10JUNE14.15:11

billboards with photographs of people living lives that don't exist
set in staged rooms by crews of people you never see
are specters, ghosts
there's nothing real about them
ive no human connection to them
and they could be dead
perpetually living
but theyre not living truth
theyre not living anything real
theyre selling something
but theyre ghosts
which mean people who covet the lives falsified on these bilboards
would rather be dead

which means everyones afraid of their own life
somehow detached
theyd rather have their existence affirmed by what they're supposed
to be living
and wanting
and made happy by
and buying
to justify their existence
to nullify the question
to dull the pain
theyre walking around barely fitting in o
somebody elses
life that they want
some celebrity
some picture of happiness
some escape from the angst

feeling less individual on purpose
escaping the very truth of their existence
that they are in fact unique
in order to blur and blend and disappear
so that they can feel more vital
i mean it's fucking tragic
like the woman walking past me now
in pants she never shouldve purchased
because some fucking woman told her that they made her look pretty
when it was just a pretty woman wearing ugly pants
and an ugly woman wearing ugly pants is

tragic and then there are the individuals
that express themselves with oddity
clustered together with other oddities
maybe they feel a little less alone
because they know how lonely they are
they dont have to lie to themselves all day
i don't know

maybe im just feeling dark and cynical because we're fighting again
because were believing something about each other that may or may not be true
or were doubting something about each other that may or may not be true

he believes that i intentionally emasculate him
and i believe he intentionally controls me
when in reality
my biggest fear is being controlled
and apparently his biggest fear is being emasculated
so we protect it
we guard it from the people that love us
that have the deepest most intimate access
to our vulnerability and our fear
and the price of living that near to another person
is that you blame them
for the fears youve been carrying around with you your whole life
and you cough up all this evidence
all these
minute
hour
day
month
year
decade
proofs
that we use the fears of the ones we love
to protect the fears that most haunt us
in our own souls
and i think thats the reason for the roller coaster
that were up and down all the time
because its bliss living so near another human
when you can trust that human
when you can trust yourself
and your boundaries
and your reasons
and your goals
and your hopes

and we made a beautiful child
and shes going to inherit all of our bullshit
and maybe do it a little better
and thats all we get to wish for her
and tell ourselves that in all our failings and
all the moments we let slide by
all the plans we make that fail
all the hiding of contempt that she sees anyway
all the intention
all the pressure
all the pride
you just hope you love her well enough
to endure it
to grow beyond it
to evolve
to make something more of our genetic encoding
our predetermined-ness and
so i go to work
and im thankful
that i don't want
what theyre selling

Forget Your People

All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia;
from palaces adorned with ivory
the music of the strings makes you glad.
Daughters of kings are among your honored women;
at your right hand is the royal bride in gold of Ophir.

Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear:
Forget your people and your father's house.
The king is enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord.
The Daughter of Tyre will come with a gift,
men of wealth will seek your favor.

All glorious is the princess within her chamber;
her gown is interwoven with gold.
In embroidered garments she is led to the king;
her virgin companions follow her and are brought to you.
They are led in with joy and gladness;
they enter the palace of the king.

Your sons will take the place of your fathers;
you will make them princes throughout the land.
I will perpetuate your memory through all generations;
therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever.
Psalm 45.8-17

Depression Soup

Start with a pot that has a hole in the bottom
Throw it on an erratic flame
Controlled by the fickle fates.
Build your base with ample tears
Add salt to taste.
If you spill the salt,
Better to rub it into your wounds
Than to throw it over your shoulder;
Luck is no lady tonight.
Chop up your hopes and dreams
Toss them in the air and pray
They find their way.
Open the door to your heart
And take a long, cruel stare at what remains:
The selfish savor of old pain,
Sweet kisses gone dry on your cheek,
Bone-in memory with dulled fatty forgetfulness,
Dumplings of broken promises your mother made for you
Abandoned peels of overripe resentment your father left.
In a depressions soup, it all goes in the pot.
The flavor is of your own making, no matter who you blame.
It will never sustain you
Or feed those you love.
But still, you must drink it.
If it starts to get dry, just cry.

Becoming

I finger your soul
Until you come to your self.
Sex is always better with a mirror.

why not

fuck it
fuck the cock tease
fuck good intentions
fuck a well meaning stab in the back
fuck expectation and dissappointment
fuck looking and not seeing
fuck hurting the ones closest to you
fuck using a day
fuck wasting a day
fuck the game
fuck waiting for others to change
fuck waiting for my life to change
like some two minute montage
where the fat girl gets skinny
the sad girl gets a job
and the angry girl finds her heart
fuck repression
fuck self-pity
fuck you pain
fuck death
fuck fear of the dark
fuck inspiration

Burn

Flames never fail to entrance me
erratic unpredictable dangerous
I find my head lilting and swerving
in a hypnotic dance with an elemental form,
it beckons you and me:
I dare you to touch it.
I can hold my hand over the lighter longer.
A whispering chilly breath
pulls swiftly through my teeth
cooling the heat in my throat
as my jaw tightens in ecstatic pain.
But we shouldn't.
And so we hover as close as our flesh will allow
sad hidden repressed longing
in a beautiful neglected emerging frame.
I wipe my hands along my hips to dry them again.

We offer reassurances:
I won't let you hurt yourself
well, nothing permanent anyway.
We all have our burns,
the minor ones never scar
and though the major ones do
they come with magnificent stories,
stories around the fire
epic tellings of those who choose to prove life
by risking its very soul
to feel alive amidst all this death.

To say: you cannot yet burn me
in your two dollar coffin until only mingled ashes remain
and bone remnants yet to be pulverized.
You do not ask me if I carry batteries
heart monitors beneath my sunken flesh for fear
that the grey waste will not return to the surviving
inside its plastic bag with a twist tie
inside its minimal black plastic box
inside the allotted five to ten business days.

Death is not like it is in the movies, they say.
Nor love.
That doesn't keep us from craving a ritual:
a physical representation of what the fuck we're supposed to do
when we lose what we love
and can't taste what we crave.

Where is my resurrection?
Fill my well with living water
for I have dug and dug deep,
let me feel that cool sweet wine
flowing down, down in through the aqueducts of my imagining.
I want to burn and be quenched.

Lucidity

Lucid dreams high on goodbye
And what comes next.
What comes next?
More grey hazy mornings alone
In the possibility of the day,
Evergreens refolding their inception
Until the looming inevitable at last
Collapses into a crushing shelter
Wounding the begrudging sparrow?

Feed me with ravens and keep the lions
From the mouth of the cave of forgetting.
Pour your seed into my mouth
Belittle me with your grandeur
And call me your own;
Else each new pleasure tempting me away
From each expanding sorrow
Will find its way into my morning dreams
As I watch him silently open and close the door.