i speak because i can

i am a master hunter

sitting half-naked on the floor,          3 a.m., guitar in hand
words that aren’t mine                       spilling from my lips like cum 
and i remember all of the words        that were mine, once 
grasping at them desperately,              knowing they can’t go anywhere
because i’ve trapped them,                being the hunter i am 
i used to kill for sport
for the thrill of ending things 
to spread this illness - to share this fucking burden - to cast it aside like a useless limb

i used to fight just to fight, back then
                                                         to wield my words like weapons
the dashes like daggers - the punctuation: like blunt knives. sharp bullets. cutting through my own skin to get to yours
the spaces trying sever the barrier of flesh that cleaves us blow by blow
but every arrow falls
                        short                                   of its target.

i still watch you like an assassin 
lying in wait
choosing my battles
learning when to keep quiet          when to approach you as if it was an art
as if                                              it was natural
as if                                              it made sense to pierce through flesh with language - 
                                                    to destroy something with nothing.

you call me baby. 
it makes me feel small.
the ground we stand on keeps rotting and soon enough you will rot and you’ll take your secrets with you and 
i’ll dig   
    dig
    dig
          to find everything you kept from me and
          the time you stole
          the years like missing links  

but this heart you raised grew tough
and now it’s swollen, filled with all the bullshit we devoured to save ourselves from every mistake we ever made.

think of this as a fresh kill
novel wounds
blood dripping from the carcass you are

think of this as a head start
never again will you lag behind

think of this as a ritual                    
becoming the hunter instead of the hunted.

The day I thought I was going to change things

my phone didn’t ring at all today and it reminded me of those 16 year old days of writing you off, telling you off, fucking off
but I’m not here to tell you about the time when I could’ve taken that all back, or 
to tell you that things change when you’re not looking at them 
like the weather or  the light-bulbs in the living room that are growing dimmer or the meanings of things.

No.

I’m not here to tell you about that - about any of those things that are trivial and meaningful all at once;
the way it feels when someone hangs up on you - when the silence is pregnant
full of all the things you want to say and can’t,
but I can tell you something about my hands
the callouses on my fingers are getting weaker and I keep picking at the loose skin hanging from them 
I could turn it into a metaphor about how that means I’m getting weaker, too;
something along the lines of, “I’m not as tough as I used to be” or “I guess that means I’m getting softer”
                            but we’re all tired of that bullshit. 

I like to pretend that my hangnails are people, sometimes - that ripping them from my hands is some sort of twisted fucking method of ripping them away from my life

and I realize that my body’s tired of being used like that
used
like a hooker
to get other people closer to things
to distance myself from myself
used
and thrown away
at the expense of trying to make something better than what’s been given to me
like one of those shitty gifts you get at Christmas
a disgusting sweater you never asked for and will never wear because after all these years, your own flesh and blood still doesn’t know what you like
what you want
and usually these things are things they can never give you
but it’s not like they care enough to try, anymore.

At the end of the day we all settle like the dust at the top of ceiling fans
and sometimes we move -
find new things to attach to
and

still

we

settle.

i didn’t order room service

you should’ve known that i wanted something from you then,
you know,
when you were standing outside the door of my car
and i did 
i really fucking did
i was tired of giving
and you were tired of getting
but you never could pick up on that kind of thing -
the way i looked at you with the window half down;
looking at one half of your reflection mixed with my own through the film of dirty glass it was covered in shit and dead bugs and words written by my fingertips when the air left films of cold sweat all over everything
looking at you like a drunk person looking at himself in the mirror at a party
eyes glazed over,
repulsed and fascinated by his own fucking face
alarmed that he is at once himself and not himself at all

just think of this as one of those memories you haven’t made yet
an aborted thought
the potential life of a heartfelt moment cut short
you’ll ask me, “but it was a miscarriage, right?” 
forcing yourself to believe that it wasn’t my fault
that it wasn’t a choice
but it was
it is
it will be
because i will tear you out of me, somehow -
sever the chords that have tied us together all this time

it’s not like you belong here
or anywhere
and no one ever really belongs to a place, to a person.
you
don’t
get
a
say
in
this.
try to stop me and i’ll rip the world out from under you
try to help me
to help you
to help me
because i don’t know how to dish out a refusal.
i can’t send this order back to the fucking kitchen of life and complain about how the plate was too hot to handle even though the food was cold
and the service was mediocre
so i yelled at my server to spite him because i tried to be a fucking person today
and i should’ve ordered room service
because life fucking owes me something
because i deserve something better, don’t i?
something that will leave me satisfied, in the end.
 

there will be a hell for people like you
like us
like me
the people who are crushed by the weight of not living their lives
the people who wait
the animals that fall for the bait -
those who know that there is nothing more painful
than wanting
what
you
can
never
have
and chasing
after it
anyway. 

off the cuff

(this is an older piece, but I haven’t written anything lately because life is constantly punching me in the face.)
___________________________

A girl picks up the phone and prays for the line to go dead, but no one is ever that fortunate

and you expected some logic, here - for some sense to appear, or perhaps some other unknown force to pull everything together -
for the words to follow the thoughts, but the thoughts came first and then there was vomit everywhere;
broken words

all

                over

                     the

      place

                           and

now we’re back here with the shit -
                                                       stuck in the bowels of the thing and not
                                                       the thing itself. 

