far from sacred but close to scarred. more nearer to death. you and him. him & me. you & us. we. dance the dance of deadly disease. back & forth. tugging on heartstrings but never coming close to touching souls. ribs exposed, this affair of wanderlust is now three days old.

investing in molesting. heart & mind. body/hole. him in you. him in me. god is nowhere to be seen. morals versus mouth. david versus goliath. this time david will not prevail. we lay dormant, perpendicular.

the sunday sun continues to set yet we are not aware.




traveling backwards through the dark, we've only our cigarettes to keep us warm. stoic faces, we dine on stale chewy hearts. full of trans fat. no nutritional value. none.

we whisper/whimper. speak rumors of secret societies where people actually tell the truth & are happy with themselves. fantasy. i laugh. you should too.

we talk.
we lie, as we constantly chew, chew/masticate, chew with our teeth like barbed wire. full or fat? i forget.

i like your new scarf made of skin.
this is it. no one here but me & you & everyone else. show me yours & i'll show you mine. look what you did! no one will buy us now.

damaged?
good.

good as gone. as american as used tire lots & lumber yards. sadly we are the crop & the harvest. everyone will starve.




Cheap mascara stolen from the drug store streaks down her face. The rain makes the hair fall on to her face almost concealing her blackend eyes, but the dark runny make up only accentuates them. She stands on the soft shoulder of the highway with broken heels & broken heart.

The rain comes down harder making staccato music on the tin roofs of the trailer homes near by. She can still smell the noxious fumes that the car dispelled as it sped off without her.

And as a single tear rolls down her face, all that's left of the events that just took place, creeps down the inside of her thigh. A creepy reminder that even though he is gone now, he was there before and no matter what she does, he always will be.









The days were golden.
key word, 'were'.
now they resemble second-hand pewter, with a twinge of 1950's copper.

the putridness of my thoughts & things I've said, that i ought not've still sting the ears of others & the irony sticks to the roof of my mouth like a peanut butter & fecal sandwich.

I swallow hard on this moral dilemma & scrape the bottom of the ashtray for answers. & try to think of all the reason's why my life isn't good.

I guess I could place the blame upon luck,
or circumstance,
or fate,
perhaps myself,

but i'd rather blame Jimmy Hoffa.




"today is my birthday!" she chortles to everyone.

"and today is the day i am supposed to die!" she adds for good measure. She begins staring into nothing & maniacally everyone's jaw's drop. I desperately search my pockets for my Camel lights. Non-filters.

"Why, whatever do you mean, dear?" a voice from the crowd concernedly asks.

And as her unbecoming teeth-bearing grimace fades into a frown, her laughter turns into sobs, sort of like the way milk turns into curd if left out for too long. stomach turning for some, but greatly delectable to others. I fall under the latter category.

"Because I planned it that way."

This nervous breakdown is mildly amusing, but if you've seen one, you've seen them all and it's really not doing anything for my high.

she lifts her hands to her face & her scrawny legs carry her as fast as they can into the darkness & obscurity & a bit closer to death. Everyone scrambles & scatters to shed their drug induced stupor and to find their rationale and run off after her hoping she is okay.

I briskly walk behind them, hoping she is not.




i've got a rusty knife with your name on it, i wrote it in black sharpie marker. it is very dull. it will not cut. no.

when i stab in your general direction no matter where it lands, whether it be that small opening where the clavicles & sternum meet, or that large soft area on your back just to the left of where you pelvic bone ends, where a kidney nestles next to your spine should be. it won't matter, no laceration will be sustained it is so dull.

but a big nasty bruise is what i'm hoping for. one that is ghastly green in color & Florida in shape. can bruises turn gangrenous? if not i pray to god & Marvin Gaye that this will be the first occurrence in history. i hope the whole right of your body falls off. maybe then Brian, you'll take me seriously.




on the way to work today, i saw a dead cat on the side of the road. however it didn't look dead. there were no signs of destruction or death. no protruding bones &/or puddles of coagulating blood on the ground. tell tale signs of death.

no.

it looked as though it had just lay down to bask in the sun amongst the litter & gravel on the side of the highway for a catnap. but as i drove by i saw that it's eyes were about two inches out of it head, backed by cylinders of eye socket shaped flesh. this observation indicated that it must have been stuck with extreme force, causing massive internal bleeding, fractures & hemorrhaging.

this lifeless sack of once living flesh made me think. think about life, and my pointless existence, but at the same time it made thankful that i am still given the opportunity to exist & live & breath in deep on tobacco smoke. the cat is now worthless worldly trash. it once could have brought someone joy, now it is soulless refuse, waste. less than nothing.

