{willow trees and codeine.}

i like the truth. i like it when it's hard to take. the truth i know presently, and have know for some time, is that cheap red wine will fuck anyone up. i laugh at people who drink wine like juice. like it's kool-aid. wine will hand your ass to you at night, and your brains come morning. and cheap red wine will make you realize that because of your poverty, tomorrow isn't just another day, it's the day of your crucifixion. it's the poor man's burden. you can't bounce back.

i just ate some pasta, about eighteen green olives, and a teaspoon of codeine "elixir". i'm forcing myself into sleep. and if i die tonight, let it be known, i want no funeral. just to be buried underneath that willow tree on conneaut avenue. i know it's someone's front yard, but that tree and i had a moment once. it was four in the morning and raining, and i'd lost both my shoes somehow. we held each other and wept. i couldn't begin to tell you the circumstances that led to that point. i just know that we'd loved each other, as i've taken to loving inanimate objects. finding it to be emotionally safer.

this is some life to be living. i've been told to live it like a cancer patient. there are many people i have loved. who don't call. or who i've never told i love them. all the things we'd like to say, "so what oh well," to. but as far as i can tell, this is fucking all there is. so i'd better make the best of it.

{acidophilus.}

pulling my glasses off to rub my eyes in frustration. i remember i put makeup on today. i don't know why. i just feel like it sometimes. like painting my face. the notion is so strange to me that i enjoy it. and often wonder who's idea it was to add colour to particular places.

how many times have i walked down that hill and taken my clothes off in sub zero weather. calling out to no one and crying to myself i'm asking for help. not to anyone in particular. and had someone walked past and offered to lend a hand or call the police, i would probably freak out and start running. apologizing profusely as i sped off. the whiskey has found me again. and on my walk home, listening to music that i know pleases, i wrote your name in the untouched snow with my shuffling feet. i stepped back to admire my handiwork. later down the street i spelled an abbreviation of my own name. which also pleased me. and the entire way back i drew curly-ques in at least fifteen stranger's front yards. it was delightful. but now i'm home, and have recently eaten another tuna melt and some acidophilus. which is good for your intestines. i've been perpetually nauseated. which makes me think i am terminally ill. and have been attempting to take my thoughts captive a bit better. sometimes when i go to sleep i dream about how i might kill myself, and how beautiful it would be, aesthetically speaking. or i think of the day i'll end up in the state home, and wonder who will visit me. i don't know why i dwell on such things. but i do believe these thoughts depress me, so i'm trying to avoid them. i'm going to take a bath now. as this is part of my pre-sleep routine. tomorrow i'll wake and forget that i drank the night before. but will remember that a handsome man referred to me as "cool." and i don't see why i should care. just leave me alone.

{anything you say, baby.}

okay. this is what it all boils down to. i feel anxious. and very. very. cold. someone come visit me. but let me warn you, it's relentlessly frigid here, however, my warm heart and spirits will compensate. that and all the booze.

while driving dangerously down a snow covered road the other day, lacking the ability to see clearly out my windshield, and almost running over some strange man who thought it was a smart idea to walk in the middle of the road instead of on the sidewalk, i made a pact with myself to avoid public whiskey drinking at all cost. you see, whiskey and i are like abusive lovers. i get angry sometimes and start pounding down shots, and before you know it i'm drawing pictures of accordions and giving them to people i think might become my friends. this is why i don't make friends.

so i'm walking home and singing whatever song is playing on my headphones, thinking about how all the expensive yards i'm passing look nice when covered in lots of fresh snow. they look good enough to take a nap in. so i lie down in someone's well groomed lawn, and watch the clouds overhead gently float past the tops of trees. it's the loveliest thing i've seen in a long time. i hum along to the music, and puff away at my cigarette, which is starting to make me nauseated. standing up, i toss the smoke, and head home.

the next day i experience no hang over. i am never ever hung over, which is nice, but it also enables me to be a drunk more often than i could ever want. oh well. the moral of the story is that whiskey and i beat the shit out of each other, and in the end whiskey always wins. when i go to the bar, whiskey always seems to whisper in my left ear, "baby, you know i only hit you cuz i love you." and i inevitably drink more of it. more accordions are drawn. less friends made. i know that vodka really loves me. much more than whiskey ever could. but when we were together, vodka and i, it got old after a while. the relationship became bland, and i was always spending so much money on it, and vodka never even batted one beautiful green olive. but i know that it loves me more than words could ever explain. even more than red wine. who's bitter, cynical, yet warm qualities, always brought out the most romantic side of me. but after a time it was all just about sex, and i began felt so cheap. i don't know. and don't even get me started on beer. talk about sloppy disasters. and it made me feel bloated for days.

i'm going to the bar now, with my heart set on telling vodka that i want to get back together. but i know the moment i enter the door whiskey will be there eyeballing me. offering to warm my insides. and i will inevitably give in to its sharp, biting passion.

