more than when you tried

oh darlin i aint never heard
nothin as sad as you
cryin out in drunken pain

yer cards close; not a gambler
but the mirror in yer voice
shows yer hand

babe i get why yer hurtin
ya dont gotta say it out loud
& i guess neither will i

a piece of this messll always be
yers, love o mine
didnt work so hard to walk now

maybe someday sing it out loud
right now im keepin yer secret
yer keepin mine

dig through this dirt
tell me what treasure ya find
deep in the hard clay

truth is heart o my own heart
i love yer sine wave
ups downs & all

go silent if ya need
be right here waitin
when yer voice comes back

it hasn’t been my day for a couple years

a partial list of sins &
character defects: i
have this thing for blasphemy
i love the smell of money
highly susceptible to boredom
and leather
and coercion
and shoplifting

i like hurting people
but i hate it when they cry
take it like a man, man
blood tastes better than tears

i have a gnawing hungry fetish
for unattainability
at any given moment
i’m in love with two (2) people
that i can’t have

i like control
i want control
when i get control
i want to give up control
and be controlled

like a shining substance
in a lustful glass vial
to be consumed

i hate
that manic pixie airhead bimbo shit
right up until i’m Wanted
& then i’m painting my eyelashes
to improve my batting average

i think i’m smarter than i am
i think i’m stupid

my heart is an anvil
i want to forge you into steel
and you are made of glass
and in a way i’m not sorry at all

when i die
make sure my tombstone reads:
devoted friend
shameless flirt

i could honestly really use an energy drink right about now

to thee, my dear friend
i do indeed dedicate
this delicious doughnut
it’s a good ‘un
they overfilled it
just packed the damn
thing so fulla buttercream
soft fresh sweet
w/chocolate icing

the poet shall smash
the hell out of this treat
hungover, low blood sugar
clearly quitting drinking
didn’t stick that well
lo i am attempting
to stave off this attack

y’all ever get this way
an emotional incursion
not panic or anger no not
really, more defined
by the quantity of the FeelsTM
than their specific flavor

new catchphrases:
i’m just so tired
it’s just a lot
i just dunno man
just exactly what the fuck is wrong with me

idk man it’s just a lot
here
have a doughnut

american sadness pt i

city girl goes to the public library
to scribble down a few lines
shelves of books a shelter & i’m–
i’m so scared. see i read a lot
of contemporary american lit
& they say it better
but i’m nothing if not free & brave
enough to fuck it up

i never cared much before; i turned
up my nose & on my heel i said
how sloppy how shitty how faux
like i knew anything and now
how beautiful how literally awesome
that i’m allowed, that i am free
to draw these shitty flags
& stand on them in my dirty shoes
half naked & reading this half-assed poem
even the shitty artists are allowed
even the shitty people are allowed
that’s why it feels like home

my friend dave talks about freedom
like it’s got sharp edges & i never
really grasped them until i took a break
from wasting my liberty in bars
from shit talking and abusing
all of us in one
shot of well whiskey
and, well, another, and another
before grabbing the mic & screaming
about suburban rage but
i grew up safe and not everyone did
i yearn for discomfort & a reason
to feel this angry

enslave me i scream ready
to bridle my neck & jump
at the chance for a real frontier
even with the fear, perchance
the nightmare & we all know death
is not the end or it would be pointless
to crave it and beg it: just a new paralysis
we take ourselves so unseriously
we cry & run away
furiously grinning at strangers
with their blank kindness
when you’re here you’re family

when i’m here you’re paid to be my
deceased father my little brother
shooting up somewhere in lonesome oklahoma
where the wind goes sweeping over skyscrapers
& it takes a toll to stay on a good roll &
i look at the librarian who told me
read some spanish comic books
& see the brown eyes of
the twin i’ve never met &
my american heart tears into
a screaming sob: set me free
of this ribcage let me ride cowgirl
ride i’m aching for a real sunset
to fade me to black & a real gun
& a real enemy

but the real enemy isn’t animal vegetable mineral
it’s just how bad i want
how i’m told to want
how i’m trained to crave to desire to starve without
It
& if i could i’d assassinate this need
one good bloody shot to the back of the head

you give me permission
to want to need to break to scream to feed to read
it’s written all over me
it’s written all over me
a shout-out or a shootout
it’s written all over me
land of the free
home of the brave
it’s written all over me

waking up with that american sadness

half the audience left at intermission
because they only came
to support that one comic
who did a bit about cock & ball torture
and somehow made it racist
segueing into how he wants
to best gacy at murdering
and i’m the asshole who booked him

couple years ago i had time
to fill after a last-minute drop
so we did this piece called
“sometimes you try your best
& everything goes to shit anyway”
like let’s put a pin in my
terminal half-assery
but this time i really worked myself
half to death and here we are
anyway it was different every night
always improvised
and it turned out great every time