to me, Brian
you are the dead cat.




today on the way to work i saw the dead cat on the side of the freeway again. it no longer looked peaceful and serene. it lay there dead & decaying with it's ribcage exposed. after dark carrion pigeons & possums & other creatures of the night must've had their way with it. it looks as though the vermin tried to drag it off the road and into a ditch where they could better devour it's rotting insides.

it was no longer a thing a of beauty, nor a reminder to be thankful for your aliveship.

no.

it was dirty, disgusting & rank. & yes, Brian, the dead cat is still you.









mouths muted, stares averted
glass of wheat, issues skirted
shoot got shot & shit got shat
perhaps we spit when we should've spat

no one the victor, do not know who was best
closed our eyes & seeds got planted in our chest
looking at all, looking at none,
we were all struck down, you, me & my son

on that night never felt aliver
we all talked & shared saliver
mouth sore, thinking violence
we all went home, hands in pockets,
speaking in silence




And her mother glares at her over her eyeglasses & through her glass of grey goose. She stares at the translucent image of her daughter in disgust. It is the kind of look usually given to someone you catch defecating on your lawn.

She has done nothing, yet her mother still stares.

Stares at her like she is the bane of her existence, the break in her cigarette, the ash in her cup. The god damned pubic hair caught in the back of her throat.

And the more her mother fights to rid her body & life of it's existence the more it persists. Her mother doesn't know why stays

& neither does she.




fingers, legs & teeth tangled & intwinged. back scratch, bare chests & barefeet. i could never figure out what makes me want to see the thighs and lows of hidden sceneries.

but i do.

& i see faces of ecstacy & smell breaths of delight, i can see how much you want this. i'm all you need, all you want. i am what you set out to get, while i'm out to get hers & hers & maybe even his. my charade of passion & facade of dimension aptly conceals my appetite for hell driven bliss.

if only you knew, you'd wish me dead.
(for a while.)

hate my guts.
(if you could.)

rip all my pictures of the wall.
(only to clutch them to your face.)

you see, we are different you and i, & the differences are not small. it's not apples & oranges, or even lions & tigers, we're talking total opposites of the whole fucking spectrum.

try strong vs. weak
good vs. evil
how about predator vs. prey

ah, now we're getting close. closer. to an understanding, understatement? yes, we've both been to the liquor store and back, more than a couple times, but the core of anything is what makes it tick. where's the drive? if i had to guess, i'd say you are like most & driven by a posotive outlook, good will & faith that you will wake up a better person tommorrow.

now me, it's hard to say what drives i, but i can garuntee i stopped believing that shit my parent(s) tried to spoonfeed me when i was seven.

let's put it this way, god likes ugly, & john goodman likes violence. personally i like to place blame on others for my shortcomings & misgivings. in fact, i love it.

the point is it takes all kinds. it makes the world go around, keeps our feet on the ground & your heads in the sky.

so dive head first into your stupid little beliefs & i will keep on chasing my demons & ignoring my gods & believing that there is a place where me & janis joplin can finally finish what we started.




Days go by & subpoena's get delivered & restraining orders get dodged, but his feelings for her never change.

There's a vomit stain on his shirt & despair has become a permanent fixture in his brain. He fingers the wound where he carved her name in his arm, it always makes him smile.

Headed nowhere he walks with his head towards the ground & his thoughts remain in the clouds, remembering things his heart won't let him forget. Constantly day dreaming of her & he never gets any sleep because it's haunted by nightmares of regret.




She thought her life was missing something. it felt incomplete. This couldn't be all that god had to offer. She felt that this, this one event could somehow change the outcome of her life for the better. She actually believed she'd wake up a different person. Sparkling, shiny and new...

But no.

No, she wakes up feeling like the same disgusting person she was last night, morning breath and all. Only now she feels worse off than she was before because the person she deluded herself into thinking that this was 'the one' is still piled next to her in a heap, sound asleep.

And that old familiar feeling comes pouring over her psyche like urine into the lavatory. She's been here before. Different night, different guy, & always under a different section of the same sky.




eyes closed, stomach & heart empty. willing the phone to ring, something to fall to the floor & break. wishing a killer to come knock on my door. hoping, praying for catastrophe, calamity.

anything.

something to let me know that this silence is just that; silence. & not some terminal illness that causes all senses to fail one by one. i have not seen, felt nor heard anything in days -- weeks? it's hard to keep track of time when your can't feel your arms or see the hands on your wrist watch. why is it that no one is around in your most dire time of need?

i've come to the realization that there's no in between. stuffed or starving. inundation or isolation. happy mediums do not exist. & the place where you live is poisonous. don't breathe the water. don't drink the air.

how did it come to this? where did things go so horribly wrong? The goldfish is in the toilet and god knows it should have been me. good god, it should have been me.

my lungs are a hell of a lot blacker than i thought & yours are filled with urine & water. they say life's a cabaret, but surely not today. rest in piece Elsie in your watery watery grave.




