A Pity Party

The nickle
didn't weigh much,
chipped from thumb.
It didn't make a sound against the wishing well walls
on its way to the pool
and silhouette expectant.
Ripples and a splunk.
Unlucky forever.
I know I could
make a
sound.

Detox

Watching a Japanese firebrand
whip up a dish and spit lyrically
sonorous of luck and hard work
while customers guffaw, I feel
handcuffed.  How do I not speak
fluently in.  Tapestries of fragments.
Yep.  800 words for yes in my
vernacular.  1100 words and
phrases for no.  Counting
inflections, of course.
Talking you down in the bathroom mirror: "I believe in"
panting heavy.
Other lives.
Other time.
A galaxy
far, far,
away.

Smoker 63

I dunno why she hit me.
Alcohol.
And Xanax and Klonopin and
the rest of the family.
Frustration with
death.
Knowing the chalk will be there
long after the detectives
and theories have gone away.
To die
four thousand two hundred and eighty one times.

The family.  The totems to power
an engine capable of collapsing stars.
Constellations winked out of existence
with a sigh and a "cheers!"

The "what if"s
tapped
from the end of the sound,
rattled bones,
against garbage can bodies.
Interned and buried
still breathing.
Your mistake
was
leaving us alive.              Footnote 4A56: storytelling trope #830

No one ever said you have to kill yourself
at once.  Rules are made to be broken.  Paws
for applause.
It is a strange rabbit hole
to pursue.
There is nothing beyond self loathing and escape.
To be afraid of embracing yourself
is fractal.
To understand that you cannot be
is torture.
To understand that you should not be
is light.
To understand that you are
is power

to leave constructs behind.
Water is wet.
The wind blows.
Stone is stony.
Leaves are fibrous.
Fire is fluid.
Sadness is absence and so is happiness.

There once was an all knowing all being that made an awl.

To live long enough to see the world end.

How many times should one die
before


                                        Halt.

                         

Smoker 62

Waiting for McCourty to show.
The old itch for crack.
And still wondering if he's dead or not.
It is kind of funny.
Watching someone self destruct & when.
Guestimations are a gas.
I do wonder shaman theory,
the idea that there is one in every village.
What happens when two arrive
in the same?

Can they be married?

Or maybe one's powers cancel the other's out
the same way streetlights can mute
beacons in the night sky.

Or maybe
the way fireworks can deafen to the point
sight is the only way they can be conjoined
and thereby render
soap for the masses.

The tug and pull and ... have you seen the shadows move?

Ah, what does it matter.

We all die.  Visions are a prank.  A genomic joke.

Laugh, live, love,
behind a cigarette.

Song To My Mother

If you had the years back
that you whispered about
across the faux granite kitchen table cleaned,
crosswords and papers and notes,
packets of artificial sweeteners,
phone pamphlets and applications,
half eaten toast and tea cups gone cold,
unfinished math problems and pencils,
the loose change unorganized and all
face up, broken earring and tabloids,
and oh so much mail to sort
would you break into the same pieces
the same repurposed tupperware
for your parts
waiting
for someone to reassemble you?

Wednesday Brunch Menu

Holding my pillow inhaling my own armpit funk
three days into abandoning showering to rest
to fuck
the option arrives to eat a breakfast sandwich
that does not include you.  I would rather starve.

Smoker 62

I know we stopped
a long time ago.
Scraping taste buds
to remove goo.
Please, let's not do
an entire pack
in one evening
regardless
of how manic
we are.