Baby Teeth

When we were young, we were told we could do anything when we got older.

When we were young, we were told that we were special. Unique.

Laying in the blackish ephemeral void of half sleep, realizing it was all a hoax; I lay with my back to a man sputtering neon pink and blue electric spit while he snores. I can hear the phlegm gurgling around his throat, and in an effort to keep my own sinuses clear, I work my way across the crumb and dirt filled bed and hang my limbs over the edge. Lacking warmth, he slithers closer.

Disgusted in both of us, I open my eyes in a pathetic attempt at seeking solace. As if peace was something visual. All I see are pulsating conglomerate clumps of rainbow fuzz, undulating in the bereft light of the ceiling. I think I need to eat more carrots. Dirty rags hang from both our windows to shield our dreams from the morning sun. Anyone who has ever had makeshift curtains knows about what I like to call "night light". Although it was two in the morning, somehow a soft blue hue radiated through the sheet and crept silently over us, while the torn rag covering the paned portal at the foot of our bed disseminated the same frequency of a copper wave. They met in the middle of our comforter and hugged each other, creating a maroon complexion around my ankles. If only I could step into this illuminated gate. An ingress into... something else. Please, anything else.

Am I a failure because this society, this selfish money driven culture views me to be by definition of their standards, or have I really truly failed?

I have goals, in-obtainable ones, sure. But I have them.

It feels hopeless. To navigate around quite aimlessly, moving from temporary job to temporary job. Growing only sideways. Don't get me wrong, I don't ever want to grow up. But I fear each skyline I inherit is pushing me closer and closer to it.

This is what keeps me up at night. Trivial bullshit that does more harm than good. I let my eyes soften on the amassment of quiet secondary light and try to see only grey in my minds eye. For some reason when I remember the blankness of the asylum it helps force me into the sister-death of sleep. I close my eyes again, hearing the stagnant outer-versal buzz of some electronic device that was left on, and re-construct, for the infinite time the corner of ward 207.

Only in shades of white, do the gobs of concrete meld together. I can see the thin line where the south and eastern walls meet. So much paint has been applied to the porous material over the years, it stands there like a glossy cushion. Little spiderwebbed cracks, and chips distract me from the intended goal of completely washing out my imagination for the night.

A sweaty hand smacks at me from the left. The white walls fizz away. Then hastily billow back once my companion has stopped his salmon-esque flailing. My brain focuses again on the grey, much like its own. Just as I do every night, I meditate on never again enlivening my eyes in the morning. The prospect of this helps me to waft into another even darker, dreamless sleep.

Aaron Cometbus - Double Duce. 2.

"I called him "Little Suicide". Not just because he was short and had a deathwish, but because, in really celebrating and embracing life, you have to sort of embrace death too, or at least recognize the on-going no win battle against it. Every day living is closer to death; A little suicide."

Spying On Dentists

As they threw her in handcuffs, she snorted thinking of when they lounged on each other in the graveyard watching the fishboned leaves tickle each other.

"Do you really find comic relief in this?" Said badge number 60933

She smiled at him.

"You make me sick" He muttered as he started the car.

"Then I've done my job"

Henry & Claire (excerpts)

Pg 331

Henry had noticed her at once, from the beginning. She sat cross-legged on the sand near the ceremonial fire of juniper, her skirt hiked up far enough to expose a pair of glossy kneecaps to the light. Beyond those kneecaps would be sleek convergent thighs heading - who knows where? Straight to trouble that's for certain. Smiling, the girl asked her question.

Pg 338

One final hot clasp of hand and she was gone. Forever probably.

Henry shuffled homeward through the Utah sand, among the junipers and prickly pear. Don't let it bother you, he told himself. Girls are like busses; Miss one, another will come along in five minutes. And then despised himself for entertaining so cheap and false and vulgar a thought. Not like her you fool...

Pg 339

... Heard a great horned owl call his name. Fool... fool... fool... He thought of Claire, Miss Mellon - Honeydew! And his heart rose and swelled like an unfolding hydrangea.

Pg 364 - 365

He realized with a shock of horror that he was at liberty to go anywhere he wished. Nobody cared about where he went.

He wanted her so much. For so long. He desired her so intensely over such a length of time that the longing became a malaise, a sickness. Desire - the word itself, in it's very sound, with its dying call of suspiration, resembled the enchanted misery of his fever. A fever in the blood, fever in the mind, fever in the soul.

Pg 377

He lit his Aladdin lamp and began a letter:

Dear darling Claire,

He wrote.

If I cannot see you again, I will surely die.

Surely die? What a redundancy is death.

In case some of you forgot that I take pictures

Wonder-Lust

Left another movie in Capitol Hill park alone. It was an adventure movie; an apparent recurrent theme this month.

I had to pee.

Plus, all the cuddling blanketed couples along with a blank telephone pissed me off.

Making a wrong turn down some desolate alley.

An enormous neon sign at the end of the lane danced with the breeze. Or so it had appeared.

A giant tree with the letters REDWOOD greeted me, accompanied by a plethora of blinking rainbow lights. I told myself I was just going in to use the rest room. Thats it.

