going to post something but then it was kind of scary so i decided that might not be a good idea. uhh the point of this is that this post is a reminder to myself to write something. yeah.

i am riley's wasted sunday

your mouth is so eager to please
but your eyes seem to protest.
you spend so much time on your knees.
when was the last time you confessed?
all those years i slept on couches
i was just playing you.
you never found out about it.
tonight my body is soaked straight through.
i pulled my hood up over my head.
do you feel threatened yet?
i'm sickly and bored and tired and violent.
i was lying when i told you the rest is silence.
so let your eyes slide down your face
and eat the tattoos that you can't erase.
get off the bed. it's already stained.
don't complain. don't fucking complain.

september burns red

your love is a floating lantern you hold by a string.
so let it fly upwards til it silhouettes
or run with it. create trails of afterlight
in front of the sedative shades of sunset.
tangle it up with someone else.
or wrap it around your neck.
wait until the cord snaps taut
and every color gradually fades to red.

dustin kensrue is one of my heroes

i never walked in graveyards.
i never had enough friends.
so i went alone. i burrowed far underground
below the dirt but above the river
and i found the eyes that no one's seen,
even though these are the men
to whom you owe your sense of pride,
your scout's honor, the way your kid smiles,
these are the green-clad ghosts who died
not for you, but for the way you'll live your life.

i don't know where. jungles. deserts.
the scorched earth above me.
someone knew a long time ago.
but where is the import?
where is the urgency? where are the flowers
and the marble tombs? if i'm disgusted
it's not because of the worms.
there's no one left to look at them
except me, maybe, if i can bring myself to
open my eyes. far underground.
they're not sleeping. so why am i?

a tattered hand and a rancid mouth.
i want to be shaken but i'm afraid i'm too jaded.
they tell me son, imitate death's true face
under the washed-out plots of these united states.

among the characters: los angeles

i haven't gotten to the children yet
but if feels as if i've been
hearing them for days. there
are so many pictures left to draw.
there are so many pictures left and
each time i draw one i mouth words from
thousands and thousands of year ago.
does that make me as smart as them?
the ones who were smart enough
to invent war.
i've written so many women but
the woman (and the man) have already
written me. because for all the smiling i do,
the mumbling, the hands in my pockets,
all i have is faulty medicine
and faulty building blocks to match.
black fields, black mouths, black strokes tonight.
i need to draw but all i can do is write.

turns out my first impressions were wrong (dear travis,)

a kid
him and his big hands
with the hypertrophic scar behind his first knuckle
he never talks
(for fear of safety?) (for some black reason?)
and he never smiles so
i am wondering what he is doing here
learning about gilgamesh and enkidu
and how gilgamesh wept and rent his clothes.
maybe gilgamesh (even though he was made up
five thousand years ago)
hits just a little too close to home

"i guess i should be one to talk. there's nights that i can't even walk. there's days i couldn't give a fuck."

there's nights that i can't even walk
so i just lay in bed and try,
over the murderously cheerful laughs
of the college-age children swimming around my room,
to hear damon albarn and the fireworks.
but once i find the note it's already too late.
so i submit myself to the momentary pain and

the rest is silence

laboratory

some things we are taught
like carbon is rarely any other color than black
eels will appear only if you give them glass to eat
blonde means all-american, automatic tired smiles
plaid hands you courage and asks nothing in return
and no matter how many times it embarrasses you,
the fact remains — you are not alone.

don't say you want to be a teacher.
everyone has taught me so many things already
and i'm not going to forget any of it

bros before hos

i've spent five days trying to make my life right
i found some courage when i stared down the headlights
but i don't remember anything i did after midnight

i've been using my inside voice to speak
i was so so sure that it was all i would need
but the place of my youth still shudders and bleeds

and i once looked for black but now look for red
and my dreams are all stored in different heads
and i slept so easy in this strange screaming bed and

i couldn't remember the time or my name
but i told myself it'll all be okay,
you tried and failed but it's not too late

i deleted all the poems that anchored me in darker waters (or: i predict that those for whom this message was intended won't get it)

yesterday i took initiative
decided to be assertive,
divided out the stupidity factor.
i'm tired of hating
the world's most convincing actor.

next time, ask me.
don't let me change my mind.
it's been almost long enough
and i need to get this out
before my medicine charm wears off

only the men can stay (a true story)

a morning's idle curiosity,
supplemented by fever, envy, a wonder why,
got the better of me,
and as we continued to walk,
i could feel the flames rise
in the deeper pits and undersides of my eyes.
i was reluctant to talk, for obvious reasons
because though it's been months i still don't think i can
but all that was erased by "see you, man"

i am a canvas,
frozen and covered in gridlines only i can see.
but to the rest of the world i am this blank thing
there is no me,
there is only assumption, some easy comfort,
and men's hands are rough when they reach out and press
but it's the women's impressions that hurt

i've found recently that hugs are no use at all,
i just slip through their arms,
what i need now are handshakes
a strong and firm grip is what it takes
to save me
from the fall, to keep me from harm

paul rieckhoff is my new hero

if by chance you should hear gunfire
keep running towards the sound.
don't listen to the terrible screams,
just the slap of your feet on the ground.
he served because it was the only thing that was right.
it had nothing to do with "choice."
he called his men "my soldiers."
they gave him his reason and his voice.
he stepped up and led them to safety
though he didn't believe in the fight,
so if he gives me the order
i'm ready to bring the light.

i'll say it's a motherfucking roller coaster

today the promise of comfort
was eaten by unwitting eyes
it was all i could do not to carve on his face
"this isn't a fucking disguise"

a poem inspired by another poem that was written by a guy i don't know and inspired by a band i don't listen to. http://massculture.blogspot.com

Sometimes when I listen to music I
find myself moved by emotions
deep and opaque, and I have
no idea why.
but I think I figured half of it out.

It's the promise of comfort
in certain kinds of cadences.
I rarely find rage, or fury
in any song. usually
it's either triumph or sadness.
Sometimes everything will be ok.
When the chord changes the sun
will rise. We'll be in a safe place
with our friends.
There is no such thing as fear.

But sometimes that's
not the case.
Sometimes the resolution leaves more questions
than answers. Sometimes the singer is so drained
that by the end of the song
he cannot do it again.
But the final cadence to us is
that promise of comfort
because we can just hit the back button.
and listen to it one more time.

