elephants' graveyard

i am on auto pilot;
legs taking tired steps,
pores and wounds
dripping sweat, blood, and lactic acid,
which are absorbed into the earth,
stumbling across dirt, to asphalt,
to sidewalks,  over welcome mats,
across beige tiles, down wooden stairs,
to a carpeted plain, which calloused feet
traverse, until they can't go no more,
and reach the navy blue fabric couch,
where splintered bones, and yellowed skeletons 
are scattered across the floor.

collapse.

my thoughts about the future have changed:

no longer thinking about
how much money
i'll need for cigs, credit card bills,
medicine, rent, fines, new shoes,
and moving to philadelphia.

no longer thinking about
what animal i'll have to kill
or plant i'll have to harvest
because empty stomachs
have stopped crossing my mind.
the same can be said about
personal appearance, and hygiene.

no longer thinking about
what could've been,
or what i could've done.
what doctor or shrink
i could have seen.

no longer thinking about participating.

no longer thinking,
just doing because
different parts
are shutting down
one by one by one.

wheezing, instead of breathing;
my lungs have become frayed nets
that are losing there ability to
capture oxygen
with each passing second.
with each attempted breath.

this is a personal experience,
which is why i have to go
alone, because this legend
is a reality.
it is a well kept secret
that each of us learn through
instinct.

the hazy glow
from a late night
reality tv show
about people competing
to be deep fried food masters
illuminates my mottled
grey skin; this is
the difference between
life and death.

i feel the sinews of my biceps
and the joints in my fingers
snapping like branches
under foot, as i check
my cell phone.

no new messages.
no missed calls.

i realize it's uselessness,
and break it by slamming
it against a wall
watching one utile piece
multiply into many dysfunctional ones.
all different shapes and sizes
now exposed to climate controlled air.
useless.

it's impossible to be perfect all the time.
it's impossible to make good on every promise.
it's impossible to not have regrets.
it's impossible to go back in time.
it's impossible to live forever.
but
it's possible to love.
it's possible to apologize.
it's possible to forgive.
it's possible to not be a shitty person for your entire life.
it's possible to change.
it's possible to live.

as i close my eyes,
i have one last thought:
i see a warm smile
slowly expanding across
your sullen face
that is unable to
stop the tears
tumbling down
your cheeks;
you kiss me on the forehead,
then my right cheek,
and finally on my mouth
with your saline soaked lips.
i wrap your body in my arms,
and squeeze as hard as i can
you into me,
me into you,
meld together
until we become one.

thank you for teaching me the definition
of love, meaning, and happiness
without the use of a dictionary and worksheets.

the wind will erase my footprints,
while the lions, dogs, worms, beetles, and vultures
erase my physical existence,
disassembling my anatomy
one bite at a time.

no one will know what happened to me,
but it won't be a mystery
because
all of us have to die sometime.

Homemade Books For Sale (Again)

I'm poor, and want to make it to Toronto. But I also want to start making books again for people if anyone wants to buy one.

Too tired to post all the details now, but will do so later today/tomorrow.

 here are some photos of a book made for Becca, called I Would Rather Spend My Night On the Phone With You Instead Of Hanging Out With Anyone Else.

Swallowing Your Own Breaths In An Attempt At Asphyxiation

You eat the first waterlogged words of the day for breakfast with a plastic spoon after they start to disintegrate into smaller and smaller particles in the small puddle outside the place you are currently living.

You wish you were your words, but instead use your fingers and the sunlight to make different shadow puppets that don't remind you of anything in particular, just dark blobs.

You should be a dark blob, sinking deeper and deeper into the ocean so no one can pick you out in the darkness.

Maybe then you'll be able to relate.

Or just develop a taste for seawater and allow it run down your throat.

Allow it to revitalize/corrode your vital organs so you can feel naturally happy for a moment, but only a moment.

Because you can't escape this shitty motel room life, which is why you are pulling your teeth out and carving statues out of them.

Carving statues of the people you aspired to be, but they are all coming out shitty, and unintelligible.

Broken.