You gave me your silence and I said, “take whatever you want”
and I said other things and wrapped them up in my opinions - in drunken vocabulary
and you threw some bullshit around:
dressed it up,
made it pretty,
                       called it an apology.
                                                                 It was quite the performance. 

I don’t care how you split her, she’s yours 
and she’s not aware yet, but she’s yours 
and if you’re the highest bidder, I’m yours
and you’re not aware yet, but 
I
fucking
own
you.

So I cut you off before you had a chance to say it-
decapitated your thoughts -
                                          weeds in a yard ripped to shreds -
fear and -
                everything withering -
                                                   wordseatingthemselves -
slurred
words
and
dead
ones 
and
cut
ties
and 
cut
bullshit
and 
cutting
you
from
me
and 
filling
the 
empty
pathetic
spaces
with 
clinical
cynicism
and 
booze. 

And maybe this is melodrama,
and maybe this is an exercise in getting fucked over for the 5th time in 3 years,
and maybe this is me, your emotional punching bag,
and maybe this is just you being an asshole and me making a better story out of it because,
let’s face it, 
who doesn’t want a better story?

I can give you one in which everyone looks like a flower, 
where there are forests and trees and The Smiths playing in the background;
a family vacation that doesn’t turn into a complete shit show, a life that doesn’t fall apart -
a day when love survives, when everyone is forgiven even when they don’t deserve it, 
when you tell someone to fuck off and they pull you closer and you don’t shoot them. 

I’m sorry, but I’m the one who shoots the albatross of you/me and fucks everything up, again.
          That comes later.
I’m sorry, but I’m the one who swallows you whole in the end.
                                                                                               That comes later. 

I’m sorry, but this is just another piece of shit that talks about love going the wrong way,
even though there isn’t a right way.
There’s just a way;
this is mutilated love on its own way,
a way,
away. 

(You can only get away with so much before it all catches up to you,

                                                                                                         but nice try.)

The first and the last are two things you will never be, sweetheart. 
The second and everything in between - these are the things you will always be.

the sun’s disgusted with waiting

my sleeping schedule is fucked,
and i won’t hold that against you anymore
i guess that means my timing is, too - getting screwed by the whore of life
selfish and unforgiving
like the words we say in bouts of anger or pain;
our minds are too busy trying to be clever,
but those things we call hearts are too busy being mangled by the past
and the manipulations of it                                             
                                         and the people manipulating those manipulations

look - i’m sorry i don’t have a heart you can break                      
                     i’m just action
and re-action
tough-minded instead of warm hearted
introspective instead of objective -
but this time i won’t keep quiet because i refuse to live a life without distress
and i won’t let this be fucking easy
for you           
or for me
but i’ll still watch - a voyeur of sorts: 
scene 1
you pull back the curtain
his fingers, like hooks on a pretty dress and a pair of fishnets
your body, like bait
everything he wants to touch, to keep - 
hidden, accessorized, accentuated, but never revealed
because if there’s anything i’ve learned of desire, it’s that 
you can never give too much of yourself away if you want to be wanted
and fuck, we all want to be wanted
don’t 
        we
            (don’t)

but there are so many of us who slip under the radar
who gives a shit when there’s life outside?
the sunlight spreading on every surface like a diseased blanket
people walking their dogs in their matching tracksuits
listening to top 40-hits while their pets piss on lawns and shit on sidewalks
people ignoring each other on street corners
waiting for the light to change -
some hoping they’ll miscalculate
and get hit by a bus because they’d rather die than have thirty pairs of eyes stare at them when they walk in late to their classroom
who gives a shit about all of that
when you can sit in your room alone
and fester in your own thoughts as you 
slowly starve yourself,
drink a can of cheap beer, 
calculate how many minutes of your life you’ve been wasting,
count how many cigarettes are in the ashtray,
keep track of what parts of your mind are being lost by the hour?

but you’d still give all of that up
to relive those stupid fucking coffee shop moments
those random encounters of exchanging body heat and dark matter with strangers in a crowded room
making eye contact
and seeing
                 and not seeing
all at once

scene 2
you draw the curtain back
and we’re all left in the dark
throwing vases at walls

drinking champagne out of broken bottles
blood spilling from our lips, and words, too -
sweat dripping down our backs -
the mutual fear
of knowing                
                  and not knowing;
of wanting               
                 and being left wanting. 

scene 3
don’t 
make
me
live 
through
this
again.
make me give a shit.
make
        me. 