Making my way to the back of the bar, my already excruciating headache worsened. Ever since the San Diego police department lost my glasses two weeks ago (real gentleman!) I haven't been able to see, let alone quell the attempts my brain have been making to escape from my skull.

I don't blame it.

I stumbled out of the ladies room, and bumped into a man three times my size.

Im sorry man, I'm just trying to leave.

It's alright. Are you okay?

Yeah, just an awful headache. Its doing me no good to be in here, so if you'll excuse me...

The lanky blonde that was all leg and no ass he was with whirled around and started rapidly digging in her purse.

HEADACHE YOU SAID? Im surprised she could hear anything over the thump of house music. I nodded my head.

I HAVE SOMETHING THAT WILL HELP. I'VE HAD MY PERIOD ALL WEEK SO, I HAVE SOMETHING!

(With the lights out, it's less dangerous)

She takes out a white bottle with a blue and yellow looking label stuck to it. Advil I assume.

I assume.

HOW MANY DO YOU WANT SWEETHEART?

I stuck out my palm.

Three oblong blue pills crowded my Fortune and Health lines.

Those palm-reader pamphlets I got in Vegas and LA would have probably helped right about now.

Common sense wouldn't have hurt either.

( I feel stupid, and contagious)

Since this is Seattle, they served coffee in this bar. I ordered a 16 oz americano.

Black.

As I went to stick the ibuprofen on my tongue, the blonde smacked my elbow.

Down they tumbled.

Plop.

Fizz. (... strange)

Enjoy.

(It's fun to lose, and to pretend. She's over bored and self-assured.)

IM SORRY HUN! HEY! LOOK AT IT THIS WAY, AT LEAST THEY'RE EASIER TO TAKE NOW!

Not entirely sure what she meant by this, I smiled and raised my cup.

Head back.

Liquids down.

Too late.

(Come on over and do the twist. Beat me outta me!)

(One baby to another says, "I'm lucky to have met you")

I felt the hairs on my butt-cheek get pulled up with the thin cold breeze that was pouring in the window.

I knew I wasn't anywhere.

Or, was I everywhere?

My nude body was sweaty, and stuck to something else that was also nude.

Or made out of vinyl?

Afraid to open my eyes I rolled out of what I assumed was a mattress and found my way to a bathroom.

I opened my eyes in relief to see I was in underwear.

In an unfamiliar bathroom.

Extremely thirsty.

Rummaging through the drawers I found a packaged tooth brush. Ripping it open, I grabbed the Crest and began The Cleanse.

Three blue painkillers.

Shoelaces turned to worms, pulling at my ankles.

Down towards up.

Face on the pavement, granules of asphalt, thousands of sideways jeweled goat eyes.

Shaking my head out of it I spit.

Turning on the water to rinse, I filled my hands with hot water.

It stung my left palm.

Cut it on....

Walking the bridge, above I - 5

Grabbed at the guard rail with my right

Slipped stepping over, when I realized it wasn't a guard rail, but in fiction, the head of a silver cobra.

Traffic flow below me turned into a bubbling rapid of white and red electric neon spaghetti.

Time stopped.

If I let go.....

Then both hands let go

The blonde grabbed my right arm just as my left slid off the metal and caught a jagged edge.

She pulled me back into the road.

Yelling something about suicide?

She was covered in my blood.

That turned into a thousand little hands and began to strangle her.

(Hear the line engine rhyme, there's just one of us blind)

Spit again.

More blood.

I walked back to the room to try and find my clothes.

Hesitant of who I had shared with last night, I cracked open the door.

Nothing but a couch covered in plastic, a desk, and my clothes strewn about as if a mad-man had ripped them off himself.

Mad-woman.

Static thumped in the corner.

B-side Portishead record.

I quickly dressed.

It was bleak and solidly grey outside.

It could be eight in the morning, or four in the afternoon.

I grabbed the old brass doorknob.

A note taped to the peephole caught my eye;

MORNING! HOPE YOUR HEAD IS FEELING BETTER! I'D OFFER YOU SOME TYLENOL FOR YOUR HAND BUT WE DON'T BELIEVE IN TAKING THAT KIND OF STUFF.

........uh

THERE'S GAUSE AND MEDICAL TAPE IN THE BATHROOM. HERE'S OUR PHONE NUMBER. I HOPE THE COUCH WASNT TOO UNCOMFORTABLE FOR YOU LAST NIGHT... BUT YOU JUST PASSED OUT SO WE LEFT YOU THERE AND WENT TO SLEEP.

-Ron and LAURIE

Seems as though the blonde wrote the letter.

All capitals.

All yelling.

Ah, shit.

(Come, doused in mud. Soaked in bleach. As I want you to be.)

I fell asleep, faced mushed up against an already greasy bus window pane, and missed my stop.

Clicking the "Lock" button on my phone to light up the screen, nothing awaits me.

God damnit. Not again.

I'll take advantage while you hang me out to dry,

But I can't see you every night

No, I can't see you every night.

