1.
It was Chicago where they cut apart the way she walked.
On the table pneumonia ravaged her body,
And they hooked her up to this box that went,
Chug-chug-chug-chug,
And each time the little white plastic went around,
Her chest went up, and down, and up, and down.
This tube perched over her like a mother bird feeding the young,
Without which, they assured me she could not breath.
She was so small in that bed.
A shadow of the life she was.
It was Chicago where she forgot our mother.
Where she looked our mother in the eyes,
And didn’t know who she was.
It was Chicago where I learned what it is to be truly helpless.
This tube perched over her,
Without which, they assured me she could not breath,
And I’m standing here with my lungs
And they go up and down and up and down,
And I shutter with tears because I have these god damn lungs,
I have these lungs so full of air,
And I can’t,
I can’t.
This tube perched over her,
Without which, they assure me she could not breath.
And even when she wakes,
They cut apart the way she walked,
And she had to learn anew,
2.
And she was naked underneath me,
I knew this place, I’d been here before,
Her skin, pale, and her eyes, glazed,
And I felt her part beneath me,
And there is this feeling like we are one,
And we are complete,
And we are in love,
I knew this place, I’d been here before,
And she was naked underneath me,
But in her cries, there was none of the passion,
And I shrunk at what that could mean,
And our love was made slick by what we beget,
Crimson slick along the length of me,
As I looked at what that meant.
She asked me to break it with my fingers,
And then the blood would soak my hand,
Drips of crimson slick,
And all the potential they carry,
The Will they steal.
And I had to stop, and she walked off,
And we didn’t really talk,
And I had to stop, and I moved off,
And I didn’t really talk,
I told her she needed to leave,
And now I can’t sleep, and I can’t think,
And I’m so god damn tired of trying to pretend that it doesn’t bother me, that it didn’t happen, that I am
actually attracted to you when now you don’t do anything but terrify me. I have nightmares about you
and your blood, and I don’t know.
I just don’t know.
And we didn’t really talk.
I knew this place, I’ve been here before.
But we’ve buried the hatchet, haven’t we?
Or maybe that was just you.
3.
I take a deep drag on a factory made cigarette,
As the sun creeps up over the tree-line,
The thick white smoke mixes with the red of my nail polish,
And the taste of Vodka wells it’s way up my throat.
The dog inside, my only company through the night,
whines and paws. I don’t know if she wants out,
Or if she just wants food. I didn’t train her anyway,
“Nien” I mutter, “stop”.
Overcast and cool, the sun does little but raise mist,
And the woods around are still and quiet.
My cigarette glows for a moment,
And I pull at my hose, and the dress catches on something,
And I hate these goddamn fake lashes,
And I have no idea why women put up with this shit,
My skin itches, and I’m cold, and I’m tired,
And I take another drag on this cigarette.
Pull off my wig, and sit on the steps.
There is a woman inside, asleep, in her bed.
For a long time I want to sleep with her,
And then I want to be with her,
And then I want to hate her,
And now, I just don’t know.
God damn nail polish, so smooth, but so out of place on the end of my fingers,
And this god damn razor burn itches all fucking over.
I could have slept in the bed with her.
But I laid there a moment, her rubbing her ass against my crotch,
As suggestive as she could be to little drunk me,
And I up and walk to her living room, and sit in a chair,
In my dress and wig and hose.
I watch the sun come out, and I go for a smoke.
and I’m here picking at my nail-polish, picking at my memories.
I take another drag and taste the filter, time to stamp it out.
4.
We finished the papers, all that we would anyways,
And we drove up those curves and pulled off the side,
To watch the sunrise over the valley.
The dark of your car was warm, and the stars were soft,
Save the few passing headlights, it was quiet and calm.
Sleep crept up, long before the sun, and we sat there,
Half asleep, on the side of the road, until morning called us down again.
And it was light, but it was deep.
5.
She looked at me with those eyes, and I knew,
The house was empty, and we would take full advantage.
