Looking Indubitable

It is good

to sit

here on

my stoop

thinking about

litigation;

listening

to the neighbourhood

settle

into the

first clam

night of

spring.

And as I

take

another swig

of

the saké,

the neighbours

return

from a birthday dinner.

They carry in

a case

of beer.

Maybe

I'll be social tonight.

~Believe me.

Love,

Digress.

Only A Coffee Shop.

Hanged.

Shot.

Ambushed.

Drowned.

This is

self-destructive

at 

least I am

teaching myself.

I'll teach

you too.

While the

world is flooded and

the people

are ambushed,

there is

little

to do

but

wait.

We will

always be

waiting to be

Drowned.

Ambushed.

Shot.

Hanged.

~Celebration City.

Love,

Digress.

You are my assasin

Walk all over me, stomp that heel and turn that *click*
Baby when you hurt me it fulfills me
It reminds me that I'm the better person because...
I'd never do half this s*** to you.
You bring out the best Christ figure I've ever seen,
a martyr....a masochist
God, what I wouldn't give to throw you into my heart, let you drown in our misery
What I wouldn't give to hear you say you're sorry.
And you love me.
I don't wanna hear her name I don't wanna see her face...next to your soul....too close
You drag me down down down with you, and I go willingly
because baby we belong together
you'll see.
One day you'll wake up and see me sleeping and realize
how much you love me, you need me
I set the dull throb to a Katy Perry song and it sooths, like hydrogen peroxide on an infection
You're like pulling out a porcupine quill
like walking through the desert in bare feet and climbing cactus
....like piercing my tongue with a safety pin, snorting fire ants, chewing tin foil
You're the worst person with the best intentions I'll ever know. God I love you.
I'm your puppet, baby....
cut my strings.

Let me tell you about my hands

They all hurt. All 8 of them. Each with to knuckles crying for an ice pack to alleviate the throbbing pain of this morning’s consciousness. I hesitate on their dying plea and make fists, assessing the extent of which I felt like my life was over last night. The blood stains leading down my right palm to my pillow case prove that he was the one that questioned my ability to feel alive last night, but clearly after he could take no more punishment his brother stepped in to take the finals blows before I passed out awkwardly on my kitchen floor. It’s euphoric to feel the pain creep up my arms to my elbows. I learned a while back that it’s easier to make excuses for broken fingers than for cuts on legs that a just a little too straight. And besides, every bump every day reminds me that for some reason I still love you more than you will ever know. I think about writing the brick walls and wooden fences a thank you note and laugh. Thank you for all the times you have been there for me. Thank you for being strong when I am weak. Thank you for never breaking down on me. It makes me happy to know that all my life cement walls will be with me to pick me up when I’m down. Realizing my fingers have nearly convinced my eyes to cry, and my mouth to scream I wearily open my freezer door. I grab the bag of frozen peas and ice pack and feel relieved as they numb my knuckles back into nothing.

why it doesnt matter whats in the glass

“He doesn’t love you.”

“Shocker.”

“Then why do you bother?”

She spun around on the stool and shrugged her shoulders. Her dispassionate eyes suited her apathetic tone. “Maybe I just do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looked down the bar at an old man hunkered over a whiskey sour, staring hopelessly into it like he was search for something. “It’s better than nothing, that’s what it’s supposed to mean.”

“But it isn’t significant.”

“But it isn’t nothing.”

She grabbed her messenger bag and dropped a couple bills next to an empty glass, looking back down at it. “You know why that glass is empty?”

“Because it’s not half full.”

“Exactly. Something isn’t empty or half-full because it’s missing something. It’s that way because you drank it, which is better than watching it sit there staring back at you. It doesn’t matter what it’s half of if you never drink it.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.” She said, grabbing a tattered brown jacket. “But maybe someday you will.”

Then she sauntered freely out of the bar. But that lack of weight on her shoulders was also because she had nothing to weigh her down. I didn’t know whether to pity her or applaud her.

I am more than this.

Too often I find myself huddled in an overly hushed basement, garage, backyard, caught up in a mess of vodka shots, second hand smoke, and a few puffs of something quality that everyone will hit but me. I make up for the lack of a high with a few more pulls from the handle. And soon I grab onto that oh so familiar landing. The one where I can rest my feet comfortably, although a bit wobbly. My mind is gone, so I feel safe. It's not me that's moving, speaking, thinking, so I can relax. There's no way any of you could judge me in this state. So I continue.