I had no definite plans for today. I mean nothing was set in stone, but as always, I knew I wanted.

I wanted to desecrate, destroy & defile things.

smash, smear & smudge priceless artifacts with feces stained hands.

throw up on flowers,
throw hands in the air,
throw rocks at the old folks home
& urinate on the in-laws throw pillows.

yes, today would've been monumental. a good day to dig deep inside and let the Christoper Walken in me shine through. Dreams would have materialized into deeds if it weren't for the poisons in my stomach fighting to get out, spoiling my plans & soiling my sheets.

i had plans to put down others & make myself stand tall and here i am on my knees feeling like a sissy in confessional, spilling my guts to a porcelain john who hardly says a word.

I peer through the drunken haze & the bile & curse god for putting all that alcohol in my stomach.

jerk. With head in hands I contemplate the numerous amount of idiots & assholes that have been here before me. unable to move, i lay lackadaisical in my own vomit like it's no big deal.

This morning i had plans to stand tall & deface, debuke & debate, everything in site, & now, the only d-word i'm feeling is defeated.

sometimes i fall down.
actually, i fall down alot.

but instead of following in the footsteps of others,
& springing up immedialtely to learn from my mistakes,
i prefer to lay there for a while, and wallow in them.

get to know them.
become them.

sometimes i lay there and and get a close up look of the ground, smell the dirt, & even taste the gravel. like me, it's bitter.

& sometimes i roll over on my back & damn the clouds for mocking me & my denseness. I shoot down the prayers others send heavenward & I engage in staring contests with the sky & dare it to come crashing down.

i dream that one day i will get up, rise to my feet & rise to the occasion & stand tall and be a law-abiding, god fearing, all around good person...

but dreams are fleeting & most of the time overrated, so if you need to find me, i'll be down here.

kicking it with my nightmares.

& we can take this outside, we can meet after school behind the bleachers or near the slide & throw insults, rocks & each other against the lockers for the enjoyment & delight of others.

Today, we can settle this just like the men our fathers taught us to be.

We can remind each other what blood clots & loose teeth feel like & prove to each other nothing except that bobbing and weaving doesn't work in real life.

There will be plenty bruises and grass stains to go around. Maybe you'll bloody my nose & maybe i'll rip your shirt.

Fingers get pointed & a volatile mix of laughter and jeers ensue, as i stumble or stagger away to my salvation, but perhaps also my damnation.

Although you have won, there is a fight still ensuing, raging, much more violent and consequential then the one a few minutes before. This one, within me.

Clutching my stomach and the placing my hand on the hard knot that has been hidden there, don't you see?

in class today the teacher spoke of never ending math equations, in my hands i hold the solution, the cold answer to all problems & ender of all solutions, all i can see right now is the world minus you is looking pretty god damned good.




She does not belong here. A little girl in the midst of a grown ups wasteland. She's not even old enough to be here. But no one really seems to mind. Women cackle, men curse & smoke wafts as she takes a broken down stool at the bar.

There is no dress code here & the patrons are either barefoot, snaggletoothed or both. Not only do the men wear wife beaters, they play pool with them. Everything in the place is dingy & ancient. The newest thing in the whole place is probably the bartenders dentures. Chistopher Cross plays on the jukebox, Sailing. The song makes her feel melancholy, but enjoyablly so. And on the inside, in her gut, she feels like maybe she's gonna die.

Soon.

But at this point and time she can't see anything wrong with that.

Peering through her translucent drink, she gets lost in her transparent thoughts & pretends she doesn't notice him lurking towards her from across the bar with his lockjaw smile & a lukewarm fire in his eye. He takes the stool next to her, and stares into her face with a smirk. There's food in his beard & his hat reads 'shoot guns & eat pussy'. She doens't know him, but she knows his type. Seen them a million times before, hell her mom brought one home everynight. And as soon as they had their way with momma, they always ending up crawling into bed with baby.

'You sure do got purty hair' Shoot guns and eat pussy brays, & with a an outstretched finger tries to twirl strands of her locks.