Off her clothes, and mine.
I was excited, and I could not hide,
The full extent of me, and what little or great that is,
She lay beneath me, and I was bare,
I wore no condom, and she was with child,
William was his name, and I entered her,
She moan softly, and pulled me close,
I plunged deeply, and groaned at it,
William was his name, and I looked down,
There was blood, and I was coated in it,
I stopped, and she asked why,
We had decided on William for a boy, and she was with child,
There was blood, and the moon was wrong for this,
William was his name, and I am not okay with this,
She was with child, and we had named him William,
There is blood, and there is blood,
Oh god what have I done, and I’ve been the cause of this
His name was William, and I was to be his father.
She gave me a towel, and I dried off.
We didn’t talk, and we never spoke of this.
She was with child, and we named him William.
I cleaned what was to be, and we never spoke of this.
“Make love to me” She said, and I let her in.
Off came her cloths, and I paused
“This can’t be undone”, and she said, “I know.”
Off came my clothes, and I did my best to excite her,
I used my fingers, and she yelped when they pushed too far,
I had her excite me, and I put the condom on,
I pushed against her, and she cried,
I shrank, and she said “go on”
I pulled the condom off, and laid down next to her,
I had her excite me, and I put the condom on,
I played with her, and I played with me,
I pushed against her, and she cried,
I shrank, and she said “go on”
I yanked the condom off, and laid down next to her,
She moved to excite me, and I put the condom on,
I shoved against her, and she cried.
I shrank, and she said “Maybe if you use your fingers”
His name was William, and I was coated in his blood.
I fell away from her, and threw the condom off.
He would never be, and I was coated in his blood.
She worried, and she fretted,
I curled up in a ball, and I held her off.
It was all blood, and there was no end,
Be it hers or his.
His name was William, and she cried, and she said “Use your fingers” and she wanted me to coat myself
in blood for her, and his name was William, and he will never ever be, and he was in that short instance of
my memory such a glorious thing, with blond hair like mine, and violet eyes like her, and he cried out in
the darkness, his little hand outstretched for me, and I ran and I ran and I ran and I could never reach him,
and he screamed and he screamed and he screamed, and his blood is soaked into me, and she wanted her’s
to join.
His name was William, and he broke me.
“I need you to go”, and she did.
6.
When she came back home, she ate through a tube.
They had cut a hole in her belly, and put in a “port”,
And her stomach acids would eat their way out,
And it would smell terrible, and it would hurt,
And she never could taste her food, and she was never satisfied,
For months like this we lived. Cleaning it,
Connecting it, and feeding it, and she was full, but never satisfied,
And this was the first time I ever really saw her break,
She want nothing more than to eat.
To feel the food on her tongue,
And this fucking tube that hung out of her shirt,
That oozed puss and stomach acids,
And she just wanted to taste, but she couldn’t swallow,
Just that taste could kill her,
And she broke.
She cried, and she broke.
Strong little, lovely little, stubborn little girl, she broke.
And still, I could do nothing.
I slept, but I had nightmares.
In sixth grade I wrote:
“Motherhood is harder on the soul,
Brotherhood is harder on the sole.”
7.
My sister, had this straight dark brown hair,
And after the flicker in her eyes,
They gave her these pills,
And all that hair began to fall.
She lost her appetite, and all her baby fat fell away,
And then all her fat fell away, and she was nothing but skin and bones and smile,
Because these people came and asked her what she wanted,
And she told them “To go to Disney World”
And she got this brown wig with curls like Shirley Temple,
And we got on a plain to Florida,
And we stayed at Give Kids the World Village,
And we met John Stamos,
And we rode fucking Splash mountain all the time,
And she was nothing but skin and bones and smile,
And off the pills, she grew her hair out, brighter brown and curly,
Just like that wig.
8.
I’m sorry, but I just can’t sleep with you in my bed.