Free

Ten Things

"I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call. But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all. "

Sea-Addled

She examined the spit droplet shaped freckles on the end of her nose. "I'll miss you" she told them. They'll leave with the summer sun. My eyes are too far apart. I chose to notice this only when I put on lipstick. Or glasses. Grossly large translucent blue almond marbles have begun their descent to the back of my skull. Poking the squishy purple rings around them forced out my slimy fat pink tongue.

Soggy grey shoes stunk up my closet. The frayed mouths at the toes seemed to be grinning their maddening crocodile smiles wider and wider every night. "Quit it, you smelly dirty things. It's you who should be ashamed."

Pulling on her coffee stained, tobacco drenched denim jacket, she headed out. A pin of a happy little female tooth glared at her from the pocket, as she trudged over the countless, helpless blackberry bodies she mercilessly stomped to get to the bus stop. I pushed a button labeled "Bus Light". A pathetic pale peach signal pulsated atop the metal signpost. The dim hope of a dying flare, lost at sea; I'd never be found! This brought a smile to her red lips. To be lost, she thought. How perverted and romantic.

After twenty minutes of kicking rocks and drawing ancient symbols in the mud with a stick, she heard the bus approaching. The electric bug killing ZAP! ZAP! got louder and louder as the supporting cable wires bowed to and fro, eventually connecting.

Taking an old ticket transfer out of my pocket I flashed it to the driver. The comatose dried up old being didn't recognize it as last years. Trailing innocent blackberry guts over the plastic ribbed floor, she slithered to the back, basking in the soft pink glow of the cabin lights. They warmed her already pale complexion, rendering her face in a permanent state of flustered embarrassment. She chose a window seat above the rear starboard wheels. She liked how they warmed her feet while simultaneously massaging them. It did the same for her posterior. Shit eating grin returns.

I took out a fat sharpie marker and began to add my two cents to the seat back. Literally. Just as I began to position the mole on Abe's identical twin penny, the bus lets out some steam. Clunk-Clunk. Doc Martens thump up the stairs and sit diagonal me. A hairless clod gapes at my head. I start at the boots and stop at the laces. One Red. I contemplate writing "1488" as the date on the second penny sketch, but that wouldn't be funny.

"BROADWAY EAST!" rings ethereal throughout the deck.

My eyes meet his.

He begins.

"Hey! You wouldn't-"

I pull the cord signaling my abandonment.

(If only it had been that simple in the past. "Hello, my name is Jolene, and I'm diving head first from this sinking ship!")

I stand up, clinging to a slippery pole for support.

I spit a glob of bloody snot and Stumptowns finest roast onto his face.

Without hesitation, his stained dirty hand is around my throat.

( The shit eating grin returns.)

"NOBODY treats me like that you little slut!"

Not being able to tell if she's pink from the lights or lack of oxygen, he loosens his grip; but stays on top of her keeping her pinned to the seat.

" Get your fat racist hand off of me you wanna-be nazi punk asshole."

(He looks at his red laces.)

Seeing my hand fidgeting with something in my back pocket (jack knife), he retreats to his seat with a, "Fuck You."

Royally!

I plod oozingly out of the back doors.

I never got to finish those two cents.

A cold mist pisses on Capitol Hill. Stopping in a coffee shop I watch the clear sperm wiggle down the windows as I wait. Only mates they find are each other. Witnessing amoebas reproduce in reverse.

Adding coffee to my sugar, I return to the rain and squish across the parks grass. It's still early. No one's managed to drag their ass to the bar yet.

Two bells loudly kiss as I enter the Castle Emporium to pass the routinely marching minutes. I hear a voice as I try to read a clerks watch upside down. Waving away the disgusting goateed name tag, I wander over to the magazine rack past the neon dildos and endless wall of whips. The sterile light and no-mess linoleum floor make her more uncomfortable than a dark, dank, red light sex shop would have. But I assume that's just another televised portrayal of a den of inequity her mind has harbored.

She picked up a copy of a R. Crumb-esque looking sex comic.

Even the dialogue in this written stuff sucks. Thumbing through assholes and tits, she closes one and picks up another.

A rabid knock on the window, eyes drawn to the warm orange orb of a Marlboro.

He led her upstairs where the pair would order each other drinks until one was drunk, the other sugar high and full of fake cherries and grenadine, while they waited for the rest of their trivia team.

She longed for the warmer nights of salmon stucco motel rooms, where palm trees tickled and licked the window sills while she shared a few beds with the only other warm mind she cared to.

I'd rather be Banned In D.C.

I cut my foot cliff jumping today.
Nelson shit in Pretty Boy Res.
Then we went to D.C.
What a shit hole.
Some music came on that reminded me of you.
But I forget what it was now.
I hate peace signs.
I'm not who I was in April.
I cant remember the last time I fucked.
I'm half sorry if that sentence makes you uncomfortable.
I don't ever want to make it to Seattle, because that's when my life will start up again.
I think, for now, I'm alright in limbo.
I don't know why I wrote this.
Delusions, I suppose.

Chapter 4

Off to the land of

that once had the late great

Reality Bites

I bought a tooth brush

tooth paste

a flannel for my face.