She pulls away.
He laughs.
He places a firm hand on leg & fingers her knee through the rip in her jeans. She pushes it away, his eyes light up. She is not afraid of him, the alcohol on his breath, the cigarette in his ear nor the pornography in his voice. However she should be deathly afraid of the growing demon in his pants and hatred in his heart, for they have the ability to crush her spirit & end her life in a dark alley way somewhere, & all in the same night.




The world today is full of harlots & 'holics & he was the worst of 'em. He was an asshole, and a worthless pile of chromosomes. The kind of jerk who puts both hands on his hips, instead of on his dick when pissing in public urinals. He was a world-class, grade A prick & he deserves to die.

She awakes to the sun in her eyes and her step father's hand cupping her breast. Disgusted but undaunted by this ealry morning molestation she climbs off the beer stained mattress, down the hall, careful not to step on the numerous empty alcohol receptacles. From the amount of empty beer cans, she knows that her step father will be passed out for most of the day. God knows where her mother is.

There's flies in the bathroom, the toilet hasn't worked in weeks yet people still use it. In the basin she splashes water on her face, wipes sleep from of her eye, and looks into the mirror. she pulls her hair away from her face and up into a bun but thinks it'd be best to try to cover her bruises than accentuate them & lets it loosely fall down around her shoulders. She beams at herself in a mirror & blows a kiss, very Marilyn Monroe-esque she thinks. She decides she feels good today & today she will walk with her head up & look at people in the eyes & smile for a change & shake hands & meet new people & exude sexual aura... Just like the horoscope said.

And today when he purposely spills his coffee all over her second hand dress & gives one of his obsolete apologies & and a patented plastic smile, showing just a pinch of his yellowing teeth, it will be the worst day of her life.




No more not so discreet rendezvous,
public displays of deception,

we regret to inform you that our ice cream social has come to and unexpected end.

this is it,
the coup de grace,
our last goodbye,
And not being prepared for it, neither on of us has much to say.

as i watch a reflection of myself turn and walk away, i begin to calculate how long i will be expected to carry these feelings around with me, like an emotional colostomy bag.

it crosses my mind that i can fix this in an instant & i turn towards her and all i see is fallen skies & a fallen face.

and i look away.




Tis true, the old proverb 'good things come to good people'. I thought it was just shit elderly people pitched to their kids to keep their senile asses out of convalescent homes, but as usual, I was wrong. Which would explain why my life is steadily sinking lower & lower into the shit pit. The foul smelling quicksand of life has me in it's grimy grasp & keeps pulling me down.

I thought admitting you were a bad person totally absolved you from any form of punishment, like telling the father in confessional that you constantly thought about fondling the neighbors' twin boys. Matthew and Mark. Wrong. The father is just going to tell god on you & get you in trouble sooner.

So go watch the boys play baseball on their front lawn as your wife prepares the evening supper. Wave to your neighbor and smile as he spots you watching them from second base. What you wouldn't give to score with one of those supple little boys, more tender than the lean cut pork chops marinating in your kitchen.

Watch.
Imagine.
Fantasize.

And do not go to Sunday mass and rat your fat ass out, for you will not gain absolution.

Thinking about the crime carries the same punishment as committing it. So to all the peeping toms & uncle Franks, have a little boy or two. We've all already earned our sentences in hell. Consider this lifetime a conjugal visit before we're off making license plates in the burning lake of sulfur.




there is no more food to feed the masses. just yesterday it poured down from the heavens on top of them. copius amounts. they bathed/swam in it.

enveloping,
surrounding,
covering.

what was in abundance is completely depleted with no sign of return. none.

famine.

how arrogant, how Roman-Catholic of them to think things would last forever. nourishment. sustenance. they feel themselves getting weaker by the minute.

brittle,
breaking.
soon, their spider leg-like bodies will flail about in the wind & be scorched by the suns damaging rays. their lustrous skin color will soon lack luster and turn a pale, pale shade of gray but their feet will remain firmly planted to the earth forever & ever.

p.s. i ran out of conditioner




last night, the sperm provider in my conception telephoned me. we have not spoken in years. the last time i talked to him i believe was 3 months after my 18th birth day. he phoned to wish me a happy conception date. i said thanks & told him he was either 3 months late or 9 months early.

This time the voice had a different message. The voice on the the other end told me that he wanted me to know that he had been baptized just that sunday & had found jesus.

me & jesus are acquaintances but we just don't run in the same circles. what was i supposed to say? congrat-u-fucking-lations? so i said 'amen'.

maybe my father finding his spiritual father makes him want to be a better one to me. Maybe he's realizing he's old & is gonna die soon & wants to make sure he's getting into heaven.