A while ago when he was recording it
the singer was overcome by everything
that makes him sing. but he's fine now.
The price is paid.
The song ends in a deceptive cadence but
music has never lied to me.
My body has. So has my family.
But never a synthesizer. A drum kit. A bass guitar.

Maybe the day I stop lying to my friends is
the day I can finally write good music.

puppies, nails, absent angels (or: the truth about vampires, part II)

we live by hunger and we burn in light
we remember the pain that came before night
we are the family so close to the fire
but brother, i got so deadly tired
of all this constant acting alone
and the deep red color of the marrow in my bones
so i gave you drugs and i called them comfort
but you wanted to bring back what made your head hurt

i don't know how the two of us got like this
i make a habit of eating altruists
but i thought you wanted to come with me
let's do this, brother! be all you can be!
we are not human though you seem to forget
when your mouth tastes like copper, the feeling you get
i know that you miss me so come on and feed
we're connected by blood, so let's make someone bleed

haha, fuck that

i think i'd rather be
hanging upside down from the ceiling
lost in the sound of reverberation
swimming through the static
throwing myself through safety glass
i am under oath to keep on giving
and my mantra is still no art for art's sake
so when i sing —
you know why

whoops, pillar of salt

i can't stop killing small animals
that struggle to escape my hands
i can't stop losing my every will
to the innocuous shoreline sands
i can't find the future i need the most
because i just want the easy hate
i'm a drama queen with a taste for blood
fucking stop me before it's too late



(now i will ask you to remember only
that we schizophrenes are never lonely)

flu season is over

i am the oldest man in the world
a child with gray hair,
or wheelchair-bound, young and muscled
if you're close enough to see
the sweat on my eyelids
then you're close enough to share
and take the dive with me
but eventually i guess we'll
have to come up for air

(will we both know it was too good to last
so i'll extract my future from the static of your past)

the truth about vampires, short version (or: making up for impatience, zeal, killing frightened animals)

you wolf, you vulture, you angel eater
made of dogs and bits of your betters
you know the scent of dark skin weeping
and when you smell it you come running

you sad excuse, you forgotten machine
your ribs cage an animal old and obscene
you may wear a fragile human raiment
but you spray godblood all over the pavement

my submission defense vs. your years of jiujitsu training

oh, you and your seductive muay thai knees
you circle like a fucking tiger shark
but you swear you're on the straight and narrow,
just living off rain, but i don't fucking believe you
you swallowed the cold air too, your lungs are full of
sleet and electricity and all i've got is soft tissue

and all i can hear is your voice in my ear going
it's all about balance, billy. it's all about balance.
and you're fucking right because i lost it
and you passed my guard like it was made of fucking paper
and look where i am now, face down, colored red by blood
blinded by blood suffocated by blood submitted by blood

you forgot what the moves are called but
you're still fucking holding on
with a grip tight like a crowbar constrictor and
i can't fucking think and my brain's turning red
i know you're the winner and i'm just another tic mark
i'm the subhuman here it doesn't matter what i think anyway

so do me a favor and stop pretending
that your kimura isn't about to pop
my shoulder out of its socket.
maybe if you weren't pressing my face into the mat
you would be able to see that
i'm not fucking laughing

making up for lost time, numbness, keeping frightened animals alive

when the backstabber tells you,
"this was a victory"
don't forget the universal method.
disregarding advice and looking down.
disassembling your head,
putting eyes the wrong way round
so they can roll, roll, roll
on the ground that's ground
into the soles of your feet.
the grains and rot in your soul
that your whirligig eyes can see.

i forgot how the song goes.
i slept too long this morning
and when i finally woke up everything
was so much more dangerous than it used to be,
and i keep thinking people are trying to murder me,
but maybe i just forgot how the song goes
that one hymn that everything knows.
the last line is "this was a victory"
but i take apart my brain and i can't find the rest
this is not a test. this is not a test

here's the big fucking secret.
listen up, you lowlifes,
you dogs you rancid meat,
you meat-hooks, you addicts fresh off the street.
we're all scared.
out of mind, out of breath,
so paranoid we keep our eyes going twenty-four seven.
we're scared of hardships and scared of death.
arthritic dogs kept alive from a lack of pity,
a fear that there is no heaven and some dumb loyalty.
their brains are so small they can't remember
the way that everything used to be.
yet the first line of the song is "nothing ever changes
everything will always stay the same"
but we keep forgetting with our small small brains
remember my son, this was a victory

deep (in the) space

tonight the rain is killing the stone
coming in tides that level and wash
bearing the earth out to its aphelion
tonight the moon is shining too pale
failing to harmonize with the sound of static
falling to lights flashing in mortal rhythm

tonight we are singing the song of sparrows
screaming just quiet enough to be heard
writing love poems to our dead brothers
and tonight we are moving mountains
with the faith that rolls in droplets down our backs
and the prayers we send to the skies
in wordless waves of unfathomable sound

kenny florian vs. joe lauzon (lightweight bouts are the best ones)

i laid you flat out like a busted land mine
and i dropped to my knees
and cracked your elbows like a clam shell
because you are not brave
and this time, no, this time,
you are not going to walk away proud

breakfast is the most important meal of the day

it's been a long night for all of us.
so keep the burning in your throat to yourself.
swallow the last vestiges of nighttime chill to soothe it.
remember to think about it —
take small bites of the sunrise.
your friends will want some too.
listen: the solstice is over.
raise your hands to receive the sun.

castiel's ashes (a before-and-after)

when purity falls to the basest of urges
and punishment lights up the skies,
when war angels come down to kill their own,
their faith laying scales o'er their eyes,

when the deserter takes the soldier's side
and plants his feet square on the ground,
then just pray to god they'll make it there.
pray they'll make it safe and sound.

