smile.

this trainwreck is a car accident;

those rubber necks
made of fiberglass crack at the sight
of what we’ve become..

(as the engines run
-head on)

one.

if i was a coupe
you’d be a tractor-trailer
-if you were a tractor-trailer,
i’d be too drunk to see you coming
-if you saw me coming,
id be too drunk to see you turning 
while i turned the same direction 
in guessing what the opposite of the other’s next
correction 
wouldn’t be-

we have awkward encounters
where hesitantly stepping side to side in unison 
turns into a 16 car fox trot 

pile up

that we can’t help but to cause
-because scattered across those car wrecks
and shattered windshields,
the most adorning qualities of each driver
can be seen stopping to fill up the tank
for another 3000 miles 

on good intentions;

where at the beginning of the journey
we see the end of our last endeavor,
as a reason to keep on driving 

into oblivion.

we drive across separate arteries 
at the same speeds in different times of the ride

-we drive, because we love the roads;
but more importantly,

where they go.

we drive with our eyes closed;
we ride with maps of eachother
stretched across the inside of the windshield.

i left our last accident early.
i figured i’d arrive early so i’d have time to pick her a flower
- and write a note attached to it that would say:

“i’m sorry i crashed into you last time. 
i just missed 
your touch.

i love you dear.”

or something like that.

she left our last scene late
.. because she was so upset that i didn’t stop
while she screamed it through the glass.

it took her a bit longer to compose herself.

but where i left early, she left later
-and where i stopped to pitty these rides
and to wonder if she was even coming this time;
she began to speed to make up for lost time.

i didn’t mean to hit her, 
she knows how much i truly care
-i just have a fucked up way of showing it.

and as we round the same corner 
from separate ends,
those yellow lines begin to tangle 
and we both just look ahead;
the roads all disappear, and the steal traps where we hide our hearts
fade into the scenic view

-of you.

we run at each other with open arms
-like the sappiest beach scene of your girlfriends
favorite love film

faster! 

faster! 

faster!

.. until we crash.

-i’m sorry dear, i just ..
missed your touch.

she was a neon motel sign
with no vacancy 
and a broken bulb in the beginning 
of her florescent definition:
she read, like,
“NOTEL”
to an audience of voyeurs
and sweaty palms.

i watched her do lines
off things far more phallic then my dick
-while trying to read every word of them i could
before she blew me away,
when all i wanted was to read
her lips.

blondes have more dis(fun)ction.

this girl, fought depression
by applying make-upside down and the hydrogen peroxide
her mother never used to wipe the slate clean
on her daughter’s self esteem engine.

she had died her hair so many times
that her roots
had worked themselves so deep in to her scalp,
that you could see their ends stretched across
the whites of her eyes
every time she’d try to leave the ground,
to get high..

her roots ran deep
as the oak tree in my childhood’s backyard;
the one that snapped my ankle in two pieces
during a game of tag;
no, this simile doesn’t stop there
because when i met you it turned in two
metaphor.

i used to swing from that tree too,
until the rope snapped one day while i was trying to reach
the sky..

she will be my latest
repressed memory.

that girl was the industrialization
of my romanticism.
she painted oil trusses around memories of willow trees,
and added factory mills to the streams
that had dried up years before she started
spinning her wheels in their soil.

i started with a heart.

somewhere under the sheet panels,
tin worker huts, outriggers, box cars
and box cutters
it’s still there 
to help you thrive off what’s under
all that steel you call real.

i’ve sipped this coma
for gallons worth,
hanging on by the electric sockets,
while she’s pulled my plug 
and my lungs spit up profit.

we call it love
until production stalls
-because we don’t have the tools
to build back this momentum;

we call it love,
but 

just as long as there’s a downfall
on sight.

self-made mishap(py).

my anti-drug
is my last overdosey-doe;
my future has trouble breathing
because i can’t move
past;
i snort between the lines
because my sinuses are illiterate,
like the rest of the world
while i’m reading palms
hidden in my sweaty pockets-

i’ll scapegoat
an inanimate object
until the death of me
-which could be
your view of what i think
i should do

right 

this

very 

moment.

my poem is the eulogy
of itself. 
i didn’t write this,
i wrote the version you hated
because i liked it
better,
when you hadn’t read it.

these words are plainly said,
the most complex way to walk around
myself
without let any of you 
know.

so i’ll keep the poems you hate
in this state;
i’ll never leave 
because i claim to be agoraphobic 
from my car window..
because its easier than admitting i’m
afraid.