Maybe he wants a relationship. Who knows. But i do know that i've vowed to never get involved in words that end in 'ship' because they all require a certain amount of effort, responsibility & faith. Three things in which i have very little off.

Maybe he found jesus & wants forgiveness. but did he ever stop to think that maybe jesus doesn't want to be found & maybe i haven't located my forgiveness. & maybe i just want him & his maybe's to get lost.




One day 1 met 2 and together they were something bigger, something more than they were alone. Then one day 2 decided that 2 wanted to be single. 2 explained to 1 that in order to grow to be something more 2 needed to become less first. So 2 broke up with 1. Then 2 went off to college to have six with 7, 8 & 9 & who knows how many other zeros.
and then there was 1.




turn it on & turn it up.
the lights, turn 'em down -- Fuck it,
turn 'em off.

clap your hands until they bleed
and dance until you break a leg,
or a neck.

what are you waiting for?
let's get this makeout party started.

kiss that boy until his lips burst
grind your levi's against his until his penis falls off
and hold on to his ass like it's going out of style.

Turn the music on,
turn it up,
close your eyes & live it up.




To quote my good friend the bible,

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. But damned are the little whores like you: all they shall inherit is sand in their eye & spit in their face."

Amy, you unholy tramp, you.

you may have fooled everyone with that angelic facade. just because you're in church every Sunday pretending to pay attention & lip syncing the hymns you think that everyone will think your are a good christian.

frankly, i think you are full of unholy shit and that whole 'i'm in a wheelchair' thing is getting really old.

me & god we're like this & we saw you.
god & i.

we saw you kissing reverend billy joe's nephew behind the chapel.

Harlot!

you accepted a boys tongue in your mouth! tongues are devices of the devil. didn't you learn anything in catechism?

jezebel.

yes, you think you're hot holy shit. i can tell by the way you carry your fancy pink leather bible with your named engraved on it. well you are wrong! god told me he thinks you are dirty slut. & not a pretty one at that.

Heaven isn't big enough for the both of us & i'll be damned if you step foot inside those pearly gates before i do. just because your grandma is the church librarian, doesn't mean shit. Don't you see the way she looks at Father Jenkins? She's an old horny cunt. You'd better pray god doesn't strike your whole fat ass adulterous family down.

i recommend that you go home & memorize all those memory verses & do 1000 hail Mary's because me & god, we have our eyes on you. Remember you this, maybe you've come out of Sunday school with a friend in Jesus, but you sure as hell got an enemy in me.

amen.




spent most of the night chainsmoking around the block, getting stopped by the cops. head in hood & cold in my socks, walking rounded rectangles around town. no where to go. no want to be. frail, brittle bodies of dead leaves crumble beneath my step.

the weather has been ugly lately. cold wind hugging my body close. the moon pokes it's potmarked face from behind the hideous clouds creating a horrid scene in the sky to accompany my grotesque feeling night. it's perfect.

as of late i have taken an almost obsessive interest in all things ulgy/unsightly/ungodly. i begin to inventory them as i slowly walk towards nowhere:

things that are ugly, ugly rocks, ugly trees, ugly sticks, people that are ugly -- not ugly in appearance but ugly on the inside, insides, intestines, dark, black, coal, evil, rearing ugly heads, newborns, ugly from birth, ugly 'til death, ugly like me.

ugly is an interesting word. it in itself is not aesthetically appealing. A lopsided mash of consonants. clumsy & uneven letters crammed together in close, cruel succession put here for all the world to gawk at. kind of like your teeth. maybe that is why i was so attracted to you. but no more.

no.

I hope the world spits a big fat brick of ugliness into your toilet bowl of life.




That high pitched noise, alerting the masses that a soul is departing. Ears perk up as stereos and tellies get turned low. Mouths gape open & eyes dart around empty rooms.

watching,
wanting,
waiting.

Death's bell is ringing, hitting closer & closer towards home. Death's carriage is just outside your front door.

Heads peek out of windows, doors begin to crack, people come spilling out of their two story shacks.

They stare at the wailing beast with it's red eyes & silver teeth, as blue clad servants burst from it's belly. It's your time.

The peasants are milling around outside like it's an event, a block party -- A fucking parade. People using the guise of sympathy to cover up their morbid human nature. Uninvited guests to your death. They cannot -- Will not, condone the attraction that compels them.

They are repulsed & mystified,
appalled & intrigued.

Death.

Can't you see? It's not a terrible thing. It does not tear us apart. It brings us together.

Normalcy. The great equalizer. The tie that binds. It's not the fact that blood runs through your veins that makes us all the same. It's the fact that one day, that blood flow will stop.

Death brings us life brings us death brings us life brings us death.