This is my time to think, my time to just be,
And you’re here, and I have to worry about that.
And you’re always in the way of where I want to be,
I just can’t do this anymore.
I don’t know why you’re here.
I’m smarter than you, I’m more attractive than you, I’m more creative than you, I’m more mature than you,
I’m more fucked up than you, I’m more relaxed than you, I’m more uptight than you, I’m more alive than
you, I’m more dead than you, I’m dumber than you, I’m more rigid than you, I’m uglier than you, I’m more
terrible than you, I’m worse than you.
I don’t know why you’re here.
Other than that you are here.
And she never will be.
9.
Late in the afternoon, late in the midst of this shit
She gave me a fossil watch, in a box that had a van with racing stripes on it.
And they say money can’t buy you happiness, but that watch still ticks
And they say money can’t buy you happiness, but god damn that watch still ticks.
10.
He kisses like a porn star,
All show and no substance,
I can never figure out how I am,
But I’m certainly not like this.
Lips apart, tongue in mouth,
Just movements, regular, passionless.
Why I’m here, in front of all of them,
Well, that’s anyone’s guess.
Calves of steel, thigh-high nets,
God damn I look manly in a dress.
11.
There’s no place like home,
There’s no place like home.
Ruby slippers or not,
Home is what you make it.
Home is where you take it.
12.
Drunk, I wake upon her couch,
Her roommate and him bustle in,
A frozen pizza and beer in hand,
She beautiful and sensuous,
He ugly, scarred, and coarse.
He apologizes for the intrusion on my dreams,
And again I drift.
Tipsy, I wake upon her couch,
He is pouring his fifth double shot Jim Beam and Coke,
“If you buy me a Jack and Coke, at the bar, I will love you forever,
At home, though, I’m cheap and drink me some Jim Beam.”
I sit up and take in what he has to say.
“You guys looked like you had a good time last night.”
I nod.
“You were at the Bayou?”
I nod again.
“I fucking love that bar, all of the regulars love me,
I mean it’s small, but it’s open.”
I nod.
“I almost got into a fight there once, a regular,
An older Hispanic guy, a real fuckin’ cholo, you know,
In his forties with the slicked back hair,
Everyone loves him, well anyways,
There was this guy, I hadn’t seen him before,
He was drunk outside waiting for his ride or something,
And he was hitting on every girl that came through that door,
Fat, little, curvy, black, white, every one, and they all turned him down.
I guess he hit on the wrong girl because this regular just fucking decked him,
Was fixin’ to bust his ass, but the security grabbed the regulars arms,
And dragged him back into the bar.
I fuckin’ love the Bayou.”
He is pouring his sixth double shot Jim Beam and Coke,
“You here with Eve?”
I nod.
“Are you and her . . . ?
Or are you guys just hanging out?
Cause I would do anything for her, she’s fantastic.”
“No, I’m just a friend. Anyways, I think she’s back with Miguel back in California.”
“Well, I don’t know ’bout that, I know she’s supposed to head back to Cali in January,
But I dunno if she’s going to go.
I really don’t want her to go.”
And I think of all the things she sacrifices to be here,
Among these beautiful mockeries of true mountains,
These cheerful jeerings of cities,
Out here in the boondock Ozarks,
The friends, love, future, and contention,
Traded for a mother that doesn’t love what she is,
For a mother who is sick, and must surely be a burden to watch,
For what she knows is a dead end job as a fast food manager,
For a two bedroom duplex with two cats,
When she creates worlds in her mind,
When she writes, when she makes, when she is,
When she is far off in Cali’.
He is pouring his seventh Jim Beam and Coke.
“I’m not from around here either, I come from Louisiana,
It’s a lot different here, a lot easier to get by.
I mean, I had been to every school in my Parish, and got kicked from every one,
And it’s different with the Niggers down there.
I’m a little racist, I’m sorry, but it’s just the way I am.
Down there, my granddad had this Black neighbor,
And every morning he would say, “Morning White Man.”
