The ones I like the best
Are the ones where they find the girl chained in the basement
And all the neighbors say
“gosh, he seemed like a normal guy, maybe a little on the quiet side – I can’t believe it”
Believe it
All the evil done in this world
Is done by people who look just like you
Living right next door to you
Smiling at your children
Someone has to maintain the records at the death camp
Someone must record the results of the experiments
Someone like you?
You are the moon that breaks
through the cold veil;
I orbit you as a satellite
lost in a sky full of stars,
paling in your brilliance.
Any and every interaction I have
is stored for ammunition for the war
going on inside me.
Whether it be lingering too long in a space that I do not belong
or the silence in a conversation I did not create
I will hold on to it for years to come.
When my mind feels like it’s getting a little too quiet
I shoot bullets in the shape of my tongue
and leave myself with scars the shape of shame.
I’m still learning how to ceasefire
how to be comfortable in my own silence
how to not shoot the messenger
how to heal when I am the one who did the damage in the first place.
Passing in the street: Can I see you?
Later in the day: Yes. Tomorrow night.
As unnoticed as two high-schoolers
in the noise of a crowded hall,
or two grown lovers in a dangerous time
trying every way they can find to survive
until the next sharing of small deaths.
And even those will be whispered,
no more or less than endearments,
or their laughter, or joy, sadness:
The things they would shout,
as totally subversive as cheating spouses,
these two cuckolders of the State
in their game of orgasmic roulette.
Not the first. Not the last to come,
even as it holds their personal ends.
This simple, impossible coup d’amour
with no beginning and no end,
no chance of making any matter.
Standing in a crowd: Seen Julia?
A day or two later: No. Winston?
There Are A Lot of Times That I Miss Being a Drug Addict
trying to park my car in the rain
trying on bathing suits in mall lighting
trying to say goodbye in a parking garage
before a meeting with my boss
before making dinner
before going to bed
while writing poetry
while biting my cuticles open
while sitting in the quiet just a second too long
I don’t keep my ears all stuffed up with cotton anymore
sometimes I take my glasses off to pretend
the reason I can’t see straight
is because of all the softness I used to make around myself
god was it soft
There Are A Lot of Times I Can’t Remember Why I Stopped Being a Drug Addict
it’s been a year already
I guess I don’t miss it that much
you used to light
my cigarettes
for me.
and i used to
call that
chivalry.
i kept them in a
cowboy-covered case—
right here next to
my heart.
we ran around
the west like
the calamity and a cataclysm.
we’d sling our
six-shooters
and saw the sun rise.
we pressed our backs
together
and faced down
the world.
but the first night
we slept under the stars
together
i awoke to
dying embers
and only my
bedroll on the ground.
you said you like it when you sweat,
you like how your body reacts
to the heat
i told you it makes me feel
sticky, uneasy
the way it feels when
i watch you walk out
my front door
