Friday, January 8, 2016

Uber

extreme kind driving
aimless in Texas. sand
in the cracks of the seats. sand
in the soles of his shoes. sand
in the whites of his eyes.
There was not much white
to find. Red veins like
red dirt roads sprawling sclera.
Pupils pulsing, darting from
white wall
to alarm clock
to pile of vomit on the linoleum floor.
a homecoming. a black suit. a best friend

already in the ground. 

Funeral

For three long weeks
my grandmother’s mother screamed
at night because she thought she was swallowing
her teeth and because she believed
in hell.

I do not remember her
eyes open, but I remember the
way the cool white skin of her arm
felt on my clammy fingers as I knelt
next to her, trying to look sad
(not scared)
right before the older
cousins took me upstairs and taught
me how to play hold ‘em.

I first knew I would die
three hours later
in an On-Tap in Medina
watching popcorn fall out
of my uncles hand and onto
the floor like a rose
into a hole. Not sure
if the tears
in my eyes were
for her, or
for me.


(fir/la)st

Stadium lights hum
songs from far
away, like dancing after dinner,
falling forward, a black
eye, the ottoman.

I can
see Michael running
backwards. I can
feel his blood under my
fingernails. I can
wash it, but there is always
red.

I spin
or rather, everything else
spins. The stadium 400
yards away. The incessant
ticking of a wrist watch,
unattached sitting on
the bench next to the creek
bed.

Cheer’s led by
Go
pretty girls who
Fight
are the same age as I was
Win
the first time my brain betrayed me.

I wade into
the water. Whistles
echo off the field,
around the trees,
inside my ears.
My boots are filling.


Motel Nativity Scene

Motel Nativity Scene

A bald headed girl sits driver-side, bored of waiting rooms,
watching paint curdle and flake, bits of words falling
like snow, off of an illegible
plywood sign. A neon light which
reads “ O Vacancy” buzzes in the window.
It kicks inside her and she remembers how
the first thing she thought of was how the the fresh ink that
curved around her bellybutton would stretch and how
the first thing he thought of was how fast he could get
four hundred thirty seven dollars and if there was tax
on things like that. She had been here before. But she did not notice
 the plywood,rotting, She did not hear the sign buzz, “A classy
place, because we are going to remember this forever”  His voice was
soft and convincing, like his skin as it pressed against hers. The same voice
she hadn’t heard, the same skin she hadn’t felt, since she told him
the things that the pastor said, “You’re so young” and “You know that is
a sin” and “Everything that happens in this world happens
at the time God chooses.” He and God must have disagreed
on that. So she carried it away. Away from Herod in a grease
stained wife beater, with a temper to match. There would be
no star to guide her and she had never met a wise
man in her life. He seemed wise once
when he used to run his hands through her hair. Hair she left in a pile
on her sister’s kitchen floor, so that she could see
where she was going and get his feel off of her head.
A bald headed girl sits driver-side, looking down at her stomach
peeking out of her shirt, his name sprawled there
warped and barely legible.


Two weeks overdue/One month after the fact

It is not cold metal, but there is
a weight sitting in the middle of the room
pushing down on the frayed grey carpet
in your bedroom, pulling down
the small twin bed we squeeze in,
A sinkhole sinking
on and on.

Wet black marks on the grey
pillowcase. The two of us (a possible
third) sink in silence, knotted organs
tightening with every white, dry day.
Sinking from crust to core
from night to day
from home to home.

The date on my watch
has not changed in
what feels like weeks (time
moves slower when you are
sinking). The second hand
ticks in place of drips.
Sinking, waiting for

the bloody (or the) carnage.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

A-FIb

They drilled six holes
into you and deflated your lungs.
Strong lungs. The lungs of a man
who quit smoking when he was twenty-two and ran
on the elliptical for an hour every day
before work. They drilled six holes
into you and I watched you fall
for the first time. Eyes adjusted to that machine glow.
Watching P-Waves  grow short and then tall, not even knowing
what P-waves are. That was the first time I saw you fall.
I would see more than I cared to that summer. Your bare ass
hanging out of a hospital gown, Your hands shaking
as they carried you out on a stretcher, the time
you could only make it up three stairs.


There was blood inside of you. Not where
it was supposed to be, but somewhere
in the middle. So I listened to Tunnel of Love. I remember
when I told you I hated Tunnel of Love. You said you loved
Tunnel of Love. So I listened to Tunnel of Love on the way home
and I cried. The way you cried
when you apologized, as if you could have done anything
about anything. It’s weird to see your hero
cry. Even weirder to hear your hero
died. If only for a second until
they shocked him back to life.


So I sat with you. The way you sat with me
in all those waiting rooms, every two years
when our family would get a little bigger. The way you sat with me
in a sold out Conseco Fieldhouse while we sang every
word and laughed at the drunk girl in front of us
throwing up in the aisle. The way you sat with me
in the car that day they showed that suicide
prevention video at school and you picked
me up because I couldn't stop my hands
from shaking. You sat with me.
So I sat with you.


I watched you fall the summer
before my senior year. Then I saw you
rise. Your hands
trembling. Your heart
racing. Your legs
shaking. But standing.
I watched you rise the winter
I interviewed for my first job. I watched
you rise. and I rose with you. The way
you've always risen for me.

Monday, December 29, 2014

Sitting In The Meeting on the 1st Floor

The automatic hospital doors groan
revealing wasted eyes
landing on me
where I sit on my hands
in the waiting room. I can smell
the news on his breath.
He has been leaning
on a menthol kiss
in the parking lot. It is
the one thing
keeping him off
the floor.

Derby

Leading Lady falls
while we are watching from the infield.
Drinking dirt julips in strangers suits and ties.
Grace is crying. The ladies with the birds
on their heads would always get more attention
from the mud faced man. The one that she loves.
Covered in dust and cigar ash. That must have fallen down
from the box seats with the rain. Only cigarettes breathe down here.
Piles of white tickets, clutched and then forgotten
with the flash of a bulb. Black numbers adding up to
bus fare at best.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Melt


He was off
going 45 on the freeway
Not fast, but faster than you

You, at the door.
You, a glacier.
His tongue once reached
towards you, and stuck.
But he was not prepared
for your long winter. He pulled hard
heard the pop, smelled the blood.
Spitting red and choking
on taste buds.

You floated up the stairs
You, warm and beginning to melt down
the drain. You dripped.
He drove.
Not fast, but faster than you.

You in the tub
You, a pool
His tongue flopping
like a fish.

From a Brown Street Bathroom


A dreamcatcher floats
in a piss stained bowl. It did not catch my dreams
but it caught. Love
with no consequences. No 437 dollars.
I need to flush.
Instead I am craning my neck, so that I can see
myself in the mirror without standing up. Because I can hear
the band without getting off my couch. I can lock the door, say goodbye
without opening my mouth. But I cannot seem to pull the trigger.
Walk back down the seven mile hallway, past Bill’s smoke
cloud wall or Megan’s moans, to climb into a bed
covered in torn down posters from the seventh
grade, ripped and wrinkled, pull them over my head.
Put the period back in its place.