self-loathing, buttercup

my face

looks the color

of ash

I am leaking mucus everywhere

my voice is a chorus

of dying things

I wonder why

anyone

comes near me.

conversation #9

misanthropy is an art

the school hallway tiles listen
better than a therapist's couch
I'm forever talking to myself
"Goddamnit, where did I leave... car keys?"

the people I tell off in my head
are always charming conversationalists,
mouths unhinged in rebuttal to my
stinging insults
two weeks too late

sometimes I sing them
a swan song
to break the monotony

I swallow bitterness always
with water from a fountain

On things less appreciated

Sugar pumps through my veins
but I breathe
effortlessly now
I used to complain a lot.

I switched the TV off
I hate that demonic
talking box
I used to complain
about having dinner with my family every night
until I moved across the country.

I gently cover my seeing eyes
protecting them from
some unlikely doom
I used to complain
but I walk and my
knee caps don't crunch
I type and my
finger joints don't grind
My blood is so wonderfully
well-contained
I used to complain
about wearing my snowboarding helmet
until it saved my life.

ack ack ack

my vices are catching up to me
my bike tires are full of goat heads
walking along traffic jams bound
to a little red square and a white
paper tree burning leaves pop
music into yellow dollar tree
headphones bobbing bandana
skinny thighed chicken walker
full of david foster wallace and
cs lewis and xtx and french fries
she's on a—roll, oh my oh me

i really absolutely dislike you
because when your stars and nebulae
all align in the most triangular of ways
you see it all with a
blue ribbon pinned to your sweater
sweet heart
speaking your mind
doesn't make you intelligent
deciding which tracks
to delete from your mp3
doesn't make you

guest poem: like firewood and stuff

anger is for breaking things.
when things need to be broken
then anger is useful.
if you want to fix something
you should use shame.

Barentsburg

Desert under permafrost
vistas blank of human trace
enfold you wintry burg
orphan of distant histories

There were men here once
wrapped in itchy wool
lips chapped to bursting
flickers of homeostasis

Figures in concrete mural
the last of your villagers
backs straight faces firm
against a springless North

they survive
dennis says
no they don't
scoot insists and dennis
frowns and dennis
tells creepy stories about
how he killed a cat called cody
but dennis cannot remember when
he hired steve as he shows us a picture
of a human heart and points at valves
saying stints, stints, stints
while i am pulling stunts

cold thursday night

sometimes

me and the internet

can talk for hours

the TV is gone,

I notice

which is strange

(I think we had a TV)

my self confidence lies

at the foot of the bed,

asleep

I consider calling it a night too.

isolation tastes

like alcohol.

WONS4PK - recent writing not very poetic

I was always convinced that

"She Belongs to Me"

was written about yours truly

"She never stumbles/ she's got no place to fall"

hah hah, mere mortals

underwearing quick run to

the computer up the stairs

quick fall

bricks a place to fall - apparently, Bobby D

shit ow shit shiiiiit

my big toe has shed skin

but sadly not much like a snake at all

cool and complacent of course

now positively hissing like

Terb Wons the king of prom fallen off a bike

hit hit hit my arm

proving gate-control theory

bandaged-up in-tight foot slides into a

black shoe and I say

'Damnit, fates'

ego check

check check plus

Mata Hari in a blanket with sleeves

Snuggies
are
hospital ball gowns

I prefer to wear them with
nothing
underneath
and one shoulder slipped out
like a fallen bra strap:
a wardrobe malfunction
for wolves in sheep clothing

I readjust my glasses,
set teeth against my lower lip
like small white almonds
and pick up my dog-eared copy
of Lolita

a femme fatale to the end