thank god the holocaust is over

I was trapped the entire presentation
behind your fat, bald head.
It obscured the nervous voices
with its shiny, awkward bulbousness.
I considered writing an ode
to phrenology
to shoe polish
to new marbles
to hypoallergenic dogs
but i ultimately concluded that this would be
a waste of time.

a starry night's lament (a work in progress)

it is the absolute worst thing
to be left on a wall
and told that you remind people of heaven...
to be gawked at amazedly
or gazed over coolly
and declared beautiful in your surreal completeness

i loathe that reverence.
i loathe this entirety.

what about this frame?
its smooth, ornate organicness that strangles with its patience
look how gorgeously it imprisons me!
or notice those exotic breasts displayed on the left,
the melting field that beckons to the right
i insist- worship them, instead

*sigh*

i wasn't always like this, you know
not an escapist's window in manhattan,
not a magnum opus waiting to be stolen or burned or to fade

i was once an impassioned brushstroke,
a mess of hues on a makeshift palette
yearning for the sensuous touch of a knowing hand

(he'd apply me gently to an eager canvas
and make masterpiece of my naked potential)

but we foolishly long for such things in our uncertain youth
-such wholeness and perfection and fame-
when in truth, there was no greater satisfaction
than to be the blurred vision of a madman,
spilling drops of you across his lap and chest
as he tires to capture the view that no one sees

.it is so much better to be a thought than a thing.

you know...
if i spin with all my intensity
perhaps i could implode, instantly
tearing all of my facsimiles from those hollow dreamers' books,
freeing every stagnant citizen of arles,
taking the final, brilliant bow of a bursting supernova!

and the white walls fall barren
my adoring pilgrims w(o/a)nder on somewhere else

and all that prevails is the longing shade of blue

the only one you need
to create
Night

curriculum

we need to learn how to live in our bodies
that no science can make more time
how not to love beyond our limits
how not to write beyond our words


but
(a shame)
no one has ever taught me
how to be,
how to stay

Ignorance is wanting something else.

contractions

i'm too sleepy for the full treatment my anxieties deserve, so here's an obnoxiously abridged version:

For the first time in my life, I feel academically powerless. I've never believed I just couldn't handle a semester the way I do right now. Challenges keep piling up, and I keep postponing them because I'm afraid that they are impossible. Success isn't happening.

Summer is the cruelest motivation. Especially since my summer nights will be as stressful as they will be unforgettable.

I'm afraid that I am loving too many people out of convenience.

and that's all i'm up for voicing at the moment. good night, all.

Sometimes I wonder how much of my being in love is just my being stubborn.

Love Song: I and Thou

Nothing is plumb, level or square,

the studs are bowed, the joists

are shaky by nature, no piece fits

any other without a gap

or pinch, and bent nails

dance all over he surfacing

like maggots. By Christ

I am no carpenter. I built

the roof for myself, the walls

for myself, the floors,

for myself, and got

hung up in it myself. I

danced with a purple thumb

at this house-warming, drunk

with my prime whiskey: rage.

Oh I spat rage's nails

into the frame-up of my work:

It held. It settled plumb.

Level, solid, square, and true

for that one great moment. Then

it screamed and went on through,

skewing as wrong the other way.

God damned it. This is hell,

but I planned it I sawed it

I nailed it and I

will live in it until it kills me


-Alan Dugan

a reason to lose eloquence

there's something wrong with the vernacular here.

this is not "growing apart"
this is not "out of sight, out of mind"
this is not even "hoping you'll take the hint."

you see
to get a bullet out a chamber
you must pull a trigger.

it is not an act of God; it is not a side effect of time.
it is you
it is your neurons
it is your finger

an order
deliberate and willful.

or
it is you.
it is your hand.
it is our ledge.
and i'm over it.

i wish all my friends could be my friends with the fervent intent
with which you are not.

never underestimate what one man can awaken.