Pajamas

a hair brush

new shoes

and a case.

I said to my reflection, "Let's get out of this place!"

Passed the church

and the steeple

and the laundry on the hill.

Billboards

and the buildings;

Memories of it still keep calling

and calling...

Lie to me baby

Move on.

BLAH. BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH.

Stare into the mirror and rub my eyes in disbelief

Until they fall in sweet liquid relief

In this selfish little home

Where I can finally be alone

To wear my soul

On the soles of my shoes.

In this bread crumb city

Electric ant hill

We watch the Atlantic fold in on itself

While the Pacific waits with bated breath

To hear of our skeletons mental health

Two lives connected by dead telephone wires

Our lies forgotten in witty satire

While your cryptic quotes ooze charmingly

Like the butterfly mutters to the bee;

"Don't come crying back to me, when there are no more flowers left to see"

Mark Mahoney

Pretty nice production by YvesSantLaurent, but then again, when is it not?

And on the fourth day.....

Sorry I'm not home right now, I'm walking in the spider webs. But leave a message and I'll call you back

Fucked

"We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities."

Hypervision television no vision, no vision

Mass communication depleting our imaginations.

Constant state of regression forever stuck in depression

If there's one thing I wish that I could give

It's the memory of how to live

"To be alert is to live; To be secure is to die"

Oscar Wilde

A mantra that has both enhanced and destroyed my days.

Here's a break from my usual psycho babble.

Come september:

Laughable

Leading a life of abandonment

If you loved me like you claimed to

There would be no contest.

But you're living the lie like all the rest

You have no idea what the term "Love" meant.

Document

Forever biting hands that feed

because I am in constant need

of bridges meant to burn.

Walking down a crooked path

opposite the golden calf

My body is the temple to the damned kingdom of Sodom.

A child prodigy

once called out to me;

"We don't need another hero

Go back to living life a Zero."

Fearful of the parasite

that crawls into your bed each night

do you know how many broken bottles I've seen scratching at my skull?

There's a demon in my wishing well

a perfect living hell.

My soul is the sacrifice to the burning in Gohmorrah.

Oh, it's not where I have fallen from

but who Im stumbling towards,

And I'm just another latch-key kid

who's failed at every door

Allergies

I pulled into the parking lot of the sixth pawn shop on my list. It was a shack with wrought iron bars on the windows. A robins egg jutting out on to Church Street in downtown Poughkeepsie. I grabbed the little red box, and the velveteen black one, locked my car and headed inside. " WE BUY GOLD WE BUY GOLD AND DIAMONDS" Oscillated and winked at me as the chimes to the door were triggered by a motion sensor. Once loved guitars, power tools, and out dated tv's surrounded me; unwanted. I quickly realized that they had accepted me as one of their own.

Sighing, I made my way over to the woman sitting behind the bulletproof glass, casually chatting on the phone. There was a hole cut out of the glass, framing this woman's head. Perplexed by the logic of this, I took my necklaces out of their homes and lay them in the metal divot that helped separate us from her. I could feel the sad eyes of the surrounding objects now taking notice I was indeed like their past owners. Their disappointed stares made me uncomfortable. I diverted my eyes upwards to watch the yellow Quick Pick ball bounce around the blue screen and pick this minutes lotto numbers. Silently it hopped "4-32-17-9...." and on and on it went, repeating every 34 seconds, until I had memorized the numbers. Just as the eighteen minute mark was up and a new round of numbers were about to be pegged, the door chimes rang again.

Before I could turn my head, a clammy heavy hand was on the back of my neck. It swiftly introduced the right side of my face to the plastic counter top. It smelled like nickels.

I heard the 'clack-clack' of metal against glass. " Hey you fat bitch. Hang up the phone and get me my money. You know what money too so don't even think nothin' about callin' the cops. They arrest yo' ass too." one more 'clack-clack' and the chair scraping across the floor. The nickel smell was starting to make me nauseous.

"Yo what are we gonna do about snowflake here?" Said a voice further away.

I didn't need eyes in the back of my head to feel his sweaty grin on my scalp. Grabbing the back of my flannel shirt he whirled me around and propped me up against the counter. I stared at the sweat stains on his shirt as he pushed something cold into my forehead.

His gun was silver, and surprisingly cold. His arm was only shaking because he didn't want to accidentally blow my head off. "Give me what you got." Hoover flagging my pockets, my ID dropped to the ground. He motioned for the other man to pick it up.

"Where in the fuck is Dover Plains?"

"That all you got bitch? The fuck you doin' in here?" I stared at him, bleary eyed.

"You a smart bitch. Not talkin'. I know you got somethin else. The fuck is it?"

He put the gun between my breasts. "Ill shoot you blue eyes, I aint got a problem killin' a white girl. Speak."

Your wish is my command.

"Go ahead then. Shoot me."

"Get a load of this bitch.You got some big ass balls on you, Blue. You sure you aint a dude?"

"Shoot me."

