mindset

when you grow up
thinking dead flies in
the butter boat
are the beautiful butterflies
you've heard about
you react differently
to cars hitting cats
gnats and kids dying
when you can't read,
what's an obituary
mean anyway

What does a breakdown look like?

what does a breakdown look like

teddy bear stuffing strewn across the bathroom floor

bits of blood or Malbec beneath your fingernails

your son's decapitated head sitting in the driveway

green, like money

smears on the wall of your bedroom, of every room

a child's body shaking with madness

blurred, similar to oxidized glass, similar to the wine bottle bottom

jumping three stories and taking the stairs back up

no reason

no memory

that is what a breakdown looks like

we are pointing fingers but you wouldn't know because New Orleans is filled with smoke.

the marshes are burning
blame the heat blame the heat
don't take it personally
if we die in our sleep

the next best thing

miles of napkins and loose change stretching
through dusty comic book dens
snake holes
and smoke-filled Pontiac's on the highway
the land is waiting for an earthquake
we've hit cruise control and checked out
settled in and we are quite happy
with our remote control garage door openers
the prosthetic limbs we used to refuse
are now trendy accessories

i've been thinking lately
about hyenas dying
and ants dying
and people

decades of
sitcoms our parent's loved
highly evolved worker ants and queens and those who drink beer
fags and queers and those who make children

To die on repeat
is very mundane
and the next best thing.

you
bottom of the bag
potato chip
big breast curved hip
beautiful bold semi colon
comic strip
tease

pity gone

there is a stigma
about pulling off a Band-Aid

we cringe
as though the adhesive
may rip off the flesh

but the truth is
disappointment
of a healed wound
and pity gone

we are making a mess

this morning
we were drinking coffee
i was maybe a little high
and you
well your breasts were showing
and i asked you
what we are doing here again

you replied,
"making a mess"

we both know
my emotions are a tornado

which is okay
when i am alone
a tornado is only as destructive
as the debris in it's path

you are naked in my bed
you are the debris

Proof

This morning,
while driving to the airport,
I imagined, for just a second,
the semi
crashing into me.

I thought of my mother
while a white dove flew above the interstate.
This is the truth and I wonder why.

I have so many things to say and I do not know how to say them anymore.

I watched a building burning,
and I, too, burned.
I watched two cars collide,
and I felt myself colliding
with this city that is not mine.

What can I say, but the truth,
that I am medium?

What can I say, but the truth,
the drunk man from New Iberia who wouldn't put his shirt back on died right there on Bourbon Street.

I'm searching the dictionary,
trying to define "Okay"
but we all have our ideas.

Here is the proof,
I thought I was

and you didn't.

sticky note

a sticky note
on the bathroom floor
i could not love you
anymore

I slept next to you and dreamt of a sinking ship.