THIS IS [-ALL-] BEGINNING TO GO INSIDE-OUT WITHOUT ME [Baby, I Reckon, This is the Best It'll Get]

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So, IF I am Catapulting This Beauty, then I am Strapping Your Floppy Jalopy Into This Linear Mess.   I Might Be Longing to Prolong the Stalking with a Big-Boy Thrust: --------à“To Be, For Me, is My Heart, with a Beat, for THEE”.  The Moment of Surrender and that Tender Look of Terror. And Here I am in Chicago, Sucking on a Finger that I have been Cherishing for the Past few Days.  And Here I am, at Night in the Mirror, Chasing My Tail and Sober, Remembering that This is the Exact Direction My Life was Meant to Take.  “Ah, Shit”—Shoveling (this—All—in)—And Still: This is the Only Body I’ve every Completely Adjourned.  Juggling the Yams of a “Man, You’re a Doll.”  And Now-Now-Now: --------àFiddling a Tittle for a Remittal or Acquittal of the “Why-Why-Whys” that Appear in Life’s Middle; But for Now: You Toss and Turn, Having so very Widdle it Belittles, to Till-and-Fill the Urn that Adds, to your Family’s Historical, Account and Riddle. ß------IN OTHER WORDS--------àThe Portrait of this Heart Resembles all those “Whatever Elses” You’ll Never Know. “Prudere, Addire || Treo, nor Trow”.  And HERE:-------àI Am: And Again, in the Trenches: a Hunk and Hoarding All Belongings, Especially the Mink Stole, I Stole.  Or Perhaps: I’m Wandering Aimless, Broke Down and Limping Through the Street of Strays with “Ballyhoos—[!]” and Half-Hearted “Yoo-Hoos”. ß------IN OTHER WORDS--------àIt’s the Difficulty of Narrating Anything, Ever and Clearly, a Concern: How My Face, Might Frame when Yellowed Between the Teeth.  But Listen You: this World is Nothing but a Cheap Bet of Hoodoo. And This: --------àNothing but a Document of How One’s Head is Held-in-the-Hand-Up High by Violence. And Yet: You Thought, “But No”, I Guess, I’ll Rest, “Oh No”ß-----àNOT YETß-----à“And Oh Lord, You Bet, it’s all, such a Mess” and No-No-No, One Never can Rest, and This, with My Hand, to Chest, I Swear and Do Surely Attest, And No --------à“Oh No—[!]”--------à “What a Terrible Way” --------àIt Was, And Then, And All: ------------------------------àThis STOPS, to Drop, This Beat, in the Street, And We Go, to Home, All Alone.

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The Moment of Child

I was a child the moment you called me a child and I agreed.

I could, naturally, see the pickle you were in:  I was a grown man who had frauded his youth away on sex and liberal arts and now I was sitting in the corner, crying over the fact that I had nothing to make a dollar off of, and, as such, made you make your own dollar last longer.

There are a lot of things such things depend on, not least of all time and what that counts to. You didn’t know what my hands were doing while you were typing, and I didn’t know what yours were doing while I was once typing as well.

I was typing things that I thought would be good. You were typing things that made you good.

I just listened to hours of songs that we would always fall asleep to, and somehow wake up in each others arms.

We would condition the point to cold, that it was too cold to be alone on the floor while you were own the own the bed.

We would fall asleep listening to the same Radiohead songs, singing the same lyrics in our heads and maybe not, but we’d fall asleep and want to immediately brush our teeth, just beause that was what health wanted us to do, but I would rather just bite and apple and then you, with differencing, yet possibly similar, reactions simply depending on the apple itself, half torn a and half perfect. 

I Am Not a Nice Man

I hate who I am.

I once tipped a cow in Iowa, only later to eat it, feeling that I had made that girl feel infinitely lesser-than, something that was just to be a jest of a hollow joke, something that I forever felt a fever over and throwing up, afterwards, like something just to clean up, afterwards.

I once held Jen, behind the pool table.

I once told a friend that the best thing she could do was to be the worst woman she could be. I told her that sleeping with the dude that would eventually knock her up and leave her without even a goodbye, leaving me to pay for the abortion, that that would be the best thing to do, given her career aspirations & options.

I once told someone I loved that I loved them.

1:03 AM

(A Drama in Five Acts – at 140 characters each Act)

I’m spending this time now, spending it with you – and I’m sorry about that – but I have to say so I will say something, I want to spend some time just to say something to you.

This drink I am now drinking reminds me of you, of summers sunny spent past, and how there was a porch we all sat upon and said stupid things so I’m saying stupid now, true.

I always wanted to spend time with you, and I did, and now I spend time with everyone hoping that that time was well spent, spending it with everyone, always apologizing.

There are ways to say so much as such:  I could carry that for you; I can carry you; I can carry that for you but I can’t because I can’t carry anything, anything over 5lbs now.

There are things to try in red, things to call green. But everything is sweeter in time and distance and how greatly the tears might stop and how sorry, how sorry, he says.

The Morning After (5th of July, 1985)

After the fun, it was

always exciting to wake

up and run outside,

collecting all the bits and butts

that lay strewn across the neighborhood concrete.

(Surely it was a way for

parents to have the little-

ones go out and clean up

after the teens on the block

destroyed vast stretches of blacktop and tar.)

I always liked surveying

the remains, the burnt-out

blisterings of a time well had,

and collecting them in plastic

bags that would wrap around my tiny wrist like a bracelet.

Years later, I would often

love surveying the remains

of a good night:  the destroyed

apartment; the body full of

burns and ache; the terrible things we do in the name of fun.

And this, this afterthought,

was always something that

I thought was fun:  seeing what

was left, both still real yet dead,

the things we brush aside, considering them useless altogether.

Potatoes & Sparklers (4th of July, 1985)

My memory, per

family tradition,

of the 4^th of July

always involved

sticking sparklers

into potatoes.

There were numerous pleasures involved.

(This, of course,

was meant as

a precaution, so

not to harm our

soft little hands

so close to a fire.

We never had any need to be afraid, though.)

First, there was

the exact pleasure

of pushing the

metal stick into

the firm yet inviting

potato, a piercing that

still produces pleasure.

This was something that stuck with me.

Second, there was

the idea of sticking

something man-

made into something

flesh, of the earth

something that was.

The difference being in the level of effort involved.

Finally, the sheer

light that extended

onto the potato

itself, something

that made me see

it as something else.

Something that I never thought about, until now.