"The fuck? Girl I said gimmie what else you got. Now"

"I have nothing else. So go ahead and pull the trigger. I've got no home, no family, no money. I've got no friends, and there's no guy sitting around anywhere waiting for me. I've got nothing to care for, and no one who cares about me. I told you I have nothing else to give to you, or anyone, and I know I ain't worth a damn. So go ahead. Fucking shoot me."

I heard scuffling behind me and saw a wad of hundreds fall to the ground rubber banded to a ziplock bag full of weed. The man holding the gun to my chest stared at me.

"There's yo' money fool. Quit comin' around here during daytime hours, I told y'all that. Damn."

He tucked the gun into the elastic of the butt of his underwear and picked up the cash, eyes on me the whole time. " We was just tryin' to scare you into keepin yo' mouth shut, Snowflake." Spouted the other man as he flicked my yellowing ID back at me. It flopped off my neck and onto my Keds. The chimes sounded, and the door closed. I stared at it while the lottery "bing-ed" on the television.

I heard the thwap of a fingernail tapping glass. " Uh yeah, so, I aint got no money to pay you for these today.. so yeah uh, come back next week. The second one is silver, too, and we cant take that. Just gold and diamonds." Mechanically, I put the necklaces back into their boxes, bent over and picked up my ID.

I sat in my car and stared at the reflective center of my steering wheel until I got a migrane.

Nineteen Ninety Hate

Brought you home as a suitable replacement
For everything she never earned
Still can't realize what got lost
Was the only thing she ever had.

Your fucking face
It makes me sick
And still you can't
Stop to fucking think

For twelve long years we've hated you
Still blind to the fact
You're the fucking fool

No Reply

When I phone you night and day
I get no reply no reply
I keep writing those letters and send them away
To get no reply no reply

No reply oh can't you see
No reply it's ruining me
Even when I ask the reason why
I get no reply no reply
No reply no reply

Oh no no no
No reply

No reply

I'm bruising my knuckles knocking at your door
To get no reply

No reply
I've stood it for so long but can't stand it no more
To get no reply

No reply

No reply oh can't you see
No reply it's ruining me
Even when I ask the reason why
I get no reply no reply
No reply

No reply

Oh no no no
No reply

No reply


I'm bruising my knuckles knocking at your door
I get no reply no reply
I've stood it for so long but can't stand it no more
To get no reply no reply

No reply oh can't you see
No reply it's ruining me
Even when I ask the reason why
I get no reply no reply
No reply no reply

Oh no no no
No reply

No reply
Oh no no no
No reply reply reply reply!

Queen Of Quips

Same old sheets

With a paper-cut beat

I've got thirteen bones of bad luck

And seven dreams that keep me on my feet.

Lose me.

I'm miss forgettable

The Queen regrettable.

I'd lay in these arms forever

If they weren't so edible.

Two peas in the same rotting pod.

Watching zeppelins chase each other,

Simultaneous Russia Mother.

In a life so full of hiccups and downs

The last thing I want is for you to hang around.

To get lost.

And then found.

These lips have been dented from a mouth full of lies.

Shoulder blades grow near

Sucked in to a freckled atmosphere

Little by little, let me forget myself;

In your sweet melon nicotine breath.

Rate of self destruction has been quickening its pace

Now turn your condemning eyes towards the insides

And look on in horror at what you tried to hide.

Paranoid

Finished with my man
Because he couldn't help me with my mind
People think I'm insane
Because I am frowning all the time

All day long I think of things
But nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind
If I don't find something to pacify

Can you help me occupy my brain?

I need someone to show me
The things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness
I must be blind

Make a joke and I will sigh
And you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel
And love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words
Telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life
I wish I could but it's too late

Black and Blue

Skinhead Cid and Perfect Ricky were standing outside when I sauntered up to the venue; alone. Cid had already managed a black eye, and the two were completely wasted. Ricky gave me 26 dollars, and a fat man with the letters "DMS" tattooed down his calf grabbed my arm and led me inside.

Cid and I found a good spot next to the AMPs. He made me squish his eye, then showed me his beer gut like he did every time we were re-united. "Jimmy and I really miss fucking this town up with you kiddo, you know that right?" he slurred, as he brought a washcloth filled with ice to his eye. I patted the landing strip he was calling hair these days, "Yeah I know. I miss it too". When it happened.

My eyes collided with the spiral of hair on the back of your head. My stomach turned into knots. I quickly looked away so you wouldn't feel me staring, because I know I can't look you square in the eyes anymore.

I saw the face you made when you noticed me, before you walked away. Instantly it turned me into a puddle of mush.

"Hey kiddo you don't look too hot!" Yelled Rusty as he took a swig of water.

"Don't you worry about that, Tee. Im as cool as a cucumber." He looked at me with that cockeyed realization that I was lying.

I saw your friends as I was leaving, and tail between my legs I walked back to my car on Avenue C. I wont be able to sleep another night, because I can not live with who I am anymore. These headaches are growing old, and I fear my eyes cannot sink any further into my skull.

At least if I knew you wanted nothing at all to do with me, I wouldn't debate talking to you for 5 hours.

Its pathetic that this is the medium I choose to reach you through. I just miss my friend.