You're not avoiding people, you just are scared to run a razor blade down the center of your skull because it would allow people to peek inside, which will make them hate you.

So you stitch yourself up with some neon green fishing line, and tell them what they want to hear because you're not in a position to give advice.

Because you can't even remember your own dreams, just random facts accrued from late night television, which are as useful as a hole punched into drywall to relieve the pressure that built up behind the center of your forehead.

And you want there to be a reason behind everything you're experiencing; there isn't.

So you rake the hot coals out of your eyes and accidentally set the entire world on fire.

Don't worry, everyone will be invited.

91513

You don’t want to go to work at your part-time job.

You want to lie on the couch all day covered in blankets, watching mind numbing daytime game shows, and popping k-pins in the fetal position hoping a giant boot crashes through the ceiling flattening your body.

Hoping it twists, grinding your bones into the broken couch parts, for good measure.

Skin and bodily fluids oozing under rubber.

Five minutes pass.

And nothing happens.

You decide against taking a shower and brushing your teeth.

You decide that smelling like shit and having bad breath will help you avoid social interactions.

You decide that having social interactions when you smell like shit and have bad breath proves to strangers that you have no inner-drive or initiative to do anything important ever.

It’s important for other’s to understand this because it feels good to be honest.

You want to be alone, but you don’t want to be by yourself.

You want to be able to do something amazing, but “something” and “amazing” are such broad, general terms that are too complicated for you to understand.

So you put your blue polo shirt on with the company logo on the sleeve, and arrive at work ten minutes late instead.

Upon your arrival, you become a different person who is constantly smiling, laughing, and taking an interest in other people’s lives by asking questions about their jobs, sons, daughters, grandkids, pets, sports teams, vacations, and church functions while slicing ham, cheese, and/or salami.

Just another version of yourself to hate.

They talk and talk and talk and complain and complain and complain as you nod your head.

Always ending the conversation with, “Have a great night!”

Not really giving a shit.

More concerned with the tools you have at your disposal to kill yourself (slicers, ovens, knives, deep fryer, saran wrap + a full bowl of potato salad.)

Only to shut the lights off to go home and do it all over again tomorrow.

The daily $8.05 grind.

Teaching you to talk to yourself, because on your shift you receive no new messages.

She told you to wait because she needs time to think.

And the books you took out and studied to interpret those words have left you with a bad feeling that can be compared to a stomach ache that expands to encompass an entire body.

So you’ve started destroying yourself, instead of being patient because you are a fucking idiot proving everyone who has called you smart and talented wrong on a minute to minute basis.

Which is making you forget about how fucked your life really is until tomorrow.

Then you watch a documentary on people living in the sewers of Bogota, Columbia and realize the whiny pussy you actually are.

And how little you actually matter.

Always second guessing the words coming out of your mouth in comparison to the emotions you’re feeling.

 

 

 

"What are you doing next Saturday?"

I will probably ruffie my own drink and/or blow some scopolamine into my own face so a random stranger(s) will touch my body in inappropriate places, before he/she/they empty(s) my bank account, and clear(s) my upstair's bedroom of every personal belonging I have ever owned. Once he/she/they are done,he/she/they will leave, and I will pace the streets of the Heights for the rest of the night, and ask anyone I see if they know where the nearest death squad is currently located.

Because I'm the worst multiplied by a billion squared.

.

After We Hung Out, I Smoked A Cigarette, Watched A Drunk Woman Get Arrested, And Felt Alive. (Bullshit!)

Every time you complain about the way you look while staring into the bathroom mirror, I am pricking your finger with a sharp piece of metal from a diabetes test kit, and using your blood as mouthwash to dye teeth red. The act will go unnoticed, I think. You brush your hair from side to side. You tell me you look like shit. You tell me that I look really good tonight with nonplussed eyes glowing blue, focused on an incoming text.  

Bullshit.

I think about pushing my hand through your skull while you’re sleeping to pull out your brain because it is the only subject I want to understand.  

Bullshit.