reprise: preface: introduction
i’m onstage fingerpainting myself
to a soundtrack of my drunk-as-hell friend
reading a poem and the paint
gets dusty as it dries
grin & bear it & wear it & share it
snapsnapsnapsnapsnap
reprise: i drew all these flags
to make a point i’m pretty sure got lost
under the spectacle but the spectacle
was kinda the point but who
the fuck analyzes art anymore anyway
realizing at a vulnerable moment
my stage name sounds like an ego trip
if i’m up there reading poetry
snapsnapsnapsnapsnap
dead silence someone please
make a sound play some music
get the boss in here or i might lose
my shit completely please i’m
begging you don’t
strand me out here without noise

the girl who hates being touched
runs backstage & throws her arms
around my smeared shoulders
fuck me i would burn the world
for her in that moment
jesus girl i’m about to weep
a whole river of melted flags
right onto your perfect fucking face
the room is green and i am
red white blue and grey
color theory y’all
mix em up and they turn
to marbled stone that cracks
when your skin moves
and i can’t stand still long
enough to be a heartbeat statue

cut & run but my sweater’s still
draped on a chair so i say yes
come pick me up
i say let’s
never speak of this again
he says why
does this all hurt so bad
both choking on our fumbled
Statements
freedom of speech
does not ensure courage
or eloquence

sometimes you do your best
& everything goes to shit anyway

organizational skills

i tell my best friend:
if you needed it, i’d give you a kidney
transfuse my blood
transplant my marrow
my heart my corneas my skin
whatever you need

this is super weird
but it isn’t a sex thing
like an emotional fetish
i guess

i love the idea
that part of me
will live inside of you
literalize the metaphor
organize our friendship

monica matthews mournfully messaging me

how dare you send me west
toward the mountains
installing your wistful dreams
like so much software
i may be a city girl
but i can drive hard
& i can climb

how to love someone:
learn them & outshine them
they’ll certainly be impressed
(this actually never works
but i’ve never read a map
better suited for)
expressing & navigating
the territory of total adoration

but here the terrain
outpaces me &
this cinderblock
box of comfort
cannot hold me
back oh hold me
back oh hold me

back in the olden days
facedown in the dirt
with a blow to the head i dreamed
flight & the city’s wilderness light
a tense conjugal prayer:
stars flew stars fly stars fall
i flew i fly i fall
i rose i rise i raise
flat on my back i
surfaced
i breathed i breathe
i breathe i breathe

i fled to weaker arms
i flee to strong shoulders
i’ll fly to the mountain & climb
tirelessly on bleeding feet
without outpacing
& sleep in the trees
below: your shrine
an aluminum casket
above: granite, pink quartz
& stars flying
& stars falling
& we fly
& we fall

turns out it was just modest mouse lyrics after all

fresh blood, fresh snow
sent screaming sober
dancing without drinking
is not the usual in this town
we cowboys are all desperate
for a new war or a new frontier
the plains are cold tonight
and we ride
sore hearts and eyes
searching for the last wild buffalo
it’ll look so good on instagram
i’ve got the filter picked out already
something good for low light
god it’s so dark out here
it’s so fucking dark out here

you can develop an immunity
to homesickness if you move fast enough
the hard part is slowing down
home is in the motion, the speed
sitting still you feel the fire
ants crawling over your soul
in the silence
you try to make out
the polychord of your tinnitus

no wonder we keep it loud
no wonder we drink to stay awake
no wonder we ride hard past dawn
and keep the guns strapped tight
no wonder we kiss strangers
no wonder we cry out; the sun goes quiet
we must have a song, darling
hand me that harmonica
and sing it one more time

uncool ways of decathecting

maybe the hands-on bruises
never faded & just slipped silent
under skin’s surface
like a necklace i’ll never remove
with a clasp i’ll never reach

the first boy i ever kissed
tried to kill his wife
some dramatic double suicide thing
with an insanity plea
& daddy’s lawyers bought him out
dodged that bullet
by diving into trenches
strangled out of breath
with nothing so inchoate as gas

loving these men is
writing a check
& signing in blood
please do me the honor
of doing me
& doing me in

i remember you told me
you like people
who fuck you up
i will hurt you now
if i recall correctly
that’s what you’re into

day four

and then last night i found myself
in family dollar
staring blankly at bags of chips
and seeing only objects
trying to imagine eating them
like chewing wet cardboard
sour cream and onion flavor

my friend who’s been to rehab
tells me don’t give up sugar
your body needs it detox is weird
but i’ve spent entire days eating cake
and i’d rather just keep drinking

so it goes tea with honey
honeycrisp apple
minneola tangelo
with its perfect scansion
i want to know
the exact meter of minneola tangelo
in poetic feet and electric inches
but not enough to look it up

shit hurts but the numbness is worse
people drink for all kinds of reasons
to forget
to feel good
to kill the pain
pretty sure part of my benders
is that the hangover blots out
novocaine numbness

he says, sometimes i like being sad
me too buddy
maybe that’s why it’s so hard to quit