wednesday is hump day

my tongue in my mouth creaking leather on leather,

hands on wheel the same and my eyes a dammed

reservoir and dried up, all dried up.

like i've found someplace that is not

on any of the maps and you'd think of

discovery and adventure

but instead only panic like the car won't start

or the call goes to voicemail or the news

is saying bad things again.

ignoring an oasis in the desert. calling it a mirage.

spinning a globe and putting your finger down,

and find out chance wants you in the middle

of the mariana trench. but i only want to go home.

hands on wheel and the engine won't turn over.

street life

i've left the old stars behind
to go on a misadventure.
they burned out a long time ago
anyways. traveling like a sloth
via powerlines. the new stars
are closer here, there's another
every twenty yards.
i'm the part of a tree
that never shows its face.
the teeth that a smile never exposes.
a public access channel, and you'll never
see the irony. i was trying
to test my endurance. i meant to come back.
i'm just so tired.
a dream you keep waking up from.
a dislocation.
when the power goes out and i fall.
now we're even.

end transmission

you were an exit i never took, an exit
i missed. your name on every road sign.
you with anchors instead of eyes,
sunken and sinking.
me chained up and down.
with the clouds burning up and the storm
gone and not enough rain to put out this fire.
my plane's being grounded, and i'm being ground up
and pressed for fuel. an engine with no pilot,
a storm with no thunder.
this call is the last i can make
before the plane takes off.
the ship is pulling up its anchor,
i'm digging up my roots.
my eyes are burning down,
the wheels are turning and the gear's
set to drive. an automatic transmission.
to be sent when i'm gone.
every sign has led up to this, every road
converged into this point like an asterisk.*
you the sky pinning me down,
trapping me like a star in a liquid suspension.
the sky black and burnt like it's been on the stove too long.
the sun humiliated, hiding its face in the planet's lap.
there's too much gravity in this situation;
the plane's going down.

*the last thing i'll ever do for you is die.

i'm a collage of the milk carton missing,
a strip of tire in the middle of the lane,
a moth that can't understand that a streetlight
isn't the sun. drowning in an inch of water.
that's all it's ever gonna take.
the world rolling like your eyes.
you never want to hear about it.
i've got a broken odometer.
i've gone too far.
i don't know what that is in your mouth
but it looks menacing.
this car's light have been on for awhile.
it's almost like there's someone in there.

heat lightning

between the lines of your letter there is the dark of an overpass,

there is a crowd flinching and covering its ears against a baby's cries,

and an eternal catholic guilt. i read and feel the rapture has come

and i was not chosen. i am the bottle after the wine's been drunk,

the castle after the royalty's been beheaded, a tandem bicycle

with no riders at all. this letter has been written before;

i am not the only person who has felt the world end in the mail,

but it feels like it.

when the world really ends they'll be laughing at me and dying.

red touches yellow

instead of organs i have snakes

in a sheep shank, not

a stomach, a liver, a gall bladder,

although i once had intestines, now

a length of garden hose.

a harpsichord full of termites for a soul,

dry rusty music like the wind

wrestling the high grass.

they fight like it's a game;

i don't play to win, i play to kill.

disguised as a bottle in a game

at a carnival where they play fair.

someone always stands me up again.

i don't want to play anymore;

i'd rather stay down.

i was just an empty frame before i met you, if you can picture that.

tornado vs hurricane

i'll tear down the barn before i let my horses out;

i'll cross the median and stay there. even

sail the whole fleet into the docks.

break all four walls. throw my vcr

through the ticket window of a movie theater.

leave the shades open. i'll even leave.

if i'm going anywhere, it's too far.

umbrellas on the beach flowers in the desert.

flags planted by refugees in the no-man's-land between the water's edge

and the point at which civilization ends.

nobody can afford to live here; all are deported.

here i am buried and forgotten.

it's not a game when the tide's coming in.