i come up with a lot of random shit when i'm weeding and it all rhymes

so i told the man, "i kissed the coal,
i can do everything you said"
still he would not give back the child he stole,
the one that lived in my head

the northern

beelzebub scraped himself under our skin
and we screamed like so many violins
in so many pairs of abusive hands
that drew us so readily under their command
it made us forget what it means to be strong
now we dread to hear the trumpets' song
and we cut with water the holy wine
still it tears up our insides every time

fifth of fuckin ju-lye

when renato sobral began slowly to rise
i could see the fireworks pouring out of his eyes
the blood spilling from his twice-broken nose
there are no birds outside but cardinals and crows
the younger ones eat the older ones whole
to take back the blood-covered badges they stole
piles of red feathers all over the sand
this year i hold the lighter in my hand

kicking the mortar between the stones
and me sitting on them all alone
with dustin and jesse and cody and jay
and george and dallas and matt and blake
just me and my jackass attitude
and my fuck-the-rest-of-em worldview
i don't drink beer and i don't smoke weed
i don't want any of the things i need

brad imes's chin vs. rashad evans's left hook

we are soldiers beyond hope or prayer.
disappearing boys polka-dotted in red
all mutter the same immortal air:
"this ain't like what the recruiter said."

underneath our sour, curdled skin,
we are just walking sacks of ash.
every radio tune is a battle hymn
and love songs come with epitaphs.

so let me explain to you this war:
god says he's not playing anymore
but he left his toys all over the floor.

fucking fathers day

a bird dog,
her leprous skin spotted under wisps of ancient hair,
pottering like a toddler,
an old woman asking
"please don't leave me
with these young folks i don't understand"
dead conversations,
the doom gate,
rain everyone else ignores,
words that quietly humiliate me,
the destruction of my goals in the name of hedonism,
babysitting a child three years my senior,

trent reznor saying
"there is no you,
there is only me"
and i believed him

mmmm jesse lacey

i am your religious disbelief
i am your personal new orleans flood
you can see it when i bare my teeth
my gums are covered in someone else's blood
but both my hands are clean and white
i don't need to touch you to make you bleed
all i have to do is tell you what's right
if i give you the razor you'll do the deed

i'm the ghost and the wolf and the priest and the gun
you're the worm and the dog and the child and the whore
i'll wave a hello to your six-year-old son
while you go insane on your living room floor
i make the soldier's finger slip
i'm the reason you can't take a life
and when you're away on a business trip
i'll be the one who's fucking your wife

so crack me open if you can
i'm the missing link between god and man

my hairy bigfoot feet

hello, friends, my name's bigfoot
you can call me sasquatch too
see, most people think i'm pretty scary
but i promise that's not true

i know i'm almost eight feet tall
but i'm really a very nice guy
it's just that people run away when they see me
before i can even say hi

so i sniffle a bigfoot sniffle
and i wipe my bigfoot nose
on my oodles and oodles of tangled brown fur
(you'd be surprised how fast it grows)

i'll admit i'm pretty lonely
see, i'm the only one of my kind
and none of the animals will talk to me
(maybe it's the smell i leave behind)

so should you see me in the woods
(i hope you'll understand)
if i come up and say hello,
would you shake my bigfoot hand?

fuck dare, tonight i just said no all on my own

to the actor:
when you spat out those contemptuous lines,
are you sure you never meant it?

to the singer:
when you sang out your rebukes behind that 58 mic,
are you sure you never meant it?

to the writer:
when you typed up those poems of sickness and safety,
are you sure you never meant it?

to the piano guy:
when you think that one thought
that makes your fingertips pound the keys that much harder
make sure you never mean it

oh, you.

i know you've heard all the good lines before,
but take this one to heart:
i've been reading a book on the horrors of war
and you're my favorite part.

serenity

today there are no comforts of home
me and my headache are here all alone
my mind is moving like a dancer's feet
but all i want to do is sleep

humvee sobriety (somewhat rewritten for lyrics purposes)

mushroom cloud at the side of the road
your teeth are gushing smoke
you know i always help you out when things look grim
but darlin, i'm missing a limb

my shoulder's long been stripped
got no hand to take the fire from your lips

we're buried belonging to the sand
that vital organ, the medicine man,
he runs to the well sayin the end is nigh
but the well's run dry

there's a war across the sea
see the land mines in me

quantum physics is the latest disgrace
livin in a place where there ain't no place for it
o, we are weary and we lost control
we must find that one time when we all had a soul

you are the casualty
and i'm your phantom limb

fuck the modern age

when you do something strictly for yourself
you fail to interest anyone else
when you speak in anything less than absolutes
the extremists loose the wolves on you
when you look down on yourself from space
you can't see your own face
and when you breathe on phone lines
it turns to static

get fighted! get fighted! (inspired by: donkey punch/sucker punch, the beltsville crucible, alexisonfire, and night driving)

today there is no such thing as apology.
when your friend fucks up, you don't bother
beating him into the floor — it just leaves more work
for the maid who has to clean him off the tiles.
when he does a bad take,
the guitarist doesn't go home, because he's feeling all right
and he's got it in him to play it again.
when they're laughed at in the streets,
the kids don't go out and buy new clothes.
they roll with the punches and come back again tomorrow.
and when they cross the road,
the mice tell themselves to just close their eyes
and run.

one five six four (or: tl;dc)

i'm sick and tired of all your shit
you're a fucking four-chord wonder, baby,
you'll let anyone use you,
and maybe you sound a little different each time,
but it always feels the same
and it's easy to tell when you're faking your excitement.
i can't wait til it stops being fun altogether.

my name is christian and you better not wear it out

i'm the sinner amongst the saints alive
don't tell me to fucking swallow my pride,
because i've been there, done that,
all it did was knock my teeth back
deep in my throat where the whiskey goes
when i get so drunk i can't stand up
and i really couldn't give a fuck
because you burned me up and let me down
and i'm burning down this fucked-up town

so just go back to your church and preach
against serenades or sodomy
whatever the topic of the day may be
because i won't be there to hear it.
i'll be throwing molotov cocktails
through your windows late at night
and i'll be listening to the plainclothes soldiers
yelling "don't give up the fight!"

and after the riot when i'm still wide awake
you might find me crying in the bathroom
stunned and disillusioned at how pathetic this shit is
but i can do whatever i goddamn want to do
'cause it won't be long before you're calling my name
and trust me when i say i'm not fucking around
i might be crying in the bathroom all alone
but when the time comes, i'll kick this fucking door down

because i know i'm a bleeder but i'm not the only one
i am nuclear america's prodigal son

help

i wish that when my birthday rolls around
the candles don't turn to sparks
to ignite the gasoline in my car
so i can drive forty miles away
into the arms of other people
who only care about themselves too

i hope you're happy, this one's a true story

savez-vous qu'est-ce qui se passe sur cette promenade?

