_{A Poem Written After a Bad Night in June 2021}

I have never much liked thinking

About parallel universes.

Order is so tempting

When faced with

The terror of chance. 

It is easy to believe that

We are the result

Of one special

Sperm,

That our happiness

Is not dependent 

On two people

Swiping right,

On our bodies

Not manifesting

An error.

I almost died tonight. 

You can assume I’m

Telling you this for

Attention.

I broke two nails

On my left

Hand

When I threw my

Purse across

The room

And I almost

Broke my right

Hand after punching

Myself in the 

Head.

Right now I’m reading 

A book

On my headphones,

Starring at my 

Reflection

In my front window.

The water bottle 

I carry with me 

Everywhere now has two large

Dents.

After hitting myself in the

Head a few times,

I moved on to smashing my 

Water bottle against

The floor.

I consider this

Important progress. 

---

^{A Poem Centered on Fetish}

It is so interesting, 

The modern fusion of electronics

And cum. 

Cell phone screens and

VHS tinted 

Hands.

It is so strange, hearing

Another woman 

Calling Amanda Nunes,

“Fat,”

For being 145 pounds. 

Amanda Nunes, quantifiably

The greatest MMA athlete

Of all time. 

Sure, it is her opponent

Calling her fat.

But still.

Earlier today I was watching

Very good porn, 

Though now I don’t 

Even remember

Exactly what

The scene 

Was.

Probably a girl

Licking another

Girl’s asshole

Or a girl wanting

To touch her cock

While another

Girl restricted

Her ability to

Do so. 

I couldn’t help but think

Of other fetishes our 

Culture has.

The mother who buys

True crime magazines

For her autistic son,

The mother who is

Afraid of her

Violent son

Who is probably just

Autistic and

Abused.

I am sitting here

In my chair 

In my room at 

My own mother’s

House.

I am taking a break from

Reading

But still listening

To sad, lyrical and mid-tempo

80’s and goth metal ballads. 

I can’t help but think about

All of the pain in this room,

Listening to so many of the same

Songs or the same style

Of songs. 

I started boxing when I was 13

And shortly after turning

14 had bulked up to about 180 lbs.

My coach started making fun of me,

Saying I was far too heavy

To fight.

Years later, after getting up

To 270 lbs, everywhere

I saw him around town

He would continue 

To make fun of 

Me for being

Fat.

Even in my 20’s I was too

Scared to buy a heavy

Bag for my backyard. 

It is so easy

To believe people who

Say you are

Wrong.

But then I bought

A heavy bag and

Started training

By myself.

And having

Fun.

It surprises me that I miss

My parents house

When I’m staying

With my partner.

My desktop computer,

My music collection

And my lamps.

Some people might say I’m afraid

To leave the sites of my pain behind.

I’m not afraid of them,

Anymore.

ACTS 17:16 

paul left rome for athens

where he found a city full of idols 

& cried out 

for they did not do as he did

if you left the emerald city

without taking off the glasses, 

you too might scoff at someone 

who pointed at a pomegranate and called it red

EXODUS 20:5

God told the boy it breaks his heart when

he worships other gods.

it makes Him

jealous.

i’m glad He wasn’t jealous

when my ten year old eyes acquainted themselves with the ceiling in the dark.

night, a personal hell undertaken

to stand guard against my body caving & slipping 

away to the real one

---

In lane 1 squats a racoon,
Thanksgiving Day at noon,
motionless, on its haunches 
staring at I64 pavement.

Along the creek’s unfrozen soft soil
through a blanket of brown oak leaves, 
green briar whips push out red buds,
brush my hand, thorns blood me
four months before spring.

Barn cat retracts its claws from a mole,
seized from a burrow nest
near the firewood pile,
a sacrifice left 
twitching in the dark of its sightless world
at our cabin’s mudroom steps.

I summon myself at 3 o’clock
to photograph the full moon,
stand in brown torn slippers,
a thin blue bathrobe,
on our gravel driveway.
24 degrees cold.
Its pale-yellow face views me, 
a mask in the apse of the sky.