It usually hits me about an hour in. I need someone. I need to feel someone's presence close to my body even if it's just a messy fumbling around behind the blackened end of a bathroom door. I need someone here with me. Because I am not. Because I left myself somewhere between the liquor run and the seventh game of flip cup. So I need someone to reassure me. 

Touch me, say my name. That's all I ask of you. Remind me of who I am, who I forced myself not to be and tell me that I'm beautiful and I'm all you want. I'll eat it up with every slur of your syllables. I will take you in and drown who I think I am inside of you.

And then I wake up and feel nothing again. I am back to myself. Just a little headache that a few hours of sleep can fix. I forget my alter ego, the exuberant. I take a deep breath and realize that I wasn't myself. It was her last night, she let her guard down, she gave up her morals. Not me. I would never do that. 

But how long will it take for me to use up the last of her, and have nothing left but myself...

You were meant for me

I lay on the bathroom floor until all the midnights for a month after you left me. Pushing my forehead into the cold, dingy white tile, I wondered why you'd gone, where the redeeming quality was, where the sun was hiding. I'd finger my pink baby blanket mom had wrapped me in as a child but took no comfort for it. There was no consolation prize for this and I didn't really understand what God was trying to teach me when he closed the door behind you and locked all the windows. The only thing that worked when it was supposed to was the plumbing in that clammy bathroom. After I hugged the lid with frail fingers, the toilet, though it did so reluctantly, flushed. Though it came through rusted pipes, the water always found its way to my tired body. Those things worked, why couldn't I?

It would be so much easier if there had been a "why" to go with a "what" but I suppose there are some questions that don't have their answers. For every marvel there is a mystery. It was a small but brutal mystery that left me alone on that bathroom floor every night, pulling up my shirt and looking down at exposed ribs, following them down to a scarred stomach. The worst part was there were scars but no you. My body had proof you'd been there, proof you'd existed. Somewhere inside I knew it. But the world showed no record of you. You weren't there in my apartment,waking me up in the middle of the night wailing like some sort of siren to break my tranquility. You weren't there. Instead I just had this scary, unaffected, silence in your place. I knew you were there somewhere, had been there somewhere. My body knew it. My scars proved it. But as far as the world was concerned you were just a pocket of silence, a blank silence that had never really been there.

I lay on that bathroom floor every night until midnight for a month, just trying to remember the golden locks that I'd never comb, the first words that would never be spoken, the kindergarten graduation I'd never attend, the milk that would never be spilled. Then I realized. Hearts are broken every day and mine isn't the only one chained to the bathroom floor, swaddled in a pink baby blanket where perhaps somebody else ought to be. So that thirty-first night, I got up and went into the bedroom and turned on Letterman. You had been in there somewhere once, tucked securely beneath my heart. I had the scars to prove it. Maybe the world forgets the lost too easily in its eagerness to pick up latenight talkshows and turn the channel to afternoon sitcoms. But all the same you can only swim against the stream for so long before your body fails and it sweeps you along with it. Wherever you'd gone I couldn't follow and you can't hold on to a hand that isn't there. It wasn't time to let you go. There is never a time or place for that sort of thing. But either way, at some point I had to do it. At some point I had to get lost in the television and let somebody else do the talking.

If You Need Some Cheering Up.

Looking in the mirror

never hurt

so much.

I think about

shaving my head with

a straight-bladed razor

and

pulling out

all of

my teeth,

one

by

one

with

a pair

of

needle-nosed pliers.

I think about how it

would feel;

looking down into

that sink;

blood, teeth, and

hair

against the white porcelain of 

the sink,

and a pair

of rusty

needle-nosed pliers

on the counter.

and I think about

breaking bridges,

burning pencils,

and

the way people look in 

convertibles

with the top

down.

they are ambiguous

at

best.

~I've got this feelin'. grab some synthetic hair.

Love,

Digress.

Watson Did The Work.

focused on the wrong

turns

and babies fall backwards

from 

staring at cases

of books.

industrial areas

with rent

higher than

the cost of living

will allow.

we paid for

that,

we'll pay for this

.

i fork over the cash

and

they spoon over the

protection;

it's never enough

it's actually

too much

and

never effective.

i pass the

doughnuts around

the room

they take

slow

bites

and feel

out of

place in their

desks.

it isn't a cafeteria,

it won't

ever be

.

i mostly annoy the

people whom

sit next

to me

.

they ask me

to be

quiet;

i only discuss the proper

answers

and get

laughed at quite often

for wanting

it all

to be corrected, or

debated

.

they'll hopefully

never

understand.

but, maybe

someday,

you will

~Wrong the second time.