tonight my lungs ache for eternal divorce
and all my excuses have run their course
but my frantic senses refuse to ignore
the mangled edges of the hungry dance floor

an on-and-off couple are grasping for words
deciding whether or not they want to get hurt
a boy and a girl and a tangle of limbs
i'm jealous of her, not so much of him

but i'm a kid and a coward and i'd rather not fight
because the air seems harder to breathe tonight
i can see my friendships breaking from far away
and everyone keeps asking me if i'm okay

titles go on spines

i'll see where giving up takes me

leagues below me ten thousand dead kings
open their hands and the asphalt sings and the
violence from some irrelevant war
erodes my impulse to ask for more of the

years i spent hating these dreams in my head
oceans of death and uncomfortable beds
unable to sleep but i can see the edges of

angels to catch me if tonight i break and i'm
lonely and sobered but wide awake i'm
lonely and sobered but wide awake

"he hears children's voices on the hills in the forest approaching quickly"

(note: i stole a bunch of lyrics for this)

i've been watching that smile slip off your face
i can't speak because deep down i wish i was laughing

imagining some golden-eyed boy talking at me
saying brightly i can't break free

my legs are still shaking and i'm not even asleep yet
there is no speech left

i can deny it by saying everything backwards and i mean it
but i'm still tangled up and i can't break free

do not wrap it around your head
that is not what microphones are for

but it's not just a song
no, it's definitely not just a song

it's revenge for all the giants you killed
yelling bring it on, bring it on, let's tear these motherfuckers apart

foaming at the mouth and living for their last
their dying and planet-sized breath

i know, i've been warned
but i'll never cut the cord that strangles my head

saturday's child works hard for his living (or: for callum innes)

i scrabbled my way out onto the streets again
thought i was summat special cause i was an ex-con
but it didn't take me long to figure out that
meeting new people is dangerous fuckin work
and it's a lot safer to just stay in the car

i don't run as fast as i'd like, y'see
and it doesn't matter i've gotten used to it
i don't fuckin like the taste of blood in my mouth
(although i order a drink and a chaser or two
and everything drifts out of focus, as nice as)

and you know
i don't mind kicking the shit out of lying bastards
and you know
i can take a beating with the best of em
but nowt changes the fact that i'm just a dog amongst dogs

i'm just a fuckin coward

enterprising

i know i may be losing control right now
but my anxiety is far too quiet.
i glance at myself in the mirror and it looks like rain.

only when i can see the edges of my sight
slicing up the treeline
does the anxiety flare up, unreasonable,

and on the radio someone's talking about bombs
and no one else is speaking to me
and i don't know my own family

where did everyone go?

this is my home

i'm sick of all this domestic pain
and the unjust burden on the weary saints
and i'll never let anyone say to me
that it's easy holding on to your integrity

'cause the people are yellin' and the flags are burnin'
and the blood is flowin' and my stomach's turnin'
and i'm just afraid that one day i'll find
i've got too much whiskey and not enough rye

tl;dr

maybe you think you have no spare time
and that you must take action now
but i'll only believe you when you tell me
exactly what juggernaut of an action you took
that used up all your spare time

matt skiba and his sunglasses (or: help, i'm obsessed with a 33-year-old madman)

(note: in case you were going to comment on how good the shit in italics was, that's actually lyrics from some of matt's alk3 songs. some of the shit not in italics is also lyrics from matt's alk3 songs.)

i feel like this place is bleeding like
it's spilling out of the walls and onto the floor

i wish you would come down here
pull a billie joe armstrong and
kiss me on the mouth
(fine time to fake a seizure.
feel your lips on mine — you're saving me)

and when you told us you'd drunk a bit too much
(sorry i'm late. i was out spoiling my liver.
i couldn't wait. the sun was up
for far too long today.)
all i did was shake my head and laugh because
we both know you're pitiful
(so fuckin' pitiful)

but you smile so manically as you sing about hell
(home sweet home is chicago, illinois, motherfuckers!)
and sometimes i feel like you're mocking me
your shining eyes and your angel face
(with stolen wings and evil ways
straight down south to the pearly gates)

so cool you wear other people's sunglasses inside
and the strawberry frames, they flatter your face
but only because you're so fucking famous
(you're living young and dying fast)
and i can see it in the way you laugh
at the boys and the girls who can't believe
that they're
this
close

goading us like serial killers from forty years ago
(you scared us all to death. if they revive us
just sit there. just smile, dear.)
as we rage and shove and scream and sing
you took us hostage and you're making your demands
and i'm pretty sure we're meeting them but
we're still cutting off our own fingers one by one
just to show you so maybe you will meet our eyes
and our hearts will stop
but matt:

do these shows tend to leave you with a hole in your chest?
at the end of the day, are you fucked up and numb?
can you remember the last time you felt this comatose?
would Christ himself cringe at the sight of your scars?

and i know how you feel about fire but
i've got a better question:
could this be love?

if you're ever in the bath and you find yourself
in need of a radio, just let me know.
i'm plugged in and ready to fall.



mr. skiba, you were the last good thing i ever saw

picture is unrelated

i can't help but stare at your champagne hair
and your teeth are cut so clean,
and your lips, they're so severe, my dear,
but your eyes are so unseen.

strange family

i'm really no one's father but i have three sons
and i would be content to stay in their orbit

we're always wired for overenthusiasm
although with the first it's hard to tell,
because the signals transmit through two
millimeters of glass and he smiles just as easy
if a little quieter. but i should warn you that
even if he seems like he's drifting toward a
different universe, i have no doubt he
will come around.

a lot of the time i'm afraid to do stuff
that i'm not sure of and honestly,
the second is sort of the same way
but give him enough encouragement and
he'll take the leap that always stops
me in my tracks. sometimes i wish he
would remember he's a good kid and i hope he
will because look at his friends.

it's kind of strange having lived this long
because i feel so tired all the time but
the third one never ever gets tired.
he laughs at the dark stuff and makes
friends with monsters and he takes a
lot of abuse but he knows his friends,
and i'm pretty sure i've got him down
pat because i've never seen him sad.

i'm really no one's father but i have three sons
and i would be content to stay in their orbit
but a black hole is pulling me lightyears into
the future.

