i could site you for public intoxication, he says
i'm not drunk, i say, incredulously (and over 30 in a college town)
well, he stammers
i'm just going inside, i say--gesturing. i just came out to see what the commotion was about, i say.
he doesn't say anything.
okay, thanks copper, i say.
he still doesn't say, anything.
i open the door with my key, turn.
have a great night, he says.
yeah, i turn to the light in the hallway, then back at his stupid face, yeah, i say.

i've heard that one, before.

have a great night, i echo, without feeling, as i hear the door hitting firmly against the lock.

have a great fucking night.

>
> it's a weird thing
> vomiting carrots
> and lettuce
> approximately 90% water
> false orange green moldy
> colored pinwheels rising
> the beta carotene
> on fire in my pharynx

overheard, not so, on the porch.

one word madness.

just like noon day wood chippers and dry heaving asphalt for best friends

meditations in chalk
and bones
grind me through your teeth
let limbs drop numb and
discus into the metal bucket
remains severed
no microscopic specimen
hot wet blood and guts pavement
trunked
dime sliced sinews show passages of time
render voice boxes and bowels redundant
i won't ask you again
gear me
through

rice spins beats. bat caught in dim light night hallway. stark marvel the vaingloriousness. the swoop. twirl. damp silent songs. guilt the whispered vespers. no desire to save it. set it free. stand stark glowing lights sing glossy caged things. tight spaces of dusk wings fluorescent reflecting sadness. the wrong way we.

enough band-aids
in the universe
to cover
this

if you've seen yourself rise over my back sacred and full of desire like a dragon of memory
felt yourself stuck in my throat like a forgotten apology
if the mirror ever reflected my self back to you when you were afraid to see
found yourself fetal and unconscionable inside my duodenum
if you've heard my voice in your dreams like your mother's old vinyl collection spread out on the floor beneath your redundant adolescent senses
if you've ever woken up and wished i was there like the rising smell of bread from a bakery you used to live near when you were happy
even if i was there
searched the dusky city streets in which you live like preying animals searching for the sound of our laughter sneaked between the walls of a dark room
if the touch of my skin has ever left you feeling like you'd rather jump from the tallest building than not know that sensation again
lusted yourself to my side when conscience and circumstance and time didn't apply
then

these days, she shuffles her feet when she walks as if she's slowly ushering out the last vestiges of summer with the brush of her soles against asphalt. endless miles of carpet. head and shoulders angled like flightless vultures for stalking. like she's afraid that if her feet come too far from the ground she'll be unloosed. that she'll suddenly get swept away.

radiator socks shameful filthy whore razor blade shifty cunt space spaced empty word dead bowl shape heart scrawl

between-words 

un 

words 

U+0020

me: where the fucks the cat?
me: you don't have a fucking cat.
me: swear to god, man, there was a cat here earlier.
me: that's not your cat. and it hasn't been here at all today.
[check the closets, the shower, the corners]
me: are you sure?
me: it's his cat.
me: right, i know, but i coulda sworn--
me: it's like that white dress shirt in your closet
me: uh huh
me: it belongs to someone else
me: but the shirt's there [check the closet] see . . . i mean, i could put this shit on and it'd be the white dress shirt that isn't mine
me: still isn't yours stupid
me: what? does that render it less real?
me: noupe. it renders it meaningless.
me: umm . . .huh?
me: ennit.
me: oh, fuck, there goes the fucking cat!
me: told you so.

if all she really wants in these mid-morning hours is a bottle of scotch. the desire to render her tongue and limbs as numb as her mind. it isn't even the useless moments of drunkeness that she's after, rather the longing for languor. liquid conversations with dead lovers and lost places. she wants to savor every last sting--to swallow the voices of ghosts. let the warm sinking spell spread slowly, distinctly, over and through her entire body like the soft fluttering lips of lovers.

no

that isn't what i meant to say. at all.

So, turns out that the disorder thing that I have is so rare that it "has an incidence of about 1 in 100,000 persons" and "less than 1% of all patients" have the particular version of the disorder that I have.

That makes me special, right?

Man, I'm trying to laugh about it all.

Seriously, no kidding at all, I'm a mutant.

That totally rocks.

inside a tin-can

before we make love
he always takes out his ear
i wonder how that feels
muffled bodies moving in the dark spaces between
stifling ache
like trying to kiss through the bedsheets
leaving nothing to call out when we finish
open empty mouth on mouth
sucking the other in
we use hands and skin
orgasmic eyes make loud noises
in deaf rooms

Lina turns silent syllables over her tongue like hard candy. The world shifts unexpectedly, she knows, when these moments begin. When she can't stop thinking every thought, every word in her mouth and head, in German. These days, she only dreams in English. All those hard ugly As rush out like fire for oxygen. But in the morning, when she asks him to bring her a glass of water before he leaves for work, she can't get the words out. Turns up the W sounds for Vs and tosses her hands frustrated at the thick foreigness of her own voice. Es tut mir Leid, the German mouth almost shouts. Es tut mir Leid. Es tut mir Leid. Es ist immer das erste Zeichen. Sie weiß. Dieses bewegen Sachen schrecklich falsch. Sie erhält wieder verloren.

gray evening blur colors outside windscreens between inside out eyes scan landscapes making pretty pictures when fingertips click digital landscapes hard drives full country road dust we eat gravel remains sweat tires eat earth we kill the rabbit sacrifice the bird sick the street sky night turn lights turn home no barns no perfect summer middle western sky run to chop off fast feet dark rooms reformat the card stole the souls we killed the rabbit and the bird

'angry gin'