The Compulsions of Pleasure and Judgement

One man's trash

Is another girl's treasure

But all I see is fools gold.

Now watch carefully

As I graciously

Eat the words

That will keep you from me.

All you are

A body of lies

Hiding behind a pair of convincing blue eyes.

That first night I packed up my morals

As we rested our laurels

And sweat in tune

To the electric third eye moon

On the dresser of our favorite hotel room.

With our limbs entwined

Boy, did we ever dine

How I only realized

That you'll never be mine!

Do me a favor?

And hold my tongue?

So you may realize

That you've finally won?

Do me a favor?

And hold my breath?

Because I'm hell bent

On a path

Towards the Compulsions of

Pleasure and Judgement.

All I want is freedom from the known

The only thing left between us was tension, on the ride down to the gallery. I could tell my mother had a bone to pick with me, only she couldn't find it.

When we arrived I made my way inside a spiraling Richard Serra sculpture. Once inside, I sat cross-legged, closed my eyes and began to meditate. I had only been sitting for an hour when I felt a small hand tap my shoulder. A child dressed in black with long blonde hair appeared in front of me. She gazed at me with large blue eyes, walked around me in a circle, then in imitating me sat cross legged about a foot in front of me. I began to open my mouth but she beat me to it.

"Zero" she said, in an alluring monotone.

"Zero. Zero."

She sat and stared at me.

"You are Zero".

On the ride home, my mother told me I am a test tube baby.

My daily reminders never to lead myself down the same path my father took.

Recurrent - Running or turning back in a direction opposite to a former course.

I could feel my heart burrowing into the back of my chest, trying to rescue itself from the bones it liked to call a home. It weighed a ton. It wasn't regret, or disgust; Something I've been all too familiar with.

We heard the motor turn over. He kissed my hair, got out and walked behind my car. The rain felt like piss running down my hand as I waved goodbye .

I found it ironic as I tongued my rotten lower right bicuspid, that when we were woken up by an abrasive knock on the door, we found ourselves stuck to each other.

You could get me to do anything in the world if you asked me to. I find it pathetic that I can't just outright tell you. I am a loser.

"Everybody says you're no good, because you don't act like they think you should"

"I have a feeling I'm falling on rare occasions but most of the time I have my feet on the ground I can't help it if the ground itself is falling." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter

Ummmmmmm....
I was just wondering....
Do you like me?
(whisper-guiter stops here)

Use just once and destroy
Invasion of our piracy
Afterbirth of a nation
Starve without your skeleton key

I love you for what I am not
I do not want what I have got
A blanket acne'ed with cigarette burns
Speak at once while taking turns

What is what I need
What is wrong with me
What is what I need

I'm nothing to do with what you think
If you ever think at all
Bi-polar opposites attract
All of a sudden my water broke

I love you for what I am not
I do not want what I have got
A blanket acne'ed with cigarette burns
Second-rate third degree burns

What is what I need
What is wrong with me
What do I think I think

Hate your enemies
Save, save your friends
Find, find your place
Speak, speak the truth

What is what I need
What is wrong with me
What is what I need
What do I think I think

Use just once and destroy
Invasion of our piracy
Afterbirth of a nation
Starve without your skeleton key


What is wrong with me
what is what I need
What do I think I think

What is wrong with me
what is what I need
What do I think I think

When the last person you can count on is yourself, and you've done away with the only bridge you've never wanted to burn, you truly have nothing left to lose.

There's no point in this life/

See you in the next one, where hopefully you'll get your revenge.

A familiar voice that always disappoints

Father Of Mine

I had to leave.

I just couldn't take it any longer.

Vision blurred, I rushed down the second floor hallway to the women's bathroom and locked the door behind me as I isolated myself in the second stall. I slumped onto the toilet bowl, quietly allowing my face to drip into the palms of my hands. The only thing in the stall that attempted to comfort me was the stale leftover urine that was creeping through the left leg of my blue jeans and embracing my thigh. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was still warm.

The drawings on the plastic toilet paper holder ridiculed me. A hairy three-testicled cock gaped with, "There ain't enough dicks in this bathroom!" scrawled underneath it. Countless other doodles lent their hand in cramping me in this cubicle. I swear these walls are closing in. Just as I was taking down the number of " a good time", the bathroom door burst open with the laughter from two other girls. I tried to muffle my sniffles, with no luck. They quickly saw my ratty converse sneakers peeking out from under the stalls' door, and shuffled their fireside chat elsewhere.

I buried my face back in my hands. Have I really let this get the best of me? The girl in the next stall is taking a shit, and here I am sobbing over a man I had never known.

Wiping the makeup off my cheekbones, I exit the stall and walk over to the sink. In the middle of washing my hands I look up, and am startled by the ragged girl staring back at me. Dead bloodshot eyes; Goddamn if I don't look high as heaven. I splash cold water on my face to try and get the image out of my head. Sinuses still constricted, I make my way back to class.

How could I have so much love and so much hate for a man I had never even met?

I take my seat at the far end of the room, just as one student observes;

"Why does it smell like piss in here??"