rainbow

it's tough to fly but but i swear someday i
i'll surprise the demons deep below
and steal the straw-feathered wings from a crow

the future divides into two separate times
i'm a smart kid but the thing i do not know
is just which way you or i will go

my word is long dead but i'll say what should be said:
one day this small blue thing will grow
into something green and tall, sweet and slow

my mind is in knots but you sing in my thoughts
i stole my rough wings from an August crow
but my hands are still soft as december snow

I-95, drafting, 10:26 p.m.

i've got to find something new
because i'm tired of these chords
i'm tired of this noise
i've heard everything already and now
all that's left is the notes
i'll only hear after i'm dead

you're the wind that chokes the sand
you're the clay that covers my hands
now every little thing feels the same
and i know where to assign the blame

jesus turned water into wine, well
i turn girls into empty vodka bottles
so i can turn them in at the grocery store
drop them out of sight and get a nickel back
for my troubles

you're so misguided it's absurd
every time you use the wrong damn word
you catch me completely off my guard
but my wrist is already scarred
i've moved past all that angsty shit
i have so many clothes but none of them fit
you think i'm so much closer to what i want to be
but it's really just bad posture and a grain of deceit

children of november 3rd

they found us —
we weren't as smart as we thought we were
so we used whatever we could find,
pocket knives, chairs, broken bottles,
and we're not that smart

but we weren't stupid enough to think we could win
and when i looked around with my temple
pressed to the floor and my arm twisted behind me,
i saw some of my brothers were on their backs
(i wasn't born with any family)

with their hands up, begging for mercy
to be shown to their comrades, and the same plea
was coming from my bloodied mouth in gasps,
automatically, and dark red was dripping into
my eye and obscuring my vision but

i will not let them blind the public to our bruised faces
or stifle our cracked and wild voices.
we knew we couldn't win when we saw their nightsticks
but we didn't take one step back, didn't even
think of it, and they can use their nightsticks and bash
all our teeth inward and separate our jaws from our skulls but
we will not let them shut us up

to save our own lives, or even those of our brothers

day 9

my head is full of osmoregulation,
balancing blood against seawater and
wondering if on some other planet
the people are filled with seawater
and the oceans are filled with blood

but that other planet is really just
judgment day and i am just seeing
four and a half months into the future.

my muscle draws out my blood and i
blanch at the sight of it for fear
of being judged. but the blood is
probably just heaven punishing me for
not conforming (osmoconforming) to their
binary. they are having trouble regulating
(osmoregulating) me and my dirty, alcohol-scented,
seawater blood, filled with the pollution of man.

i look for satan to tempt me but even
he doesn't want to come any closer.
i don't know who's the birds and who's
the mammals but i am the paper-winged
bat with the high-pitched voice.

i look for the kids or the grains of hair but
i don't even see their silhouette
rescuer ships on the horizon.

a lack of osmoconformity will stiffen
my blood into pillars of salt.

"when it pains, it roars"

one day a girl will forget to avert her eyes
to spare your tentative soul.
one day your best friend will forget to give you
back the five bucks he stole.
one day you will forget exactly what
this whole stupid thing is about.
and one day it will rain when all you want is the sun
and you'll just have to wait it out.

door to door

seriously, how stupid can you be
to keep your legs that soft and pale?
you know the boys living around the corner
they have faces like saints but eyes like shale
and you've seen them and their crying fingers
and the winking smiles and the crooked teeth
and the steam of breath and the mussed-up hair
and the stupid cruelty that lies beneath

but you're safe from me, kiddo,
i'll tell you now that my fingers don't cry
they steal whatever my lichen eyes want
but my lichen eyes will be passing you by
because you come from someplace far less wet
and you mean most of the words you say
and you shake hands without asking where they've been
what you lack is a lack of faith

i find a lack of faith
so attractive

go home, little girl

you're not old enough to satisfy my morbid curiosity

"she screamed at me, 'i want to be desired!' i said, 'easy, girl, i know it hurts.' "

sometimes, babe, i just don't buy all your shit
and sorry, babe, he just dances better than you
and i'm a shitty man, kiddo, because
it's so funny
to watch you fall so hard
for all the easy lies i tell you

if there were a fire i'm sure
you would throw yourself on top of me
to make sure you burned first.
i would feel no remorse.
no survivor's guilt.
no guilt at all.
you'd die happy anyway.

god, you have no idea how much i need to get my ass kicked

hurry up

i'm disoriented driving the wrong way
down the street
with some girl unconscious in the back seat
there's duct tape over her mouth
i can't even scream
the passing lights slide slowly off my windshield
like waves on the beach
my hands are bound behind me
wait wait here they are. the sirens
here come
the police

i was wrong to take him on
i used to be a pretty smart guy
(for a private eye)
but there are somethings you can't fight

(like drugs and duct tape binding
your hands behind your back)
i'll be dead before i even hit the ground

god, you have no idea how much i want to get my ass kicked

times change and people change with 'em

for once you surprised me
when you showed up on my doorstep.
you told me i didn't have any answers
but then you asked for them anyway.
with your hands outstretched.

i almost told you to stop being
a vain and destructive false idol
before you turned your adoring fans
into nothing but the pavement under our feet
but you don't get it.

you're an empty bottle.
you're a shotgun shell.
you're a stormy day.
you're a summer clothing catalog.
you're the bike i had when i was ten years old.
you're a candle stub.
you're the ties that used to bind me to this place.


look, just go home, okay?
i don't want you.

sic transit gloria

once you were the lamb
and i can vouch for that but then you stopped
watching out and you didn't even care
when you turned yourself into the slaughterhouse

it stuns me sometimes how much you care
about yourself, every little detail
in syzygy: your venomous egotism, your careful persona,
and your mascara — not a lash out of place

on my back; you placed them in the
shape of a tic-tac-toe grid (in the spirit of fun)
and everyone's playing
but you win every time

is it all clear for you now
is it all clear for you now

i cannot bend my arms to look like wings

in the morning i always think, i could stay
right here and forget how the human voice sounds but today
is not the day i throw my thoughts in reverse
and when i step outside i start coughing from the cold

passive hallways make me wish i was a wolf
but when i bare my teeth, everyone assumes
the flash of white is just a shiny patch of wool
sometimes i feel like a fucking sedan

but sometimes i feel like a kid sitting in the sand
making castles that no one lives in
the slippery grains make it hard to stand
back up but it's okay, i'm in my own little world down here

it is not friday yet

you wrote me
in ten short days
without the aid of pen and paper
you wrote me without color
you anagrammed my face
and made acronyms out of my emotions

you left out letters
and used words whose meanings
you did not know
you wrote me on the last page of your notebook
and closed it for good and put it
on the shelf
beneath the cigar you're saving
for your twenty-first birthday

you wrote me
you wrote me

are we fools and cowards all?

