we borrowed some chairs
tonight
kings and a few cheap beers
maybe more than a few
1.775 Liters
to be exact
which in the grand scheme of things
isn’t much
i told you everyone has something
that they’re great at
and i had nothing
you reminded me
that i once said it was family
—
the game’s over
a musty room
and
text messages i’ve avoided
creep up in a red blinking light
fried neck bones and i have burn marks on my face from cooking oil explosion
there is a
man
halfway across the globe
that i want to see
some random frequency of sound
makes my white bedsheets
feel like they can be shared
honestly
tonight
you’re in london
and i’m in bar harbor
well shit.
i am here
with headphones in
and four inches of fabric
between my chest
and myself
but where are you
the ambiguous form
ended weeks ago
as far as I remember
now all I have to hold on to
is jealousy
and wondering
what my daughters will look like
I thought I was addicted to coffee. Instead, a rainy spring morning and an ice breaking ship has lost its way home and scraped its way across the great barrier reef at the pit of my stomach. There’s nothing quite life waking up at five in the morning and standing in the shower shivering. A towel is no blanket, no. but you still pause on the landing on to way to your room. You get just as high with your coffee and your cigarette in the morning, if you time it right. If not, it’s a downward spiral of chain smoking until that oral injection of nicotine finally rides your blood to your brain. Someone is doing the same thing in new york city, on a fire escape, their viewing window filled with the cacophony of that insomniac city seemingly rolling out of bed.
my brain is perhaps a useless invention
thirty-two thousand roads wound
condemned as flesh
confined purposeless
but to occupy space in my skull
no momentary epiphany
or spontaneous bodily movement
hellbent on absorbing the sparks and sputters
coming from my nerve endings
no consciousness of the caverns occupying the space
between the lines in my fingerprints
or humanly heat signatures
or tiny inconsequential references to hairs foreign
to my own
no recognition of prying eyes
or unsure shrug of the shoulders
no comprehension of the shadows of a collarbone
the death of thousands of taste buds
at the hands of a hot pepper
no identification of species of shrubbery
i tried to walk by a thousand times
no admission that this tiny tourist town
nestled on the Maine coast
will forever carry the smell
of an overheated bedroom
cognac and ice skates
and propping my knees up
in the back of a coach bus
i never want to write of
the hills and valleys
of this rumbling roller coaster
again
who’s rushing wind
passed my freshly pierced ears
i haven’t felt
the two-on one-off two-on one-off
gets tiresome with
waking up at six again
four hours, five pages
and all i get
is a street corner and walking home shivering
trying to forget the feeling of your stomach
it’s winter
and the overwhelming feeling of cooking for all of your friends
all in your house
dies down with the fleeting hours of daylight
get drunk
get drunker than drunk
take a pill
then its slot machine eyes
like in the cartoons
until even the most benign ibuprofen
makes you anxious
and spring rolls around
sobriety and the outdoors
same old story comes around
quit the spreadsheets and politics
buy a van
leave your family
explore the world by face of a granite slab
or sandstone cracks
until your fingertips are shredded
and its fall again
spending all your plastic money
on ingredients and herbs
to cook goodbye dinners
give in; go to bed
turn a quarter turn to the right
shake the fellows hand
repeat
repeat
repeat
reward system for writing essays: every time you finish a page, go have a smoke and take solace in the fact that you are slowly aiding in your own decay. repeat.
i thought i’d write a novel
sitting out in the yard
stoned
when you go looking for something suspicious
it’s likely that you’ll find it
tonight
sweet port by the bedside
little drops on white sheets
to wake up to in the morning
and wondering what longitude and latitude
would look best
written on my back
hazel poison orbs
they should have named you
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck yooooooooooooooooou
fuuuucccckkkk yoooooooou haaaangoooooovvveeeer