---

Love to walk by the creek

and hear the birds speak 

their secret language.

See them play in pairs

like pilots in an air show.

Wish to fly now.

Seems like this whole lifetime 

is spent waiting.

Will miss the fleeting moments

of joy but is it ever

worth the pain?

Salvation is promised

yet we don’t know a thing.

Day follows night

but nothing can be made right

when the best part of you

is missing.

Would we choose to be born

if we had a say?

Life is just a brief interlude

between birth and dying

and matters less than both

in the big picture.

Some stay for a vacation

or weekend

while others live out

a long sentence

until their will or body

break down.

Who knows why

we are left to carry 

on this way.

---

^{You Got Your Spell on Me, Baby}

Santana, “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen”

A woman exited the B Line train near her North Hollywood bungalow just as the night sky began to look as if God were juggling with the sands of time. The train exited the station leaving a neon streak in the darkness that moved like a serpent swimming up a waterfall. She lit a joint and the smoke recited a silent psalm. Telephone wires glowed green like jungle vines. The woman listened to their chatter. Somewhere a radio played a Hungarian folk song with Latin grooves. She held an orange aloft for a closer look; the lantern cast her light and love askew. The woman dreamed that she was a skeleton lying in the desert. She had become a part of the desert. Apart.

---

^Affinity

Out my leaded glass window, on the library lawn, weathered men unveil a carnival: carousel and tilt-a-whirl, The Scrambler and The Whip. Fried onions and funnel cakes sweeten the air and I think that the soil around my roots is loose enough that I might be lured, once again, into the festivities of life. But grades are due, and tenure reviews linger at the edge of my perception.

I watch close as a student from my Yeats seminar is called before the Strongman Tower. She hoists high the hammer, and it falls to the sound of jubilation ringing in my ears. When her boyfriend grips that mighty mallet, a spring is secretly dialed toward impossibility––the prize is lost. Here, in this tower, away from it all, there are no tests of physical strength; no pomp, no circumstance. No salvation.

---

In college I cut my hair

boy short, you noticed 

and saw value

in inadvisable decisions. 

At night we would center

ourselves on a half mattress, 

meant for a sofa bed,

on the floor. 

Your mother bought

us a new bed. Handmade

beautiful honey pine. A year later

the soft wooden slats began

to buckle, one by one. 

We held up the mattress

with stacks of books. 

Our car stalled in a blizzard. 

In the middle of nowhere. 

This didn’t really happen. 

We left the car and decided

to find our way. Soon frostbite

set in. Parts started to numb

and fall off. We couldn’t go on. 

Years later we found each other

at a house party. 

The music was too loud 

so we went into a quiet room, 

to talk. The whole time 

we couldn’t get over

the fact that we were

at a party together. 

I still have the bed. 

Now attached to a metal frame

and painted white. 

The party is over. 

I wasn’t allowed to leave 

the premises. Your new wife 

razed the house with me 

still in it. The last thing 

I saw was you hopping

into the oncoming bulldozer 

in order to escape another blizzard. 

---

Memories lie

In rosary beads

Rose bush seeds

Between fingers

In prayer

Scattered, buried

Both bloom

From dark places

Of the mind

The earth

Reaching toward sunlight

Hunting for dawn

Outstretched among the thorns

The aches and alleluias

Mementos of the heart

Shrouded in sepia

Beads bound by chains

Familiar refrains

Like the roots of the reddest rose

Bursting forth from the remains

Of the gone

---

I dreamt I dreamt I begged 

you for us to watch 

The Office—it was 

so ominous inside, 

so insidious inside of me. 

When I awoke I was so still,

still thinking I was in limbo

still. The frogs, they only laughed

at me. Why do they?

Why do they laugh

as the dawn draws near?

All I knew was

all I needed was

for them to never 

stop—laughing at 

me living through them,

knowing what is real,

and I’m still alive.

---