sometimes i think of writing something called
"this one's for you" but i always
stay my hand at the last moment because
it is becoming less and less common for me
to have something to say

at least something that would raise you from
your fifteen-minute descent into the incongruous sunshine
or raise me from my intermittent immersion
in sweat-drenched t-shirts and sheets that no longer scare me
(though i have a feeling they should)

sometimes i ask myself when
all of this
will matter less than you

tomorrow i am going to wish you
happy birthday
one hundred times

o androgen

every so often i wonder if
six to twelve months might really mean
four and a half, because, you'll see, in
four and a half months i will be

on my way to doctor class and
people will be looking at me so
i would like some degree of certainty
which is, as they tell me

impossible

(apparently it all depends on genetics
but did all this shit come from genetics
in the first place? at the dinner table i don't see it
so maybe i'm just the unlucky one in ten thousand)

(yes
ten
thousand)

(unlucky is a big fucking understatement)

every so often i stop believing in anything

ghosts in the jukebox

lightning crashed through the theater roof
casually struck the seat next to me
coaxed a hundred thousand kids straight to their feet

the blond one grinned and told us the truth
stepped up to the mic, said, "hey, you know what,
the sun is just a backwards supernova!"

a hundred thousand kids pumped their fists in the air
while visions of dead men slumped on steering wheels
slowly convinced us that this shit is real

"listen, my flock, we have no time to spare!
tell your mom and dad to find higher ground!
we're gonna burn this motherfucker down!"

the piano came in with a big black bang
reminding us all of killer stars
and the static destroying our fragile hearts

flannel-wearing indie kids sang
folk-pop songs about the apocalypse
tonight in hartford, connecticut

i think we all deserve a little optimism (or: in which i reference supernatural, mister foe, & ben folds, plus a couple other kids you may recognize)

i talk so much about ups and downs
i take the downs for granted and i
usually don't notice the ups but

i talk so much about how i can't change how i feel
and then some angel shows up (unexpected this time)
and all i can think about is: i'm happy for some reason

sometimes ghosts kill brothers
and sorrow kills mothers
but sometimes the ghosts were lying
or there was nothing we could do

and my mother is gone too
though my zombie eyes are here to stay but
i am not alone. hey you —
we found a will, so we found a way.
and you  — tomorrow will be shiny and new.
and you — spring will be here soon.

i'll wait for the sound of crickets in the april rain
and then the drugs will ease the pain
and i will not set the house ablaze
with a cigarette

days of men at war, nights of angels' blood

every other day i wish i was a kid who ran away
who had two different colored eyes instead
of zombified drowning eyes and hair
made just to hide behind

every other night i wish i was an angel's friend
alive by day but dead by moonlight
that lights up city streets where i do not live
and colors the blood that covers my lips

but every single day when i come back to the real
i know exactly what i want
it's just unattainable

i have insomnia. its name is castiel.

he turned away
and his eyes on the floor were full of
this obvious and forbidden compassion,
but semper fidelis means semper fidelis, brother,
so he stood at attention,

and when that bewildering remnant wandered in
to make him face his obvious and forbidden compassion,
he found his faith, all right, but
it turned into a mauvaise foi
and he had no choice

but to stare her down with eyes the color of heaven,
and this time he needed no lightning bolts
to manifest his wrath;
she was not struck but she was shaken
and in the end she was gone all the same.

when the light flickered on him, finally
he was able to let things (brotherhood, security, surety)
start slipping through the cracks in his face.
but at the meridian
he still looked heavenward to find that light

i hated the shadows falling on his face
and this is not the first time
i cringed at the blasphemy of angels' blood
but in the end it was his eyes that burned me;
i could not sleep because i was blind to anything else

spring skiing could kill you

exhaustion is not a buildup.
it is not a process or a result.
it is a single point
when you dig your edges into the ice
and suddenly you feel this pain.

this is when you get hurt.

every glance down the mountain
this is when you get hurt
throws doubt in your eyes like
this is when you get hurt
powder snow (oh, if only)
this is when you get hurt
because what if the grade is just a little too steep
this is when you get hurt
or the snow too soft?
this is when you get hurt
it is difficult to describe but:

from the moment exhaustion strikes
i know that any second my legs could give out entirely
and send me sprawling over the edge


i skied like that for two hours on wednesday morning


(the architect of this mountain could not possibly have known
that one day i would rip it to shreds
but not before it ripped me to shreds first)

i'd rather have an MD than be the doctor

so strange that i can wield soundwaves
like a weapon, unlocking doors or killing robots
or cutting human hearts with the
jagged edges of broken promises

when i presided over the massacre i didn't expect
that things could keep fluctuating so fast between
the good and the bad but they keep on fluctuating
like a soundwave

i don't know how many times i can lie to myself
and say i travel alone because everyone i've known
all my friends and victims keep beating my ribcage to bits
pumping blood through my veins

i turned the broken promises into feathers
and made myself a pair of wings so i could fly
far away and stop
hurting people

aren't there any good guys left? (or: wtf supernatural) (or: FUCK YOU SAM WINCHESTER)

if i could speak in light waves instead of sound
i would ask how
is man capable of such specific evils
though in this machiavellian setting
there is no data on what is right and what is wrong,
so instead of building
we put on the obligatory sad faces and lie

so jealous of being the big brother
that when you had the chance
you just had to go abuse your power

abuse the trust of some poor asthmatic twelve-year-old

everything i liked has gone quiet

you can take your middle school and celebrate
in some faraway grove that i will not be able
to visit until i have something to celebrate
i miss not worrying about anything
i miss the things that happened before middle school
or late into the night

i am not hamlet. i do not reek of anorexic
sexual amusement. i do not cause ophelia's suicide.
i quietly hold her head under the water and watch
the flower petals drift downstream and
when they have all floated away i gaze benignly
at the reflection of my own inconsequential smile.