Love,

Digress.

Son of a...

Born with a big mouth,

Brought up with an even bigger opinion,

Decent from great minds,

History runs in my blood,

From the slave trade to Hitler.

212 degrees, boiling point never felt so hot.

My blood boils,

Heat the moment.

Race,

Sex,

Orientation.

Shut your big mouth girl.

Congested, stuffy nose like.

As stubborn as I am,

I have weak knees for a good arguement.

Straight edge for the right answer.

I need to "watch it."

Everyday conversation anymore-

Anymore with me is censored.

Always worried about being "politically correct."

Anything with the slightest slip...

POOF!

Men, women, childeren,

Race of every kind.

Empowers my brain.

Takes over my body,

Hatred for races.

I hate gay pride.

CENSOR!

Not a conversation topic,

Not to be discussed at work.

"I'm sorry, you're fired."

Shut your big mouth girl.

Opinions aside,

Hatred away...

But, but wait-

I can't call you the

Bleep word...I would be raciest

You can call me a bleep word-

My people in-slaved you-

Fists up,

White power,

No, no, no!

Not at the employment office!

If I knew what was good for me...

Dang, I'd still have a job.

disappeared

Hey Big Brown Beautiful Boy...
I wanna hear from you,
where you been?
have you fallen off the bus that gave you to us?...
sing me a song! surely i'm wrong
in assuming
that you've disappeared?

The Post Office Has Gone Broke.

I remember

Rich telling me

that you've got to send

mail

to get

mail.

Even when I send

mail

the bonds between friends

enter the ends

but there's no help for that

and I will never

be 

what you're looking for

, though

, I will sometimes 

appear that

way.

My best friends

: I have

Never met

, and Never will.

They are all dead.

And I might

be too.

~Fermented grapes tonight. generic words.

Plain love,

Digress.

Colour Me Pedantic.

I've been wondering

about the concepts

and the basics

you have a tendency

to miss.

And the way

you cannot

formulate

Iambs in Octameter

or Pyrrhic Dimeters

you cannot crochet a trochee

into the lines of a tercet.

Soliloquies and metaphors

on the zenith of an anapest

could make you

the best.

Byronic irony

with a simple Spondee

could

set your style free.

But the lessons

evade

whilst you sit and degrade

the thoughts you

can't formulate

or begin to comprehend.

So is this the end?

Not for you

friend.

~This might be one of the last.

Spent,

Digress.

No Help.

I cannot be anything

I once was

.

.

.

And I've been writing a tragedy.

~Drink your tea.

Apologetic,

Digress.

Let Me Love You

The windshield wipers sway back and forth to the beat of your awful music.
I listen to it, trying to figure out what strums you.
I already know that I'm going to get caught up in you. I can feel it.
The wipers tell me to build a wall, bind my heart to the inside of my chest. They tell me to get out of the car, get out while I'm still ahead.
We finally pull over. Still the rain pounds on the pavement below us.
You slide closer to me, i breath in your smokey, cinnamon sent.
You hand has a mind of its own, it places its self upon my quivering thigh,
my heart instantly skips a beat, my lungs rise and fall at a rapid pace,
my brain racing back to memories of your past, light bulbs flickering telling me not to be in love with you. You are a train wreck. Your soft, unmanly voice brings me back to your attention. Those blueberry eyes piercing my face, they keep me warm. You lean in for a kiss, my eyes are shut neatly as you dig in. I cant breath, I have to pull away. Instantly your body is in idle. Look into my eyes baby, let me tell you everything.
If I could only tell you that I love you everything would be okay. But I cant tell you, you told me not to fall for you, was I supposed to hit the ground running? Attachment, isn't that love? Did you not tell me you were in love with me? You say I'm not allowed to want to be in love with you. You stress me with your unspoken thoughts. You love me, just tell me from your soft, weather wore, secret kept, lying lips. There is hope. I am here for you. I'm not here to fix you, only make you better. You never carry around your baggage, and I'm not here to carry it for you. Listen to me look into your eyes, let me tell you the words to heal your soul. Let me love you the way you deserve to be loved.

Corruption.

We've been sitting in your car for hours

jam-packed in a heat of hormones.