{yeah. i'm watching. and you don't know my name.}

is that unfortunate
will i ever find the ones to live with.
why am i talking to myself.
all the time. and writing
things about how i'm
fucked up or something.
silly. that's stupid.
i don't play games.
and i don't
mingle.

{weird among the weird. drunk among the drunk.}

you just ain't right.
and you can't stop drinking.
why do you say that

like it's a bad thing.

they almost made me cry today.
almost broke down.
but right now i'm thinking about boys and booze.
efficient alcoholic.

i love my life
stop kidding yourself.
at the bar
i sit in front
of my own beautiful ocean
it beckons in Burgundy
it calls to me in thick copper coloured liquids.
and the blood in these veins flows clear
and inebriates those who drink it.
no one ever has.

along this sweet shoreline
find me bobbing on the surface
some times drowning
on dry land
but always basking.

even when it pulls me under
and kicks me in the teeth
until i'm screaming.

{you know who you are.}

you had better keep writing.
or i'm going to find you.
and beat your ass...

{truly.}

at night i lie in a grey scale room looking to the left, out a window. on my back, i listen to headphones. eyes open i imagine my beautiful brothers dancing under aphotic, murky water laughing. while milky streams of light course across their taut young bodies. so full of little fleshy facets.

i fall asleep and dream. i am watching a family of whales swim across the sky, subtly aglow with shades of orange and pink and turquoise. i am lying in an endless marshland, very sparsely vegetated. somnolently floating on my back. and the whales moan a mournful harmonious tune as they drift towards the west with the seagulls. several stars present themselves in the great expanse.

sometimes i go home and rub my father's feet. he is a tired man. i clip his nails and sooth his calloused hands with lotion. with fingertips i massage his temples. my palms lie flat against the parietal bones of his skull. and my fingers gradually make their way along the temporal plates. soon enough he is sleeping, and i admire the manner in which the sun has broken down his face. his eyelids puffy, wrinkled. and underneath them remains the china blue.

i imagine myself older. going grey, my skin losing hold of the bones. i lie down with my mother. put my right arm around her, and say nonsensical, whimsical things to her, until she says that she is tired. we are wrapped in down blankets. she smells like her own skin, and i remember being very small, smelling her slips when i missed her. the shade of her lipstick.

i picture my parents underwater dancing and kissing each other. their bodies are old, scarred, and filled out. they are dancing underwater.


at night sometimes i pray for myself. not to be so disenchanted. not to be so sour. i begin to understand the biology behind family. the desire for it. and why not create something that loves you back. beyond biology. when they are gone. when i leave them. and every day will be like having hands in boiling water. i'd like not to be so disillusioned. don't let me stop writing. because during the dissatisfaction of days a fool sometimes sits outside embarking on specific delinquent thought patterns. sparked by unsubstantiated feelings of loss. and allowing the presumed bad deck of dirty cards to be taken in gusts gradually. timely winds devour. one by one, or handfuls, all the same. and the witness stares passively ungratified. at times, frustrations well up right behind the eyes, as they dance like unaffected leaves down the red brick roads. and pining, i do nothing. seeking the still and quiet voice, i do nothing. and so at night i lie in the bed i've made for begging saying please. don't let me die of nothing.

{family ties.}

I made
you
and I
can destroy
you

{drinking harder in our own personal dimensions.}

self placement
there you go.
skinny somewhere town.
you've got that grin again
a snide sideways smirk.
like you know something i don't
like the ghost of true alcoholism
has transcended up on you.
your cranium tilts forward
and you look at me
from the tops of your eyeballs.
i can almost see a sliver
of your off-white set of teeth
slipping though your upturned lips
when you smile like that
i know that you could watch me die
and get over it.
i know
that really
we are strangers.

and in the dismal dingy here
i can smell your breath
in my left ear
come crashing down
on the tender kidneys within.


i start to think-
on average-
how unfortunate are we really-
as individuals.
and how does time impact decisions.
or desire.
trying. swaying hips and pointing fingers
to and at the rhythm of the world

i fold.


(+)


{good form.}

the beauty of secrets is silence.
but i
can't ever
seem to keep mine.
they form delightful fortitude
in the
forefront of my
brain
lying comfortably shallow for a time.
gradually they force their
way up
into the crust
of my mind.
make a home of my eye sockets
i see nothing else.
and my tongue
becomes their doormat.