the last time i was with people i knew
i seem to remember being totally alone

i'm just waiting
for horses' teeth to tear gaping wounds in my palms
for the right moment to commit a disgusting crime
for you to use me to whatever ends you wish
and then command me with an uncontrollable giggle

to hang my arms from the walls of elsinore castle
my tongue from the space beneath the dragon's eyes
my lungs above the half-empty cases of bullets
my ribcage on a plaque like some hunting trophy

and my heart from a chain around your neck

sometimes the sundance channel airs this series that helps me feel encouraged. tonight i watched episode 6. i saw lucas and kasey's turning point.

one day my best friend and i
will walk out into the middle of a grove
holding my remnants

i won't expect to feel anything
as we are burning them in
a rusty grill beside a picnic table

but as the flames take hold and consume
i will silently stare
and i will not look away

" 'cause my house ain't a home. 'cause i'm living alone —"

i feel like the murderers on the orient express.
i shy away from killing but you caught me anyway.
maybe one day when my vision stops blurring for good
i will be able to read again the last gift
so bravely written and so despairingly received.

nvm that nvm

when i look ahead i don't see
any adolescents with shovels
and somber expressions for you
but there are already roses on my grave.
i threw them there this morning
because i won't have another opportunity
to buy them between now
and when their fresh yellow petals
will tremble under a dozen pairs of eyes

war stories

i walked in as you were leaving
they told me i just missed you

all these actors, telling me to enunciate,
but i am not a good liar yet,
no, i am not as good at lying as they are,

and i hope it's a learning curve
because i need to pick this up —
how to manipulate my safety at the expense
of all your brilliant scripted scenes

i walked in as you were leaving
they told me i just missed you
but they were wrong;

i step up to the microphone and say,
in quiet, muddled words, the truth —
but you won't hear it clearly enough to understand,
so maybe i am a good liar after all;

i walked in as you were leaving
they told me i just missed you
but they were wrong.

try to make out the words now.
"i don't miss you.
i don't miss you at all."

actor in a supporting role

your voice was a scrawl but you kept it confined to letters that were small cramped and perpendicular.

you saw with muted vision but the rigors of insanity gave you
crazy eyes that refused to look away.

your mouth lacked confidence so you ripped it open but the slash would not align straight anymore,

and maybe it screamed so loud for medicine
all day and all night
that after a while you stopped being able to say no.

before the road. after my entire life. right between my eyes. the lips of an avenging angel.

but what i really do not want is 100 million refugees per meter of seawater.  i don't want the polar ice caps to melt all at once.  (it seems like all at once.  fifty years is nothing.  i'll still be alive in fifty years.)  but i don't want the entire urban population of the united states to get sick either.  these chemicals.  jesus christ.  how did we get involved in something like this?  the environment hands us a .22. television programs are now designed for terrorist purposes. scientists are using radio waves to strike fear into the hearts of anyone who's bored enough to listen.  what if i am not saving people in twenty years?  what if i need to be saved?  what if i never become a doctor or have a black cat or marry my wife?  what if it gets to her first? what if venice is completely submerged?  what if polar bears go extinct and riots start all over the united states, and i always admired molotov cocktails, but what if kids die?  or riot police? what if i am beaten to the ground by a nightstick?  what if the asphalt opens up beneath my bloodied temple and i am crushed between two walls of earth?  what if i am bringing a knife to a nuclear war?  what if the inevitable nuclear winter makes all this a moot point?  i can't see the world in a hundred years.  what if i'm not blind?  what if it simply 

is not there?

"one day maybe we will dance again"

striding down the victory line finding only one,
each to each but nothing more.
every time he looks at the sun he
wonders who it is he's fighting for.
that day she traced his face
and he looked away and did not say
"it hurts me when your fingers find the cracks.
my bruises use their inside voices but never turn their backs."
and the reason he closed his eyes
was so he would not have to lie
and assure her that he saw what she had traced —
the angle.
the flaw.
the shape.

ode to doyle

your voice walked with a swagger
but your eyes always showed up late
and your mouth was only good for breaking hearts.

ode to wilson (or: doo wop)

blood streaming out of his nose
he looked so wounded,
in the eyes and in the legs that once
did the charleston by the light of
the girl who looked like gold,
but now they just struggle, wounded,
and his shoulders,
too thin for uniform.

he's not going to escape them this time.
but that's okay.
he knows that
it don't mean a thing.
it never does.

killing time

sometimes when an ex-marine lays on the couch
he thinks that he sort of wanted to commit a genocide
and then he takes a sip of his beer
and he watches full metal jacket, platoon, apocalypse now,
all that shit they used to watch back in the gulf,
and his buddies don't yell at the screen anymore
or whoop at the cavalry charging in (yes
helicopters are called the cavalry nowadays)
and when that line comes up:
"i love the smell of napalm in the morning"
there is no chorus of voices speaking along with it

just his lips moving to form the words.

because there is no such thing as an ex-marine.
once a marine, always a marine.
semper fi, brother. semper fi.

his finger traces the phrase, written in ink,
across his forearm.
stretched. faded.

his lips move to form the words.

i wanna be on TV

one day i'd like to commit shenanigans under a fake name
it would be great if you came too
wearing giant fake sunglasses and acting like a douche
with an australian accent
you could also be a fake vegetarian and learn
everyone's secrets "by accident"

we could steal people's wallets and frame the tightass
who thinks he's running everything
we could pretend we were the world's number one
luge team and wear big fuzzy hats all the time
we could scale walls by throwing our jackets over the top
and after we leapt over
we would never touch the ground

blargh

i'm not digging my own grave no
dirt and pine box no moss no
my name will not erode
i am building my own
tomb out of marble and even though
michaelangelo
could probably do something fancier
mine will last for a hundred thousand years
tell people about that kid
who spent the first and last twenty years of his life
building his own tomb

you see recently i've been calling all my own shots, yeah
but at the last second
i step forward and block them with my body

every one

"we will wear compassion, we will wear it at the gates of hell and they won't stand against us." -as cities burn

amazing grace, how dark the sky
that killed a boy like me
i once was cold but now i am aflame
was safe but now i'm free.

every day is a brand new defeat but
still i have faith
that one day i will have faith.

the defeat (or: in which i reference eleven songs/albums and talk about the apocalypse again)

television off, apocalypse on.
if you'd been paying attention you would know that
there is no way to prevent this tragedy.
watch the sons of the fallen nation limp
in livid agony
through the nuclear winter
every step driving the fragments of their broken lungs
further and further into the backs of their throats.
they beg for guernica.