Smoking cigarette, after cigarette

after cigarette.

With each drag, your eyes drag too.

Drag me in, with your

big smile, doe eyes.

I smell corruption.

Wander into the house, down the stairs.

Gradually into the covers.

My hand grasps for your hand, 

my experience grasps for your innocence.

No turning back, there is no retreat.

I love the softness of your lips.

It irons out the wrinkles of mine,

irons out the imperfections, the scars of lovers past.

Your innocence makes me feel pure.

Whole.

Me again.

And I love you for it.

And I smother you with all the passion 

that I can pull up from inside.

A haze of intoxication, a cloud of disinigration 

from what I wanted, and now 

what I need.

It's 3 am on a Sunday morning.

The Lord's day.

And here I am, breathing heavy, intertwined  

between sheets and legs

and his eyes.

And never wanting anything

anywhere

anyone else.

But you.

You are young, but so am I.

The world that you've shown me is young

and beautiful.

You've shown me that again.

Embraced, saved, loved me.

And I love you for it.

stop.

you drove me on. stop.
you let me become blind. stop.
my heart paralyzed. stop.
my lungs collapsed. stop.
God as my witness. stop.
youre a fool. stop.
im the best. stop.
you.[pause] will.[pause] never.[pause] love.[pause] again.[pause]stop.
dearest love of mine, stop.
forever will your soul rot, stop.
not to long before your heart will melt, stop.
before you miss me, stop.
remember that the sight
or sound of your name, stop.
makes me gag, makes me die, stop.
just before you put me on my death bed, stop.
just before you turn off my liberating machine, stop.
i will haunt you in your dreams, stop.
forever thine stop.
forever mine. stop.
fornever ours. stop.
stop.
yours truly.
stop.

force-fed

you are that person who claims me, that smile that trains me
to come back
you hold my breath in your lips, like the smoky tips falling from the ash tray
and oh baby the way
mmmmm that way you climb through the jungle of my mind and tap tap tap
on my cranial hemisphere to make sure that I HEAR
you walk away
and I
let you
but oo darlin you know my limit and you dance within it
just to see
and now that feelin I got, that hot steamy sensation...that elation of being THE creation you sought
is
emptying out my chest cavity and plundering my soul, peeking at my hand and telling me to fold
so I quit, I'm out, I'm not fit for your game
it's the same fight the same sorries the same sex
every night and despite my obsession with our passion
....
you aren't worth it

so forget you, yeah baby it's true I'M leaving YOU
no threats no games no mind-blowing names screaming at the top of my lungs or climbing the ladder rungs daring you to save me, no tests of your devotion or begging for emotion
in your eyes

you'll find it's lonely here alone without me

Saturday.

Saturday night, Poisonous, if you know what I mean. Black eyeliner, deep blush. Red cups, Music so loud we speak with our eyes. Dancing on the wood floors, I've never felt so alive. Experimenting. My blurred eyes match my blurred thoughts. My skin is hot, it's uncontrollable. Trash talk. Girl Talk. Bathroom Talk. Stumbling, Swaying - Falling, falling fast. Pictures to remember the night, cause our brains can't. Real People. Fake People. Two People. Sunday Morning seems so far, 2AM and we can't stop. 3AM, still going'. We won't crash. Cigarette smoke fills the air - My lungs too. Loud voices, small whispers, music singers. Undeniable thoughts. Unbelievable actions. Incredible Passion.




Remember, the loudest person in the room is also the weakest.

Time To Laugh

The Terrible Television has been living in front of your eyes for quite some time. I've been behind your screen waiting for the right theme, a new format: laughing at your door mat: WELCOME, well, they seldom come. I've been on the edge of the seat waiting for the right time to give you all a good treat. Something ironic, something secretly sardonic, but you can't drink the gin in my tonic. I grew a new backbone, found a new tone, and distributed some sound straight to your dome.

The Terrible Television is the source of all information, keeping track of every single station. I know what you watch and I know what you staunch. You draw the line at news and information but when the lies flow you get a-ragin'.

The Terrible Television is the new-world vision: the pristine package of all those who are livin'. I'm a new format of symbolism, in every home and inspiring every poem. A new way to stay at home to roam. Time to escape to the land of the free on-demand movie, you have until Tuesday. 

I am the Terrible Television, bringing to you the news, bringing to you the information that you choose.

~April fools.

Sorry,

Digress.