my heart's the quarry it's full of stone.
and it's sinking to the bottom of the barrel
of a gun. my heart's a magnet and people
are not made of metal. your eyes are a prism
breaking up my heart but it's not light
it's heavy. and i'm strong,
i carry it everywhere i go.
but i'm not going to go there.

i had no power before but now my candles are going out.

the blinds are drawn; isolation is my art.

like a houseplant trying to flee

through an open window,

like a tree digging escape tunnels

and filling them.

a train derailing to get off track.

all the candles have gone out here. i'll be over soon.

there are skidmarks careening towards the median,

like deer paths through the woods at scout camp.

stories i cannot follow, was never allowed to.

driving home drunk through the rain and fog

and the water below every bridge calling me like a ghost.

there's a swamp in my head,

and i've fallen into it.

i've got an alligator mouth it's so hard to open up.

christ slept for three days

but i have to rise again every morning.

tonight's a night when every light is green,

the lamp posts all hold candles to our victory,

and the wind is whistling for you - for you!

tonight, our hammers ring like church bells

and the nails in our coffins are perfectly manicured.

(my casket is always open to you)

i can relate to the man in the moon, to a lost balloon rising to its end. but there's no child crying for me now. you might shed a tear, but only like a snake sheds its skin; and it'd be with less effort. i've departed your horizon now and with no amount of spinning can the earth carry me back to you. but if i looked good riding into that sunset just remember that night still falls for cowboys.

i'm a vine of ivy and i remember all the concrete i've splintered, all the crumbled hearts i've crept through. there's a gun in my throat and i have gavels for fists, i remember shooting you down beating you down. staring you down i had a set of keys made to unlock our eyes. tangled like vines of ivy, like roots i don't have anymore. all torn up the damage is already done. weeding me out of your heart i'll take a piece with me i'm keeping the peace. ivy in the morning bathing in dew and i don't remember it all but most.

they'll be mining the night skies for diamonds soon to satisfy the appetites of all the lovers. digging deep black holes. stroking the moon's thighs, lighting her candle. my mind orbiting the voids. it's frigid and barren in space but i've got that covered on earth. the spaces between my thoughts are deep black holes. still digging. rhinestones in my eyes not diamonds worthless but nice to look at. sad canoes sailing across the planet's wallpaper. look up when it's dark it's impossible to miss me.

like sand into glass and look how brittle i've become

out in the rain grime eroding my features into a statue's erased face. i never looked that good anyways. hold me in your sights like a hostage situation and if you have a shot take it. don't leave me alone out here its cold. hold me in your arms like we're putting on a production you playing icarus and me i'll be the sun. an enlightening stroke of genius, god's camera flash. we've all been captured. can't keep my thoughts straight can't keep my eyes straight on the road. i'm not alone out here i'm just in bad company. you understand how that goes. you're a police cruiser waiting for me to slip up and i won't help fill your quota. set it to cruise control. i'm always on cruise control and me and my tires burning up into puddles of sweat. but i shine too quiet and slow. hold me in your arms like sand and in the middle of the night i'll slip away while you sleep.

flies on the flypaper dense as cars in bad traffic, and it's hot like hell's a/c is broken. the world spinning on a microwave plate, or it feels like it. no vultures here. i'm cannibalizing myself. melting myself down like scrap metal. implying my basic parts have some use. collect myself off the street out of the gutters entering a recycling program 5 cents in eligible states 10 cents in michigan! i can i can i can't.

streetlights my constellations, a sailor's guiding star. there's no wind in these sails, buddy. you better row.

my throat an empty town where the words would echo if given voice. a rainy ghost town dissolving in water. a child: 'where do butterflies go when it rains?' but i know that one already. the undersides of leaves, the underside of my stomach; butterflies hide in the millimeters before the fuel light goes on. i set the car to cruise control, miss my exit, don't turn back. a misadventure in begging at a gas station - 'i don't normally do this...' i don't do anything normally. my ears my mouth a sewer for wasted concern. rather draining. yours or mine? the fuel light stays on. 'is there anyone you can call?' yes, ma'am, but no one i can reach. the sky is white, blank; a pair of birds brave soldiers crossing the field. it rained already, it is done now, but the clouds are not gone; regrouping. the second assault. bullets or tears? 'what could have precipitated this?' a joke! yes, it was all a joke.