Life As Of Late

"Id give you everything I've got, for a little peace of mind"

Someone kill me.

54 Day Revenge Therapy

Too scared to say a thing.
I left your house and kicked myself.
I put those feelings on a shelf to die.

Fracture (For Elizabeth Mattison. Cultleader 1923-)

Fracture - the separation of an object or material into two, or more, pieces under the action of stress

-------------------------------------------------------------

They've sewn your eyes shut

So you can blindly follow them down;

Dragging your knees through the sand.

The cracks in the churches continue their taunting

They help rebuild the webs in the cavities of your skull. 

They sew your mouth shut

So you can only take what they serve you.

Follow their shepherd to the gated hilltop

So you can feel closer to god. 

Bind your hands together and kneel down;

Find yourself not praying to the golden calf

But to a golden boy.

They sew your ears shut

So you may only hear the hymns that they've taught you.

Preserve what you've learned

And help them drag the next generation under.

Paralyze your mind

Allowing them to radiate control of  hatred and filth.

You'd rip out your tongue if you only knew how little it was worth. 

Now spread your hands thin around the collection plate

And feel your way through the universe absent of truths. 

Detroit, Michigan ---> Hartford, Connecticut

Speeding down the interstate in the pouring rain

Belly full of liquids that do not belong

What have I become?

God Damnit.

I know I posted a lot recently, and was just going to post the lyrics to this song, but I figured Id give you a break. Watch. Listen. Drown.

The Dim Bulb Beat

The bruised half-moons holding up my eyes have quickly turned into blackened sand dollars.

I've fallen in love with a sun that has already set.

Mutating behind the bars, and the cars,

are you trying to shut off or are you trying to shut in?

Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum

because pretty soon we'll be able to cough blood on the moon.

My reluctant compulsion

for some liquid emulsion

has been painting with tea leaves inside my intestines.

While the slimy southern exposure

of a fun house with broken mirrors

creeps by me as silently as a locomotive.

Now I've fallen in love with a black hole of a man

and I am only a fox who spoils grapes.

How could anyone love a face with eyes set so far apart?

I understand I'm not the ugliest duckling in the pond,

But Im sick of dealing with dim bulbs and dull crayons.

Excuse me while I speak in tied tongues.

Poison Planet

My parents were selfish

So they fucked in the spring.

Next winter I was born

Into a Poison Planet.

My mother tried the best she could

But wound up settling for second place.

While my father turned the other cheek

Towards the race tracks, and red lights.

My mother was selfish

And tried to do the best for us

But in reality, was only good for her.

So she left me on the floor

With the dogs

To get drunk of toddlers tears

In this Poison Planet.

My father was selfish

So he moved into a den downtown

Where the curtains never learned to draw.

Forgotten not in his heart

But in his mind.

Left with the wolves

To peer through the glass

Darkly

In this Poison Planet.

To carry on living

Doesn't make much sense anymore

In this Poison Planet.

Please take my hand in yours

Lead me to the moon,

So I can finally breathe.

And sit below the deepest craters

Where I can gaze down on

My Poison Planet.

My Poison Planet

My Poison Planet would swallow you whole

My Poison Planet can't keep me down

Poison Planet.

My Poison Planet.

Pleasure & Judgement

Dead presidents drown in the bottom of both their pockets

He grabbed her hand and held it longer than she could forget.

Now they're swimming amongst jellyfish

On their own ends of the world.

He is a selfish lover

Fucking a hole in the mattress.

A sun imploded in the east tonight

In a mushroom cloud of electric fluff.

They all spoke in static

And I cant understand

The remnants of him purring down her spine remain.

He is a selfish lover

Just fucking a hole in the mattress.

I suppose she loves him all the same.

Birds dig their way up

Through cellophane wrapped sand

To find themselves standing upon a confectionary ocean.

They know better than to drink the water,

So I pour myself another glass.

His mountains have been caged by men,

But he's forgotten them long ago.

A cacophony of shit rattles through my head

The static seeps louder out of grinding teeth

The jellyfish help transmit from her to him

It's never fast enough.

He is a selfish lover

Still fucking a hole in the mattress

He aches for no one

She yearns for him.

She's just the fucking hole in the mattress.

Sour Grapes

The train tracks are rotting

Keeping me miles from you.

And I'll be damned

If I ain't glad

At how fast the distance grew.

Few nights I spent in your city

And for an eternity I wept in mine.

So I made a wish on a bone

That never came true,

Because I made it just for you.

Disguised as a sheep

To hide from the wolf beneath

Should have hinted me to your skillful forked tongue

That you used to lick my ears

To shut my eyes

And fill my heart

With the ocean of a love so devoid of emotion.

The train tracks are rotting

Keeping me miles from you.

And I'll be damned

If I ain't glad

At how fast the distance grew.

I took a walk down to the corner store to try and find some needles and thread

Finally fix up this aching head.

But instead

I stuck the needles in my eyes

Crossed my heart and dreamed to die.

The sun had long dipped below the horizon

When I finally came to.

I was always told it doesn't matter who you are

To make a wish upon a star.

But that night my wish never came true

Because I made one just for you.