my relationships all fail
-because i only trust wo(me)n,
and s(he)’s a liar.

my hips have an autopilot,
that works horribly with my kamikaze hands
-that crash themselves into your body
when all i really wanted, 
is just to hold 
your 
thoughts.
i’m a slut, because you’re a bigger slut.
‘you’re not that beautiful,’
is what my favorite musicians 
tell me to think;
there’s a line that follows that,
but i think i like that part best
-when it 
excuses your perfection
as hideous,
simply because it’s not as ugly as mine.
that, who is different
is a freak;
in this case ugly by way
of not originally being as grotesque
as my own
personality.

but,

i credit this ugly
to the wrong Brooklyn,
Maine.

i found a rust snared swing set
in Brooklyn’s tetanus
gun-shot 
to the back of my
peddling,
i still use to swing as close to the sky as i can,
before i realize i’ll never reach..
just to keep my optimism
in check.

just k(no)w
that every thing i didn’t do
isn’t ever my own fault
when you’re still there to watch 
me undo its doing
and give me the peace of mine
of your piece of mind.

i know i’m:
an asshole
complicated
self absorbed
mature
immature
SO sweat
sexy
hilarious
hard to understand
perfect
older
anxious 

but you:
are too nice
are simple minded
only care about yourself
immature
think you’re so grown up
such a bitch!
not pretty enough
too serious
don’t understand!
aren’t the one
are too young
are too easy going

.. and every poem i write
turns into a love story
i learned after i thought i read the ending
to myself,
because this world is out to get
you;
and you transpose all your problems on to me
-so i eat your kharma raw,
so that i never directly admit
that it was mine 
in the first place.

i’m a liar,
i typically just say, poet.

and this poem, 
was written for:
you
me 
him 
her
the world
tonight
yesterday
today, BUT

i wont admit it
tomorrow.

so when said
apologies turn into 
heart attacks
and i blame you for writing 
this suicide note
with my forged signature
state of mind,
in the footnotes of my stationary
denial

remember,

this was all tru
ly
whatever 
you made it.

my knees took root in the block of sidewalk
stretched out in front
of your forehead-
but only after you moved away.

the ‘for sale’ sign on your body
language
written in braille across 
a no trespassing sign above your eyelids,
swings like a chain-link noose
in winds of change,
without the common cents 
it costs to stay;
rusted from the reign,
its sway grinds itself to sleep
that sounds like screams and the process 
of moving on
all in the same sweep.

the day you moved away
i bought a house.

it looked just like yours
-even smiled all the same,
but when the rain hit my knee
i found a hole in the place that you would 
be.
i caught the drops 
and wished that they were snowflakes,
and tried to fill your void
with plaster 
that hit my tongue
like sleet.

my house was built of cards
between where you stood
and where our house used to block the wind;
it would take a deep breath
every morning when it looked out the window
and had to forget its neighbor-
before it exhaled
my foundation, and every wall i built to hide myself, 
and i’d watch my hard work blown in
the free wind of too many sighs 
like a million homemade kites
strung by one thread of sanity-
without a neighbor to help me

reel them in.

windy days hurt the most;
the autumn leave
holds me
hostage.

my house,
my windstorms and depression:
your home, 
your empty room,
with a guest bed..

your, home.
with autumn leaves.

i narrated the piece with two X’s
drawn over my eyelids
and a dagger doodled in the footnote.

(it was a silent film.)

i chose to remove all sound from the presentation.

i felt that it distracted from the lead character
i was trying to portray myself as.

i read from notes written on the backsides of post its.

this way when i set it down,
i couldn’t go back and correct myself
without fumbling over my words
-and looking like an idiot;

i did that to stay in character.

i know that if i saw what i said about the last clip
while trying to focus on the next,
i’d keep returning to edit the narative for the last
while in the current-
there for 
confusing different relationships
in sequence between my commentary and the footage.

“is this one of those,
cheap pornographys?”

right, back to the film.

i skipped over two relationships
trying to justify to myself why i had written my notes
on the backsides of the post its
aloud
and coming to the conclusion that:
“no, this is not a cheap pornography.”

the audience seams lost in my relationships
-the silent treatments aren’t proving to be effective,
maybe i should have let these girls speak
for themselves. i don’t know.