look under your feet.
god is sleeping, trapped beneath the ice,
and all his sons went downhill fast
dead between the walls of jail cells or mosques.
bowing to the wills of advertisement executives.
kissing the feet of automatic rifles.
are we rich or just sinking slowly?
the earth isn't humming.
it's not even breathing.

only the clouds reach down
to check for any whimpering remnant
of a once-seismic pulse.


there are giants in the ocean
the rising tide carries them towards land

nothing else

maybe i can only find it
when my back is pressing up against the seat
when my hands separate and dissolve
when the seams in the road run parallel
to the seams of my collarbone and inner forearm

when i am not concussed
in danger of coma
when i can fall into a fearless sleep
and find no sorrow in it

dammit janet (a true story)

your eyes were all mist and murder
seducing me even (or especially) with
the silver knife you kept so slyly in your
left hand, pointing it downward as if
you did not intend to wound me

but your voice jerked me back to life
straining me through copper-wire
modern modems and too much
makeup and snippets and pixels and
how much are you worth to them?

last year we had pearls and record players
and we sat with our chins resting lightly
on our fingers and we drank flutes of
champagne and we smiled just enough
and never laughed too long

now all these paper crowns shine too bright
and all these pastel colors wax sinister
and i see all these flimsy frozen people whose
mouths never change and on the television
the volume is turned up two notches too loud

be mine 4 ever

the rhythmic thumping of the washing machine
i wondered what the young boy, hidden behind
the arm of the sofa, had seen of the masked man,
or if the chill point of light had blinded him into
magnanimous ignorance.

the rhythmic thumping of the washing machine
i wondered if that man had considered, even
comprehended that he might die tonight, in a
way that would make joseph mengele himself
applaud in admiration.

the rhythmic thumping of the washing machine
i wondered if that woman knew what she was
getting into when she agreed to take point, or
if she had to look around first before she found
a jawbone across the porch.

i wondered too:
the rhythmic thumping of the washing machine
and the smell when she finally opened it up

memoir

if george patton talked to general westmoreland,
would they get along?
did the soldiers have it easier
forging the shenandoah or the mekong?
were they more scared of bright faces in the desert
or darker ones against the swamp?

i wonder, the guts at right angles to bayonets,
fanned out by land mines,
stenciled by cannonballs,
connected between little pieces of shot,
slatted through with grenade fragments,
do they all look the same?

addendum to "short storee"

you saw my eyes wide like a deer in headlights.
notice that you were the one approaching me
with a glare you don't even notice anymore
but i, shivering, with thin legs and my
big black eyes all terror and sideways,
could not move

and every word you spoke
put one more dent in my insides
until finally i collapsed
with my smooth hide
and my guts all bruised up and unsalvageable

a giant eclipse

i probably looked dead behind the eyes but

actually i was still in the process of a)

hanging myself

b) splitting my wrists

c) giving myself concrete shoes

d) sticking a fork in a socket

e) drinking a bottle of advil

f) spilling heavy metals in my scrambled eggs

g) sticking my head in an oven

h) or a microwave

i) dousing myself in gasoline and lighting myself (like) a match

j) taking a pistol to my temple

k) or my chin

l) or the roof of my mouth

m) taking elliott smith to heart (or rather his knife)

n) drinking hydrofluoric acid

o) depriving myself of food

p) or water

q) throwing myself off the golden gate bridge

r) standing under a tree in a thunderstorm

s) swimming in an avalanche

t) feeding the tigers (with myself)

u) pointing a gun at a police officer

v) running my car into a brick wall

w) cannonballing into a bucket of razor blades

x) or possibly just eating them

y) taking vicodin AND celexa AND clonazepam AND johnnie walker

z) eating the wrong kind of caterpillar

someday i will find perfect despair

and i will tell him

that i would like to annul the adoption papers

because i no longer want to live

with his twenty-six younger brothers

god's good ocean gone wrong

did you ever care that i was taking risks?
because you never looked at me enough —
hypothermia was coaxing blue back into my face
when i smiled at you so rare,
and you just smiled back and didn't seem
to care.

if i breathed you in i am sure i would not survive.
you would infect me and i would not notice
the water pressure building up inside my chest,
the creaking of my ribs as the seams burst
and the hull splintered into flotsam you'd rather forget,
but still i cannot help asking you:
would you condescend to let me?

they travel fast and alone

i guess i see it differently.
behind their eyes
their bodies are bombed-out,
shells that have been shelled to death

and i live in a house
behind my mind —
it blocks the stars and moon so
i can't see them at all

thanks, nova, for scaring the shit out of me (or: global dimming, look it up)

yeah, i don't want to believe it either.
but god. god. it's true.
scientists are raining down these apocalypses on us
(speaking in controlled, pensive voices that betray,
and for some unfathomable reason
they all wear glasses and the glare on the lenses renders their eyes
unfathomable)

and did you know? because i sure as hell didn't
that we are caught in a catch-22
a catch-3 degrees by mid-century
catch those snowflakes in your mouth while you can
(or don't actually —
they are all poisonous)

the only thing keeping us from total disaster
is the same thing that's causing the disaster in the first place.
the sun is dimming behind our industrial veil.
but for every degree it cools us,
it gives us just a few more cancer cells, in places we might not
even notice them. i certainly haven't.

remove the veil and give us our health.
remove the veil and wash us away
with higher seas and dying animals at the feet of our beds.
you know, we could always just leave it there.
at least then we'll be the ones showing up
at the feet of the polar bears' beds

wondering how we let ourselves get
so fucked over in the first place.
catch-22.
i'm starting to think
a .22 might be
the only way out of this

uhhh

i've got all this kindness in me but
i'm too selfish to tell you about it —
i would rather nurture my rage and not tell you about that either;

when i grow up, i want to smoke cigarettes
and i want to be this thing that everyone cares about
an ounce of self-love for every ounce of generosity;

i lose my shit and get humiliated
and i look for dark things and hide what i tell you,
yet for some reason all of you like me and one of you loves me.

well the point of this is, i would say:
i'm not amazing.
i am amazed.

i had a bad dream

my hands were still cold from winter
and his back still wet
when i set him ablaze.

my hands were still sweet from sleep
and his neck still soft
when i slit his throat.

ski sundown

the architect of this mountain could not possibly have known
that one day i would rip it to shreds