The train tracks are rotting

Keeping me miles from you.

And I'll be damned

If I ain't glad

At how fast the distance grew.

I figured I could get away

If I built myself a small canoe,

So I could paddle farther from

Consuming thoughts of you.

Before I started towards the edge of earth,

I tossed a penny in the pond

And gazed into the deep, beyond.

This time I kept my fat tongue tied,

Because there is nothing I could ever say or do

To remove myself any more from you.

The train tracks are rotting

Keeping me miles from you.

And I'll be damned

If I ain't glad

At how fast the distance grew.

Nikola Tesla was right

"Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more. "

8:44-9:38 Wednesday Night

I arrived at the station three minutes after my train had departed. Now I had to figure out a way to smoothly pass the time while trying to avert stares from this years model of suit and tie, befuddled tourists and the tween hustlers trying to make a buck off stolen mars bars.

I deflated in a seat next to a lumpy schizo' bag lady that I recognized from monday evening. She was still asleep and gnawing on the filter from a Newport cigarette I watched her pick up from the floor. Or maybe it was her own tongue; I couldn't tell the difference. The glowing board looming above us all sputtered and flicked to let us know that the 9:07 train to Trenton was departing on Track 4. Like cows being electrocuted to the slaughter, an undulating wave of humans gushed forward. I watched them bottleneck through the scuffed gold door, refusing to try and open the other half which would increase their spillage. At 9:08, only those left behind remained. Slowly, people trickled back on to the waiting room floor, staring at the board, fidgeting and directionless. Anticipating the illuminated god above to tell them where to go.

The bag ladies head slipped off the armrest and lolled onto my forearm. Yellow drool leaked out of her pigish orifice onto me. Disgusted, I wiped my arm up into her hair. There the globule sat and stared at me, while I could feel  other eyes making themselves at home on my character, in their abhorance of it. 

Two seats to my left sat a red haired man, with an awful goatee hunched over a mall sized pretzel. I only noticed that his grey t-shirt was tucked into blue pocketless sweatpants when he stood up to throw a monster sized bag full of pretzel wrappers in the trash. When he rose, his entire being groaned.  A gut hung over the elastic with the authority of a toddler attempting to escape the confines of their play-pen. Fidgeting for a moment with the draw-string of his sweats, his stubby digits managed to get the knot untied. Thumbs locked in place, he flung his arms forwards and exposed an entire panoramic view of his genitalia. Paying careful attention that his  shirt did not get tucked back in, he pulled it up to expose breasts a size shy of my own.  He threw his bag in the can and cracked a joke about LeBron James, and his eyes met mine. His grin quickly turned shit-eating. Putting his left hand back in his pants, he grabbed around for a while then showed me what he had been trying to find. An un-circumcised dick laughed harder at me then his friends had. They got tired of the joke when I observed that if that was the only thing going for him, he better finish getting his GED. Red-faced, he relocated at the other end of the ever narrowing room. I heard the clunk and clatter of the plastic numbers and letters again. Another heard rushed to their track to be crucified. As before, the remnants who missed the train found seats amongst the already tardy in the room. 

Two confused old ladies in slippers and hair the color of robins eggs shuffled past me with a mountain of luggage chattering in hopes of catching their train. Someone near the gate notified them that it had already left. One took the empty seat beside me, while the other went to find somewhere to relieve her bowels. I watched a young man offer candy bars to tourists. I laughed when they fell for his trick. For those unaware; Once you take the candy from the seemingly generous youth, they ask you to pay for it. When you try to give it back, they won't accept it. A few maneuvers and smooth talking later, they force you to overpay for candy you could have purchased from the vending machine near the ticket booths. This went on for some time, until the station police chased him back upstairs. He'd get more money up there anyway.

The other old woman re-appeared in front of me, so I stood up to offer her my seat. Without letting me finish my sentence ( and without stopping hers...) she pushed me aside to slump into the depths of my seat. She didn't so much as look at me, or offer a ' thank you'. Seatless and annoyed, I roamed in and out of clumps of humans. One shoved me, another made a sound of contempt at my passing. A third threw their McNugget container towards the the trash can but bounced it off of my head instead. No apologies, just a shrug and an about-face. I picked my nose and wiped the bounty on his PRADA bag as I strolled by.

Again, the board fluttered for the last time. The New Jersey Coast line to Long Branch left from Track 1. Pushed and trampled over, I quickly became one with the mob. We were forced into a long, white, sterile hallway with cold rectangular fluorescent lights. Tripping down the stairs, I felt a hand grab my ass. Another teared at my ribs. Someone else grasped at the back of my neck. I was just dead meat to them.

Sitting next to the window in the sixth seat, of the fourth car, it dawned on me that I have to spend the next seventy-five minutes confined in this sardine can with this lost, tired, disgusting, valueless mob that I had slowly become a member of. 

We pulled out. 

I fell asleep. 

And dreamed of overly-salty sea air that smelled of rust and garbage.

Who Taught You?

You gave me punishment, it lasted an hour
It made marks on my skin
I'm just a bundle of misery girl
Did you see my cheeks fall in?