And my granddad would say, “Morning Nigger”
Anyways, there is a difference between Niggers and the Black man.
Niggers know their black, they are at the top.
You know, it’s like the Black man, Niggers, and then the White man.
That’s the way it’s set out, and you should just be what you are.
I mean, I’ve had lots of Black friends,
I just wouldn’t let them into my mothers house,
You know how it is, they’re walkin’ through
‘Oh that’s a nice candle!’ and it goes into the pocket,
They’re just like that.”
I am silent.
“You’re cool, I like you.”
He is pouring his eighth Jim Beam and Coke.
“It’s been a hard life,
I’ve been on my own since thirteen,
I’ve been dealing since then,
My dad was a meth-head since I was little,
I was a meth-head for a while, clean eleven months, thank god.
Cleaned up after I got out of prison, spent two years and nine months there,
Quite smoking cigarettes then, didn’t really have a choice.
I’ve liked Dee in there, Eve’s roommate, for a long time now, and she’s liked me.
But I feel weird, she’s always been a good girl, only been with one guy,
Not like me, I’m a dealer, I’ve been with girls who would make your head spin,
I’ve been with girls who only ever want to get high,
I’ve been with big girls like scooters,
Fun to ride until your friends see,
I’ve been with maybe forty or sixty women, a lot of women,
And she’s only ever been with the one,
So I wanna wait.
Sex is just a physical thing to me.”
He is pouring his ninth Jim Beam and Coke.
“I mean, I can go home and just . . . “
He jiggles his arm up and down with the fingers in a loose fist,
“And I’m fine, I don’t need it.
If we’re going to be together, if this is gonna happen,
I want it to mean something, you know?”
I nod.
“I mean, I care about her,
But she wants all these things from me,
She wants me to quit smoking,
And I was just fucking in there and she wants me to quit dealing,
That’s the first I’ve ever heard of it,
I mean I’ve always wanted to.”
He downs the last of his drink.
He is pouring his tenth Jim Beam and Coke,
He pours the last of the bourbon into the tumbler,
Pulls another bottle from a box, opens it,
And pours another shot of bourbon into the glass.
“I’ve got three thousand dollars worth of Marijuana in my house right now,
And that’s the last I’m buying. I’m gonna sell it all off,
Pay for a car, I don’t have one now cause I live like two seconds from work,
I just walk most days, but it would be nice to have one.
But I’m going to buy that car, and that’s it.
I’m gonna go to technical school and be a plumber.
My dad was a plumber when I was little, worked three days a week,
Made twenty dollars an hour, and had all of his bills taken care of,
I mean, it’s not my dream job or anything, but I think it would be nice,
Nice to not have to worry like that,
But she wants me to give it up now.
That and cigarettes. I’ve smoked like six cigarettes in the last week,
You smoke, you know how good that is,
And she looks at me like it’s a terrible thing.
I’m fucking proud of myself, I’m working so damn hard,
And she had better back off or I’m going to fucking go,
Just go right out the damn door.
I’m a dealer, I could have any woman I want,
So she had better learn to let off me once and a while,
I mean I spoil her rotten.
For thanksgiving I bought her like two hundred dollars worth of food,
And we didn’t even eat it.
I’ve bought her like a hundred dollars of cleaning supplies, and the place looks like this,
I’m a bachelor, and I think this is bad.
I feel so bad for her because she’s always saying that she is poor,
But I don’t want her to depend on me, you know?
I mean, I’ve got my place, and she’s got her’s,
And she’s got the bills paid for,”
He gently kicks a router on the floor.
“She’s got internet paid for,
And as soon as it’s working, I’m gonna hook up their cable.
I used to be a cable repairman, and all they need is this one little metal piece,
but if the AT&T people come and see it,
Then they’ll shut the cable off for good,
But if I wait, then they can just have it,
And if someone asks, ‘Oh, I dunno, I just hooked my TV up to the wall,
The last person must have done something’
The only things I give her are things she wants, so she’s still independent,
And even then I feel bad, so you know what I do sometimes?”