the highway a coloring book,

red the only color i have,

and i, never so good at keeping between the lines.

i'm not tempted to swim in your private pool,

i don't like swimming in circles.

i'll lay out.

it's all deciduous here, because it's

temporary, or maybe temperate.

always the fall. don't leave;

if you do, i'll leave too,

in a different direction.

(towards the pines, towards the needles)

your horse was dead before it hit the starting gate.

i'm staying out late tonight, i've got nowhere

to go i'm somewhere between nowhere and home.

you stand to lose a lot, you should sit for this kind of news.

my legs are shot, take me out back

and shoot me. i'm not going anywhere.

saddle me up!

the bridge over the highway watching the headlights rush and pass

they leave me behind i'm always

left behind

waiting to fall asleep my legs are getting ahead of my head. lights out.

my mind like the engine exhaust of a jet plane; as i move towards new branches of thought the old ones loosen, lose their clarity, disintegrate into thin air. until i don't know why i'm thinking that the only justifiable actions are sleeping and (only under the condition that you cannot by any means get back to sleep) drinking, but certainly there's a rationale for this idea, certainly it is grounded in some form of legitimacy. but the trail of exhaust has dissipated and so i cannot look back, cannot even make a guess as to whence this idea came, cannot ever again know. or it's like a cigarette burning down to the filter and all the ash falling away but that's only an accurate simile if i'm chainsmoking, and there's the aspect of it being detrimental to my health which may or may not be accurate; my mind hasn't killed me yet but it's like a horror movie where you run as fast as you can and the killer just keeps walking towards you, your energy drains and drains and drains or you act stupidly and trip or something, but eventually he catches up and then it's over. sometimes my brain is a horror movie but sometimes it's a romantic comedy, and i'm the gay friend even though i've always considered the gay friend to be a tragic figure. i'm one of those toys that gets recalled because china's manufacturing laws aren't as safe as ours or something, and if you try to play with me you'll die. that might be too melodramatic though. if i record my thoughts i can see how i got certain places. i'll never get back to the question of justifications, though, because i didn't record it. and if i stop, if i take a break, if i make food or go to the bathroom or sleep or go to work, then that's lost too. a whole lifetime of thought, lost. candles in the wind or something. or something, or something, or something. i spend all my time alone, usually inside. i don't know the square footage of where i live, but i feel like i'm in a zoo with poor attendance. it's too self-indulgent to call myself a tiger or a cheetah or something, but maybe a giraffe, or a monkey, or a fox or anything. don't worry i'm not making a critique on zoos. it's just that i get claustrophobic. even escaping to the balcony for a cigarette isn't quite enough. i need a porch, some sort of limbo between inside and out there. i need a place to smoke a cigarette where i can transition seamlessly in either direction. because i've got this fourth floor balcony, and whenever the claustrophobia sets in, i get the same impulse as i would on a good, ground-level porch. i could climb over that god damn railing, i really could. fling myself off or something. leave a cavalier note behind, some inside joke or inappropriately lighthearted reference to say, 'don't worry, everyone, nothing could have been done.' but i don't try it, not yet anyways, because something can be done, and if i can just wait a little longer i'll have a porch of my own. in my future i see a lot of broken leases. i don't pace, though. when i'm inside i never pace. the most movement i make is from the couch inside to the couch outside, book to cigarette, cigarette to computer, computer to cigarette, cigarette to tv. repeat for 10 hours, follow with 14 hours of sleep. sleep is the only thing that can be justified, and i don't know if this is the real reason but it's my new reason and i've decided that it counts as valid, because you can't justify living and you can't justify killing yourself but you can justify doing neither and both; death is, as far as i'm concerned, the exact same as sleep without the inevitability of the next day, and sleep is a requisite when it comes to living, so by sleeping you neither embrace life nor death, you can't be faulted for it. except by doctors, but i can't justify doctors. cigarettes and mindless entertainment sometimes get so boring that i want to drink or sleep, but don't have the ability to pull either off, so instead i do the opposite, i take caffeine. cigarettes and caffeine pills make me feel old, not because of the health problems they cause or anything but because they're such soft substances. when i was younger and more adventurous i'd walk for hours looking for a safe, out-of-the-way place to smoke weed; i've got plenty of stories of adrenaline-ridden close calls. and there's always the hospital story. i did acid during high school on a day i had an interview with the principal. when he asked me two positive things about myself, i told him that i was a: loyal (an acceptable answer) and b: responsible. it was the only other word i could think of. you shouldn't tell anyone important that you're responsible if you're on acid, because then you are telling a lie. lies are irresponsible. i was apparently pale and crazy-eyed when i left the interview; my classmates asked if i was okay, what happened, etc, and i just sat down and took deep breaths. but what an adventure! and chugging so many bottles of citrus cough syrup that even the color orange made me gag for the next six months, and then a failed road trip plan turns into a week of playing videogames and doing coke in atlanta. because everything works out in the end, no matter what. and now this, caffeine and cigarettes. barely drugs at all. because it's legal, probably, and maybe it means i'm not getting old, that it's not a real drug to me if it doesn't involve some kind of rebellion. but that doesn't explain why i don't leave the house, why all i listen to is classical, why i feel like the sun never comes out anymore even though it's summer. i might as well start watching terrible medical dramas. but i'm alone, and those are for married people. so i might as well adopt fifteen cats. except that i'm a dog person. so i'm at a loss.