-no, they would have just made the character
of the character that i was trying to characterize as 
myself
look like someone of loose character. 

this is a good idea.

the audience swallows sex scene after sex seen
and re-played.
i’ve now somehow managed to skip through four post its
while trying to explain why there is only sex scenes
for the first two scenes-
while the film skips alittle, “shit.”

that’s from when i was seventeen
-when i was slipped angel dust
and was so self enveloped that
i forgot to think of a narrative to explain
the girl you saw from the last sex scene-

“is this one of those 
cheap pornographys?”

nevermind. moving forward..
or, in reverse, this is the format
moving backward, but ahead in it’s presentation

-oh, what’s the difference..

i’ve now got one post it note with why i can’t be held accountable
for a specific relationship for every relationship 
i’ve ever had, and i’ve come to see i have 
not-
stuck from eye to eye as this silent film
becomes the reason 
why these women don’t speak
right there in front of my eyes,
literally.

lost in every relationship
all at once with not a single woman
sitting next to me as my date to my own premier
because
“woman are all crazy, i’m telling you.”

and i’m basking in the sanity
of explaining why i’m not accountable 
for the hearts i’ve stolen
while accepting i’ve stolen them but disputing
the definition of the work “break,”
alone.

“yes, YES!
this is one of those
cheap pornographys..
whatever.”

i’ve constructed monuments of my own failure
on each side of this exit way;
while i feed the city of garbage where i play,
i’ll keep throwing sour love songs
tangled in last nights leftover-
dones’
and wish i could see the sun 
just once,
as if i’d even know what to do with it
other than close my eyes until
it was done;

then write some ambiguously coherent poem 
that doesn’t even end about it,
on the backside of a napkin,
who’s backside grins with jovial idiocy,
who’s for-side is a notebook,
who’s backside is a tragic epilogue
regeneratively:

i am the rat 
who packed all his belongings in to a poem,
and bothered to recycle for the sake
of a more conducive environment-

but i’m beginning to see more saturdays
in these rotten heaps,
than fridays to be their predecessors:
TGIF – yes, Thursday Goes Infinitely Forever
between misplaced clocks
in a lot of rusted suffix where the pre-fix
apparently,
is not.

trace my own circumference
until i walk a circle around my own misdirection,
trying to justify the end
of every poem i’ve thrown 
into the construction of this second-hand home
-with out the means
to remember what it is i wrote.

i’m the trophy wife of beautiful words,

who can’t even count to the sum 
of his own accomplishments
without a second hand 
-who can scribe for the first. 

i’ve subscribed to my own literary magazine
of half concluded exposays-
from the first issue in Novemeber of 1988 
up until the presently future day
-where again i’m writing the past
because i’ve already forgotten of today.

i know
i’ll throw this issue away too
-help build a solid foundation for my adobe hut.
my own bullshit makes for the best mortar;
even if its backside starts to grow flowers,
and its for-side can cup a coward,
and its backside can be picked for hours
by its for-side’s half-fully empty coward;

i make two cent’s of every message in a bottle
i recycle after sending it adrift to myself.
i’ve lost it all and earned it back with every poem,
and chanced it every time again
in hope that it will always come back to me

in the very end.
.Or the very beginning
depending on where it starts..
.. or it’s ending?

???

call me whore

when i kiss your forehead

between locked fingers

that open like your legs-

as you climb the latter,

your former is desperate

but i’ll be the slut 

because naive as your love

-i wish i didn’t get it. 

i could dumb down

my heartbeat, and muffle the kisses

but your glass is half full

of crystal and it’s clear you’ve been drinking-

so while you swallow my words

and i ask what you’re thinking,

look through the glass

that can’t hide a lie through the blinking

i’ll love you in the gutter

and lust you at home-

dirty talk everyday conversations

and i thrust through the moans

for.. “more.”

but i’m just a whore.

this is the moment:
police lights drum roll in the distance
and the horns begin to open,
symbols smash the windshield
and the conductors wand is broken!
the symphony spirals into chaos
and the notes begin to stray off-
the pages fold and crumble
and the audience begins to daze off..

man’s 13th symphony:
requiem for a dreamer.

-a righter

only in the wrong light

-er fluid motion through forrest fires

i started by pushing sunsets

down the mountain side

like burning tires.

king of the hell

-icopter blade-

runner walking down the vein

i’ve offered

.. hope i can sustain,

these suicide note-

ices i’m only crying

werewolf-

like little boy blue

-burry fields of vine

tuned rope to hang-

man like misspelled quotes.