broken into a million beer bottle pieces. shards of consideration. little flecks of foam all around their faces. blood streaming down his neck. on my shirt. me whipping people off each other. calming. holding. restraining. i was like a hurricane of centeredness. i’ve been pinned to the swimming pool. held under the river. bloated and floating like a corpse of a deer. dangling from a tree. snap off a toe bone. rotate it in your fingers. feel the fuzz. not as in the cops. but as in the corpus christi. as in the middle managers of america. as in the broken dreams of corporate shareholders. as in the wild unencumbered screams of youth. peeing off hilltops. at sunset. in the fading light. the gathering stormclouds. the crows are coming in. they can smell the battle coming. the way we all hold hands and jump. up to heaven. inside a cemetery.

instinctually. longingly looking backwards. like lot’s pillar of salt wife. i wonder if he was happier without her. to be rid of her incessant nagging. pulling at his shirt tails. frost peels layers of skin off our faces. once we warm up. by the fireside. in the orchard light. wiggling under heavy blankets in the winter. i could ask you the same. if you were still thinking about me years later. if you sat around writing sad poems. about what could have been. had the world worked according to our workings. instead of the other way around. but ive never missed you. that me is dead. ive integrated what i had with you into myself. my love of you is now my love of me. all the things i liked about myself. multiplied by a hundred. in loving. twisting. yearning. burning. like octopus glue. inky discharge on the bed. you fucked me and wrapped me in seaweed. entangling me with situations. ugly green lies of lust. breathe heavy. sounds like fingernails tearing away my skin. i dont mind. i enjoy the bleeding sometimes. the scars show my experience. i wear them like a badge of honor. you’re one to talk. so full of life-lines. spent and busted by the side of the highway. shoes discarded and suspended from phone wires in the street. in the neighborhood. we shot each other like street thugs. blasted a stone out from under us. beginning to get guilty. uglier and uglier with every passing transformation. instilling us with whiskey. home brewed mead. meanderthals.

their elegance is so hot. and intricate. its like snakes twined around an orchid. or a tulip tree. or a moose with snakes in its horns. broken off. still abandoned in short sentences. blistered from feeling too much of the road underneath us. it splits back down the coast. along the fault lines. of whose fault it is. yours or mine. let’s trace the whole thing back down to that earthquake of consciousness. the splitting headache of our love. the way the ground gave way beneath us, and the holy grail fell down into the bowels of the earth. but that greedy nazi bitch just had to have it. had to touch and hold it once again. she could have been something. indy could have loved her. but she was consumed by her greed. lost to the earth. the source of all longings. and fatherings of disgust. and disease. spilled. spewed from power plants. drinking leaves out of paper cups. spelling out our futures. locked into the formations left there

i’m an aquatic equation. i could follow you down stairs in the dark. i know my way well enough not to fall and become spittle. a lost lark of money. a fallen pitfall of black buster baskets. moments of shock trauma. missiles of good stuff. shooting at us. we bash them away. back into submission. i could kiss you. with a face like fire. fucked right in the eye socket. spilled out into the backseat. like glittering jewels and gemstones. your bag. your blood. your gleaming disappearing fortune. i could have loved you. but you died. right there while i was watching. its okay. its probably for the best. you’re a quick one. a quick way to die. and come back to me.

i am a great fan of the rat race. rat-faced fuckers. blocked out by listening. built on the shifting sands of time. shitting out small constipated calculations. of ways we ignored each other. well, no more. i’ve come home to roost. stay. stay with me quietly. we’ll go down together. into the underground. i am an extinguisher. i swish out the lights. i have fainted at the sight of my own bemusement. i am a darkly lit candle. a dork in high heels. a measurement of excrement. a light fueled by knighthood. a brush up against the arm of a beautiful girl. on the subway. telling me who i am. with her eyes. with her easy looking away. cows crowd around us. in this manger. with our baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. don’t forget me. don’t escape me. i’m a trapeze artist. swinging into your waiting arms. don’t desert me. don’t disable me with your stares. your leering cat-calls. your secret ass-grabbings in the dark. i’m a fluke. i’ll slip through the cracks. i’ve already gotten away from you. agile as you are. never catch me. never even see me. slitting you open from ear to ear. i’m an ice cream man. building a new home for myself out of popsicle sticks. abandoned by the kids in the neighborhood i service. they never needed me anyway. extracting ice cream from their brainstems. and pineal glands, as they are. i’m an ugly connoisseur. i’m all lips but no kissing. i could disassemble you with a stare. cut through all your clothes with the scissors of my insight. i keep nothing hidden inside me except sacredness. the holy place closed to all. a light within an acorn. a temple fortress inside a frog’s eye. i am uncharacteristic of this type of communion. with aliens and fish-women descended from the heavens. I could ask you the same thing. openly. and watch you deny it. it’s okay. i’ve been there too. i love you anyway. with your frog-tits and babboon eyes. i could caress your lizard skin and drink the duck-milk from your swollen glands. glasses. of emptiness. of hell-bent hard-driving. steering all along the wall of opposites. braking and breaking wind. broken-up cat fights. i am accessed by something else. more uncontrollable. more likable. like lichen. blighted. stricken. i’m a big pile of newspapers in your garage. waiting for you to recycle me. i can keep waiting. i’ve been here twenty years. it’s time to throw us all away. utnapishtim was the original source for noah. sailor who saved the sea itself. the throne flowers of immortality. the boon at the bottom of the ocean. i could be that to you. or to myself. or to two of my selves. dopplegangers. it’s okay. they’re with me. let them be. pass by us with no dis-ease. you could learn a thing or two from splitting yourself off. into your thinking and your longing. and then sit yourself in the middle and watch the conversation they two may have. over your head. monkey in the middle. i could crumble. it would be the best thing i’ve ever done.