THE CAKE IS A LIE

gonna lose it over something less ridiculous
even tinier than a man
tinier than your ideas about  my
“identity”
who I am
& who I oughta
scalp

an ant in my shoe
too much oxygen in the room
no bus fare
injustices that you don’t get
infants with knives for knees
somewhere near Beirut
time just ticking by
or
an elderly woman with flawless skin
& no children
& then

the kaboom.

I finally learned
how to kill
my God
with one small
taste
& you still think

it’s about you.

it’s easy to fuck people over when you push God aside.

2003: Topical Storm hits Hampton Roads area. Seems to only be focused on tapping shoulders outside of local ABC stores and leaving trails of empty packs of Monarchs behind. May need to take umbrella and extra lighter but otherwise no serious threats ahead.

2004: Storm picks up speed. The atmosphere reeks of Carlos Rossi and vodka even though storm seems to be losing weight at a disquieting rate.  

2005: Topical storm turns into full blown Slurricane. Most victims caught in her wrath are unfortunately left to cater to her whimsy, which usually includes chewing her prophetic spew and giving multitudes of shots and cigarettes. Despite her warnings, the Apocalypse still has not arrived. Where is her lighter?

2006: Topical Storm has destroyed most of Hampton Roads and leaving debris filled with broken bottles and police charges behind. No shame stone is left unturned. Maybe not wise to appease the storm with bottles of rum. Take umbrella. Proceed with caution.

2007: There appears to be a lull in Sarah’s destruction. Is it raining coffee or vodka?

2008: Slurricane Sarah picks up speed again but seems more controlled. She is only focusing her destruction on key areas, typically targeting one assailant in particular. This appeases the masses, all except this one man. She mostly smells of wine and vegan cheesecake these days.

2009: Momentum is picking up and all control seems to be lost. Slurricane Sarah is making her way to Detroit and is not turning back, she is singlehandedly destroying every other relationship in her path. Relentless, she knows no remorse. The horror.  Do not engage. Do not enable.

2010: This is the new way of the world. We must deal with this harrowing hurricane. She is out of control. She seems fueled by cans of PBR and inane chitchat. Whoever supplied the Four Loko will have serious explaining to do to the authorities. Armed forces are stepping in to intervene. Can they stop her?

2011: Authorities intervene. There seems to be a change in Slurricane’s course. Taking a fancy to a bearded youngin, she is dissipating. Hard to say if change is mostly due to penal codes or penis. Is this a new weather trend? Highs tomorrow: Sunny, 78. In other news, unnamed Bore-NAY-do disturbs no one in Colorado.

my God sits at the end of the bar with a splash of bourbon in his beard
smug smile smeared across his face as he mocks our idol worship
idle hands that worship professions
 the bar is where he finds (me)
chomps down pee sprinkled peanuts to help digest these
most earnest confessions
looking for bros to bang knuckles with
 dames to knock boots with
underage kids to shoot pool & the shit with
my God eats shit for a living & I can’t shake em
 he makes me want to drown myself in the creek
if only it was about 17 feet more deep & my snow boots
were caked in concrete
  for now
 I’ll drown myself in Colorado cold
 let the wind shake my bones on the long walk home
to nowhere that resembles heaven
 my God’s too busy fucking with more wasted souls
to notice my scrubbed palms raised in fraught prayer
 he mostly leaves me alone
these days, he mostly leaves me hanging by a string of 24 hour chips
between men with yellow nicotine lips
just dying to taste something as aged  as me
& women knitting the ends of their heartstrings into safer hats
these days I sit in awkward silence with foot over knee
& wait
& he
he mostly leaves me

when you have a moment
could you save me?
(wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler)
I would like you to replace him
I would like

 I would like something new to chase.

you look like my brother
 before his face was bloated
from all the booze & sleepless nights
when his future was bright
 full of un-claimed scholarships
& pickup basketball games
same gait, same patchy facial hair
pale, always searching for shade
he wore his pants & tees relaxed; yours a little tighter
but fashion has changed
you resemble his youth 
sketching the people you see
safe from the sun, buried under a canopy
of pine, pencil in hand, music in ears
quiet observer of life
I hang his drawings above my couch

you favor my brother
before he died
trapped in the depths of a coma
dreaming of a life denied
crippled by inhibition
& vodka sips
too much pride to ask for help
& much
 much too shy

you draw your desires; let them unfold
in pencil dust,  paint your wanted world
i’ll keep perfecting our picture with words
if I keep writing

 i’ll keep you both alive.