Take a picture of yourself, post it on facebook, and send it to every contact in your phone—I don’t want to be included because I figured this puzzle out a week ago on a walk in the woods, alone. The next time you say, “I love you,” I will slide my cell phone into the slot of a mailbox made out of pine trees, sever your tongue, and turn it into a necklace using a lighter, a bent paperclip, and strand of dental floss. Pretty creative, huh?

Bullshit.

I am a mixture of sad and pissed off at the same time like a domesticated duck neutered with its wings clipped.

Bullshit.

When you talk, I’m paying attention. I’m not thinking about where I can snort the ocs in my pocket. Or about going on a ride up the mountain to smoke a bowl. Or about having a conversation with a voice inside of my head about the proper scale used for weighing out the positives and negatives of our friendship. Or about how greasy your face would look through an oven door. Or about an exit wound sprouting out of the skin and bone located above my right temple.

Bullshit.  

In three years, I will kill you with a knife sharpened on the duration of our silence. I will embed it in the padded spine of your recliner. I will push you into the recliner with force until the silver slips through the hymen surrounding your heart. You will start to bleed. And I will have a surplus of mouthwash, which means I will have perfect teeth for the rest of my life, motherfucker.

I dare you to call bullshit on that.  Fucking dare you.

Karma

With my dick hanging limp in anticipation through the opening in my pants, I noticed a fruit fly clinging to the piss-stained walls of the urinal at work. I pissed on it. Soaked, it hovered out of the downpour of urine, and landed on my face.

While washing my hands, I thought: "Fuck, I deserved that."

The Glow, Pink Pills, and Unused Condemns

I can be a good girl, but I'd rather bite deep into your lower lip like a mother bear in love with her cubs encountering a stranger in the middle of a gas station parking lot. The pitter patter of ruby pooling in a plastic cup;I will use your blood as a dipping sauce for my french fries. I will not share any of them with you because I had a slumber party with them last night. An all night fuck-a-thon. Now, I am covering the evidence. Chewing. Burning old love letters from high school in my parents' backyard garden during the terror twilight, I am creating a forest fire that will engulf all of Wilkes-Barre, and eventually the rest of Northeast Pennsylvania.

I have been inhaling fog late at night to forget about all the terrible shit that is about to go down in the next couple of days under a crescent moon. The glow, pink pills, and unused condemns on a three-topping pizza. Are we having a party? Or just fucking around like two dogs flashing teeth and snarling? Matted fur flying into the air, I hope you get a good grip on my neck because you owe me one. 

The earth will rotate from right to left scattering my thoughts into the whirlpools of the Susquehanna. Sucked down into the Knox Mine disaster, which we have completely forgotten about. I hope the effort of fracking the layers of my head for natural gas have paid off in net profit because our water supply is poisoned.

I wish we could fuck on a bed of nails without any trepidation. I have dwelled on this daydream for a very long time now. But it's withering. Becoming nothing more than a passing thought. I am unsure of my political affiliation, so I have stop paying attention to what's going on in the world. You can call it a hunger strike if you want.

And all my animosity and paranoia is condensing into a cloud floating through the sky: Indian Summer 2012. It will capsize and sink into the vacuum of space because I'm solidifying my place in history as the loneliest person involved in this city-wide project,which is failing. Because you're disinterested in studying the capillaries in my eyes. So broken and raw, you bury your face into the darkness in my shoulder. Yawning. Sucking it all in. Sucking it all in. I am brainstorming a list of animals that might exist, and I'm sorry, but a plesiosaur isn't one of them.

Try to perform fellatio on the erect barrel of a .22 rifle. Or eat out the remaining nuclear weapons in the world. Because I'm sick of the friend zone, and you need more practice, which is why I am joining a dating site for asian women who are christians. I am neither asian, nor christian, nor a woman. I am a caucasian male buddhist in a sweat stained wife beater bucking the trend on a wide variety of chemicals, which I googled online. 

You're in love with someone else; torturing the both of us in the process of revelation. Wrist tangled in shackles at four in the morning, all you want is the solitude of modern technology falling apart in your finger tips. All I want is a body infected with infatuation, and maybe leeches.