Broken Glass

Violence, violence
sweeps through the floor
like the hem of a rag
on a doll-faced hooker
as the lights are dimmed
in this conscience-distorted brothel.

To him, the raindrops taste like whiskey
so who's to blame him
for being a drunkard?

He will not take such condescension,
and so he shall pass it onto thee
like a hot potato;
just say the third-degree burns
came from hugging the stove.

For you, the days are a beach of intenstines
set alongside waves of toxic waste,
the moon now a mood ring
sitting atop the knuckles
of your vengeful king.

This decade of brutal purging,
atonement for sins not yet committed,
has been as grandiose
as his figure those Thursday nights
when he's stalking for his property,
and you're close-mouthed
under the bed,
looking through barely a slab
of this virtual reality,
the iron-fisted giant
who would nurse your neuroses
if he'd stop bashing your face in.

Your expectations for the outcome
laced with Disney Princess satin
swoop around like silk ribbons in a noose
(the "O" stands for optimism),
the pang of unknown futures striking
with each paranoia-ridden look to the side,
yet you still take the hot potato
and let your skin seethe itself inward
with your stamina and self-worth,
for it must all, at least,
lead to Eden.

You should just remember.
The men still pulled the lever
as Selma Jezkova sang her last song.

Our Minds Are Mush

If I listened to every advertisement
hollering through the static
of my cable-hooked television,
I'd have a mammoth bottle
of Hidden Valley Ranch
sitting with the ego-quenching sheen
of recommendation in my fridge,
a Weight Watchers membership
(it told me to join as soon as possible
with the speed of a steroid-devouring treadmill),
Children's Tylenol
(despite being situationally barren),
and a Bowflex-shaped elephant,
ivory tusks slumping uselessly in the corner.

My living room would be the fraternal twin
of the American Smithsonian,
a faux-genuine quilt
of our Founding Fathers'
present day descendants
draping over my popcorn ceiling.

I return to the latest
sacred cow in the flea store
cartel of Lifetime Movie heroines;
it's "Vengeful Vixens Sunday"
and Elizabeth Berkley shooting men
and stabbing women in the back
all while eating buckets of Ben and Jerry
and getting addicted to crystal meth.

The dialogue is as freshly
packaged and slovenly edible
as the Minute Ready Late Night Dinner
with a cartoon grandma plastered on the logo,
all to remind you of down home,
or in the case of this Lifetime screenplay,
a time when the brain wasn't fully developed.
Same difference.

We all hide our guilty pleasures
as if our tolerance for the
secondhand existence of these favorites
were deemed malignant
by a cardboard kingdom
of young adult sophistication,
but I ask you:
who hasn't slipped into the comfort
of a mind turned to mush?

Memory

When a situation has exceeded
its date of expiration in the
weak-boned refrigerator of your memory,
the noxious smell that looms
from thick barrier to thick barrier
is enough to send your cat's hairs
dropping like branches of fake pine.

It must be, then,
this awkward moment,
or maybe this childhood trauma,
the smell of it,
that has caused this grimace
sealed by the cement of self-castigation
on your incongruously human face each day.

The past is our psychotic ex-boyfriend,
the kinds that breaks the windows
when your eyes have collapsed shut,
when our pretty little souls
were at their most exposed
and our frail little doors
were rocking on their hinges.

Save me from him-
rinse me clean-
help me ripen
and never rot.

Give my senses refuge
from the siege leering
in the Expressionist slabs
of my pitch black Memory.

Communication

Can someone tell me
why no one will answer their phones?

It must make a blender of
Alexander Graham Bell's grave,
seeing his great great great-granddaughter
exposing her barest necessities
to an LCD screen with
Easy Bake tokens of sweet declarations
(all the way from South Korea)
yet tensing up at the butter knife nudge
of vocal contact with the neighborhood friend.

I've written something new
and I'd really like to show you all
my baby,
for like an infant,
this creature cannot text you its thoughts.

It cannot even say the word "thumb".

Loneliness

The Internet, for a good helping
of the American demographic,
is the highest-rated of sanctuaries.

I use "sanctuary"
in a filthy and blatantly pornographic manner,

for every time
we post on our nicotine-scented Facebooks
that we're "so fucking bored" we "could die,"
there's at least one other
hand snaking you along
those fetishes you stash beneath your sleeve
like black silk underwear;

and no matter what you do,
nothing will explain away
those two consecutive Youtube videos:
"Black muscle man in blue thong"
followed spontaneously by
"12 year old boy sings Judy Garland!",
each, to the innocent bystander,
juxtaposed like two opposing dildos
in one fucked up candy shop.

The grotesque meat show,
always the same introduction,
always right on time with the
churn churn churning of his
loneliness his rage his silence
onto those sheets
with no regard for the family
and friends of fibers.

It used to be hilarious,
perfect lunch table standup,
but once you learn
that with sex, there might be
signs of love in the decipherable thrusting,
that a plot is swimming helplessly
in the oceanic camouflage of loveless living,
sticky hands can really start to sting.

Hey There

Sorry I haven't posted much lately in terms of poetry. I've edited a few and actually did one of my favorite editing jobs recently on "Way To State The Obvious", written in June ;). Anyway, I'm working on some new things and hope to be having another spurt of creative abundance very, very soon.

Way To State The Obvious

I am such
a fucking
faggot.

Been fanning the flames
of my flamboyant faggotry
since April 1990
when I strutted from the caverns
of my mother's....
nevermind,
I'm never touching one of those.

My childhood is exemplified
by late-night espionage treks,
sneaking through my sister's side
of our bedroom
maximized by youthful perspective,
each step of mine garnering more
taut gravity than the next,
finally reaching the Holy Grail:
her Barbie collection.

In the fourth grade, I drew
my interpretations of those
beautiful, diamond-infested drag queens
that rained feathers and sequins
upon one drought of an existence,
the adults framing my tolerance
as a smut-stained abomination.

Now people ponder
why I'm so overt
with my gaydom.

Why argue with you
nostalgia-hemmed family friend
over the cultural significance
of the Barbra Streisand Album,
or freely sit through marathons
of 1930s Joan Crawford melodramas?

It's the kid in me.
Something lost for an era
in a washing tub
of middle school torture tactics,
heavy breathing
over hiding something
so natural.

And a few years of that
are damn stifling enough
for this gigantic faggot.