I broke the glass you made
that read
the alcohol made me confused
it was a lighthearted joke
about something I once said
when I had finished dribbling out
some nonsensical political sentiment
I could no longer contain
in my shrinking head

it’s just an object
it’s just an object
to be used

to hold water
I should be drinking more of
I drink too much coffee
& then I drank only borrowed time
& big huge 1.5 liters of really, cheap wine
now with my vitamins
I’ll see it in the sink
remember I’m thirsty
thirsty for so much of
& I’m glad it’s gone
really it reminds me
of all the times I blacked out
& said

I’m just an object
I’m just an object
to be used
not to be confused
with a person who said
can you help me?

you handed me a glass to remind me what I meant.

when I long for that purple pout
red smeared lips that smell like my father’s van
looks like I gutted a dog with my dull fangs
& he bled out everywhere but my pert mouth
 that no boys wanted sucking their tongues
 moist like a kitchen sponge
soaking up the empties, the glass table wreckage, the stories you hid
in the bottom of the boysroom toilet
all the creepy crawly toys in the attic winding on their own
Wild Irish Rose breath subverting your smile
cover my moans with your softening boner
grinning like the Joker gone absolutely batshit
I use to smell like oranges when I ate better
 you said I smell like a Friday night spent in a cinderblock cell
you say, “you look like hell, kid”
& I sure taste it
right before you shut the door
 leave me lying there, panties round ankles, skirt up to nipples
I can’t find my cigarettes
dreaming of  unconsciousness in the wet burial of an innumerable amount
of squirmy, slimy prospective whores
that will never come to fruition to see their mother frozen like a statue
but less graceful than stone smirks
less gracious than those perched warbling birds

sometimes I want to look like damaged goods
relive the glory days of being coveted
baked so hard I was fried like an Easy Bake Oven muffin
(they used to call me Easy Made Cummin)
smudge my eyeliner around the lower lashes
rouge on the cheeks to look beaten
like a retired boxer’s wife
like I’m drifting from outer space to populate your planet
meet me out in the middle of another territory’s orbit
I’ll be the one with the overfilled challis
&  jack-o-lantern face skulking in the wreckage
of ships I warbled at
two ships that should have just passed right by each other
 in the guiding lighthouse of the cruel, cold night

when I dream that way
when I notice I’m paused for more than thirty seconds time
daydreams of pipes & laughter &glasses full of amber colored ice
 (I’m a broken record in any given setting & all I hear is “Oh my my”)
Oh, and my God says
I just cover the broken chapped places with lipstick
moisten the tip with lemon water
grip the bottom of my dead brother’s sweatshirt
with white knuckling fingers that use to grip life with the same stiff posture
it’s sweet like rotting fruit in summer dumpsters
Oh, and my God says

i’ll never have to smell like roses again 

the awkward responsibility of comforting the grieving
my brother died yesterday & no one knows what to say to me
I’d rather they kept walking but instead I have a dozen dead things
to remind me that life is fluid
& my brother was taken out of that stream
by some big bottle-shaped bear
he’s floating in gastric acid, disintegrated to ash
in a cardboard box in my mother’s bedroom
I’m living in hell trying to form sentences to people
I’ve never talked to in my entire life
to say it’s ok, I’m fine, please, no more roses, they just die

when I lie still, when they go, the water moves inside my veins
muscles tense up, eyes shut to keep the dam from opening
 from flooding my bed
 that’s when it comes, the river keeps going even when we don’t
the words, the sorries, the regrets, the shouldas & couldas
 the pain of surviving the same affliction that killed him
drowning in sorrow I pray for the days when this bed was on fire
with suitors & drugs & reckless abandon
before I recovered from the illness we inherited

I welcome the strangers & their archaic behavior
of embracing the sisters who’ve parted too soon from their brothers
& are too far from their mothers for proper bereavement
I don’t want to face this
I don’t want to remember the disease that we came from
was what finally got him while I was here living
relieved of the obsession that left him a skeleton

I often dream I am finding my brother at night. 

I wake up so sad.

“ I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my mind. “

True Grit.

True shit.

I never thought I would make it past 25. 

Alcohol kills everything.