He holds a finger up to his lips while he pulls out his wallet,
he he grabs a twenty and pushes it under some clothes on the table,
“Now, she’ll be looking through her clothes and be like, oh twenty dollars,
And she’ll go buy some soda or some fucking cookies or something.”
He is pouring his eleventh Jim Beam and Coke.
“I gotta go back in there, she’s waiting on me.
You’re a cool guy, I like you.
Cheers!”
He knocks back his eleventh Jim Beam and Coke,
Grabs a beer, and runs into what must be Dee’s bedroom,
Along the way he almost runs into a chair, some wires, the entertainment center, a bookshelf,
And the door to the bedroom.
I sit silently.
13.
The first time I saw a striking sunrise,
I was in seventh grade,
Riding my bike to football practice.
The clouds were pink as I rode away from the rising sun,
And it seemed to me, while I wasn’t fully awake,
That there was so much promise waiting for me on this road.
I can’t tell you how many sunsets I see,
How many times I see nature painting pink and purple watercolors of herself,
That I just want to keep walking that road.
14.
After New Years, the year ten became eleven,
I was driving a forest green Montana van
With a fuel gauge that only ever read zero,
A CD player that doesn’t accept CDs,
And no one in the whole van, but myself,
And I rode northwest along these Arkansas highways,
I screamed my imagined song in the bowels of Bobby Hopper,
My hands flew the mountains and valleys beneath and along 540,
And the whole way, I never knew how far I would get,
How much fuel I had,
But I knew the sound of the road beneath me,
Like the hum of a vinyl spinning past the music,
I knew the thrill of the flight,
The speed of the wind on my face,
The chill of the air,
The curves of the road that overlooked the valleys,
Valleys that American Romantic landscape painters drooled over,
With the giant swells of the trees, peppered sparsely with civilization,
A red barn here, a two lane highway there, fields with horses or cows,
And these mountains all around, looming, framing, bursting from the earth,
The world alive, boiling with it, and we little more than the seasoning,
The salt of the broth of it.
15.
I imagine,
her lips fast against mine,
embracing entwining,
dancers upon each other,
this whole ballet we’ve been,
cast with fingers and lips and tongues,
my own cuticles dragged gently across her back,
drawing tracks, little reminders of my path,
our muffled sounds, all the unsaids,
the half-jokeds, the long held hopes momentarily ignited,
her clothes, and mine, cast aside,
left in piles with inhibitions and consequences,
we are naked, though we know only through the warm of us,
eyes closed, living solely from the feel of things,
and all the frustration, the passion, dissolved beneath her fingers:
the flames of what cannot be,
her rib to mine, the puzzle interlocked and complete,
and all the fears of fathers not yet made,
all the nightmares of the screaming babe,
melt into her waiting arms.
I am not empty but whole,
I do not desire but am,
and here the infinite cannot reach,
and I know the mocking shadows’ opinion of me,
certain of their jeering laughter and disbelief,
the army of doubt whispering constantly,
this will never be,
I imagine.
Instead, she will forever hand me the towel,
and I will clean myself, and there will be no speech.
we will live cleanly ‘ziploc’ed away, sharing sight alone,
burdened with our own true weight.
no matter the she in the bag beside me,
I imagine.
I nominate,
her lips fast against mine,
and cull the fate of the cull.
Blind hope in the face of tactless truth.
16.
I want a little Toyota manual, a little truck,
And when I get my hands on it,
I’m going west.
I will drive the highways from here to the sea,
Through the deserts
Past the Grand Canyon,
Over the planes
Across the Rockies,
My little manual, me,
And that vinyl hum.
I will see the ocean.
I will see the sunset touch the water’s reflection of itself,
I will ride this road until it goes nowhere,
And it will be beautiful.