i might as well jump.

my power animal is a vcr.

please be kind.

i'm tired of flinching at door hinges,

of counting heads, of dreading the start of a car.

i can't lock every door

from both sides, or keep anyone's

feet from moving in the opposite direction.

still, i don't want to be a mine shaft

or a puppy or a single cent.

but i am a puppy;

and i will not let go

of your pant leg when you get up to leave.

old montgomery highway

i'm a two-dollar bill or

an american president between the years of 1877 and 1900.

i'm an 8-track, a vhs tape;

i'm a cheap technological metaphor.

you shouldn't feel how i feel, you should

retain your equilibrium,

you should find a field at the side of a road,

where the cars remain in sight

so you can still mock what you ran from.

and then when a car explodes on your field,

turns a third of it gray with ash,

you're allowed to mourn because you didn't realize then

what i, already living in hindsight, did:

it grew back greener.

and that's not a cheap technological metaphor, that

really happened.

i have an artichoke heart and an onion brain;

same thing layer after layer.

children don't like the taste of me,

and i don't blame them.

i'm in a vegetative state:

i don't have much in the way of roots,

and i've been demonstrating consistently low personal growth.

but i've been told consistency is everything.

you smell like cherry blossoms

and denatured alcohol.

but even that's intoxicating to me.

i've got no sense of self-preservation,

so your offer of formaldehyde was particularly romantic.

chlorine in the air or something

deadly or maybe

nothing at all

but the natural shortness of breath

that rides shotgun with fear

and i wish there weren't quite so many feathers

inside me or quite so much air around; i feel so claustrophobic and

i think it's unlikely to be chlorine but maybe

some internal element: feathers, lead paint

that once coated a toy i may have gnawed on as a child, broken glass,

the gold flakes in some high-end liquor i drank years back,

too much swallowed chewing gum, or maybe

nothing at all.

i wasn't going to say so,

but i don't feel too well.

beneath my window, a miserable tableau:

the orange cast of sodium light on melting snow,

frozen once but not in time,

intersecting black streets like a river of shame,

frozen only in time. and behind my window, worse:

me, a blank space surrounded by blank space,

quiet as a still-life.

but the window's pretty nice.