i'm busy

busy in love
busy yelling at the drivers who don't use their blinkers
busy singing to god
busy lamenting over the dead animals
busy in my body
busy drinking Merlot
busy thinking about the horses
busy clearing my throat
busy
busy changing clothes
busy with no where to go
busy worrying about not writing poetry
busy being
busy in love

A test

Am I Job, and you, God?
Test what you know.
Make my life a sacrifice to show
you can damn near kill a man
and loyal like a blind dog,
he will follow you into the dark if you feed him,
pat his head and say you love him.
Why do you
always say you're sorry and you love me
and lead me into the dark?

parking

i'll find you a convenient parking spot
in the empty lot
of my chest
there's no one left

they realize
this is not a home
we can idle together
but you must leave alone

the places we spend our time and money
it's funny
that we charge for parking
but we make a living from your being here
inside ourselves

we invite you in
but we don't want you to stay
we lure you with a warning
we will tow you away

who should pay
when you let someone in?

stay still and smile

you're nearly perfect just
stop shaking your legs and
try to not be so sensitive

stay still.

the next time you fall
remember that your love
will always be short, superficial
tornadoes

don't worry, it will pass,
they always do.

do we have to cry about everything?
do you have to bring this up at the party?

smile.

some things can't be changed
we bandage paws we don't
build new bodies for the broken ones

it's a life worth living
if you can stay alive
hush and pose with your drink
you know you have to give up things
to be happy

passing through

it is easier for me to think of you
as a mass of severed nerves and slowly circulating blood
as detached, as loosely rooted in the past
as bodily senses but senseless
lacking of emotions
a stagnant pool lacking motion
a piece of driftwood
that once passed through my ocean
rather than the anchor you were

saturday 10:29pm

it's nearing ten fifteen
thank god i can excuse myself
for not leaving the house

i can work towards
a black out
a night without feeling

i do it because it's appealing
these days i don't get too excited for anything
that leaves

i write poetry to remind myself
i was awake at some point
self-conscious and self-absorbed

i am deathly bored
being disconnected

they call me obsessive
but not compulsive

if i kept everything i didn't erase
they would call me crazy

on the midway

i can't help it
i hope you cried on your drive home

i wonder what you listened to
if you thought of words
such as mistakes and
soul mates

i now know the meaning
of you can't have your cake and eat it too

i wanted to write it to you
but i thought of words
such as weakness
and why

did you know
there are many definitions of fair
including superficially pleasing to the eye
promising and
adequate

but i think of the county fair
coming and going
carny games and carnal love
fun for everyone
for a little while

but when the carnival leaves
someone packs up the rubber rings
and someone leaves with nothing

it's a fair game
how you spend your time on the midway

irony

you've told me
that i don't know what irony is
but i listened
when you said
i love you

Lovers.

i've met people who've loved me and showed it,
i've unraveled the seams of all the gloves they've sewn for me
as i've wandered aimlessly in the cold looking for the one i've lost

i am the stray cat of my lovers past,
i come hungry and crying and i leave late in the night,
all the deer mice i kill i keep to myself

i come with the intentions of an exclamation mark
i tell my stories with a comma, i go on, and on, and on,
and leave with a question mark

i've drunk the blood of women who've cut theirs wrists for me,
made homes in shoulders i've flooded with tears,
i've chained my lovers to my diving bell from time to time

i have loved
in every language
my body knows

my vocabulary is limited
to islands and sloppy variances
of you

a haiku about how you came and fucked up all my shit and then left

unexpectedly
you came like a hurricane
and made me your home

gone, fishing

am i the catfish to your cod?

do you like the story
of when i jumped off the third story balcony
not because i wanted to die but because i wanted to leave

i always keep you guessing
post trauma, it's a funny thing, in stories
told to your friends over coffee, casual like stand up comedy

am i the hook to your line and sinker?

it's funny how long it took me to understand rape
it's funny like a movie when you relate
to the character but he is much uglier than you
and much sadder than you

am i the Betta to your Betta?

the bad side of your gemini,
fighting to the death for the territory
of an egotistical tank of head space
where the enemy is familiar
like déjà-vu, he oddly resembles you

am i the the game fish and the bait fish?

cycling, the food and the hunger,
i swim circles, keep the pain close,
catch and release i keep
coming back to those who hurt me

am i this fish and the fisherman?

lured by the bait of my own suffering,
is my solitude hobby
hooking my own jaw?

a haiku for my genderless child

no pink or blue cloth
for my child wrapped in yellow
cannot be contained

the fox and the grapes

when will i convince myself
that you are a murky, dirty pond
and i, a bright blue Betta
better left alone

the living being had no need of eyes because there was nothing outside of him to be seen, nor of ears because there was nothing to be heard

i am more honest than my father
less stable than my mother
i have a girl i could marry
but i cannot love her

she is an innocent pup
i have left in the snow

watch from the window
as i circle like crows
circle above warm meat
hungry
i would not wish this upon you
but i do
circle still as a serpent
inside myself
deprecating body

i am Goliath
hear my scream
as i gnaw on my feet
i am a self-inflicted dying beast
building and trampling dreams of my Babel
a place where god lives, underwater, my still euphoric dream
the beginning and the ending of me

i am a starving tick
blood sucking
what are the odds
surviving love in a looney bin
a heavy sponge collecting anything
what is fair
in lacking empathy
in degenerative disease

i cannot love her
with what is inside of me