this is not for you

It’s the day of the week where everything is supposed to matter, but nothing does
because I’ve learned that I can be lonely if you’re happy
I am learning to be happy
                                       for you
                                       and not for me
because I’m tired of being selfish and I’m tired of being an asshole
but it takes courage to change
courage that I
                    don’t
                    have 
because there’s nothing surrounding us,
and we are here, surrounding nothing
guarding ourselves
wrapping our memories in foil
we’ll visit them from time to time as long as they aren’t rotten,
but these feelings
these patterns
they’re fucking stale and I don’t have the heart to let them go and I’m taking the bottle and I’m not going to let this ruin us again

not
      again

I’m getting older
still ignorant
still learning 
                    still lost

I see a face hardened by trauma
a little coarsened by smoke -
by looking back, 
                          by never looking forward,
anxiety invading everything
crossing out certain things but not all things
falling in and out of debt with time
because I never could buy enough of it for myself  
and my heart palpitates on occasion 
and maybe that means I’m weak or maybe I’m just emotionally stunted,
but my body is trying to be brave, even if I keep swallowing shit
regurgitating memories of you 
always asking why and never finding a fucking answer

I’ve been drinking too much these days but I don’t know how to stop once I start
smoking
loving
dying - 
and I leave things unfinished, but the thought of them rides my coattails - hanging on for a reason I’m not aware of yet
so I yell at them -
the people I’m supposed to love
the self I’m supposed to love
the hollow memories
and the lies 
and the ghosts of things I can’t face anymore
I yell at them
I tear them from me, the way you rip meat from a bone
s
l
o
w
l
y
and gently, but there is a force behind it that makes it hard to do

because we fucking accommodate the pain 
adapt to it
re-imagine it, edit it, re-edit it into and out of our lives, but we can never cut it out completely
this isn’t some tumor you can remove
some sore in your mouth that heals 
this is a lasting disease
a crutch you can’t escape from 
and we’re afraid of needing it,
but more afraid of needing to need - 
afraid that we can’t cut every tie holding us to the ground 
afraid that we can’t break free from the binds that we’ve made for ourselves
like chains around our ankles

we can move, still
forward, onward, backward; 
never moving freely enough to find who we are separate from everything else 
from everyone else 

separate from what both makes who we are
and what destroys us
little
        by
            little. 

You’re a jerk jerk jerk, but I like the sound of your voice

I don’t speak because I have to, anymore
and when you call me, it’s because you need to, even when the words fall short and the laughter is hollow,
but It’s hard, not being chased
and it’s hard realizing that I’m the one who isn’t worth chasing after
so I binge and purge the feelings
vomit the thoughts
starve my consciousness to the point where I start tearing myself apart because there’s nothing left to digest
the past is the past
and it’s passed through every organ, every brain wave,
but it still leaves remnants of itself everywhere
inside me
outside me
between you and me

the patterns on this ceiling remind me of the first house we lived in, when I could see patterns on the wall that you couldn’t see
but all we see now is white space that needs to be filled with our own shit
we really are just animals at the end of the day
creatures of habit, of biological necessity
we made up religion and philosophy to escape our bodies but our minds are still trapped in that thing we call a skull
solid, 
but fragile
like every relationship I’ve ever had
one puncture leads to a crack
the crack spreads
and the shards of everything just lie there and wait like the dirty knives sitting in my kitchen waiting to be dried -
waiting to be used again -
but no one wants to fucking touch them because
after all,
broken things
things that are capable of breaking everything else -
these things are fucking dangerous  

but it’s not always about survival. Sometimes we risk -
throw ourselves off of buildings to learn how it feels to fly
or to fall
for something
or from something
it doesn’t matter which

one day I’ll wake up next to you and all the little promises will mean something
today I’ll wake up alone and ask myself the same fucking questions and bury myself next to the memories I severed and you’ll try to cauterize the wound you made 
but one day, I’ll fucking show you what it means to be burned
what it means to be erased
what it means to erase you

you can keep wearing that mask, for now -  keep painting that smile and saying those words without meaning them, 
but saying them at all -
that has to mean something. 

The Modern Leper

I’m keeping you at arm’s length because I’m learning how to tear myself away from you inch by fucking inch,
so don’t fucking touch me because the world knows I’m just a modern leper: diseased, cutting off my fingertips to spite my hands for destroying everything
so my arms are saying “stay away”
but the rest of me doesn’t have the nerve to tell you that you’re already too close for comfort
too close - the way sweat sticks to skin;
the way sheets stick together when no one sleeps between them -

                                                                                                         it’s all static:
toofuckingclose
but nothing ever changes.
the farther I  r u n  from  y o u, 

the
         more
                     you
                               chase

There’s something about distance that makes us all try a little too hard to bridge the gaps of space and time with the exchange of words:
searching for things to talk about just to talk about them
trying to stretch a thought across an ocean or a country
pretending that it might reach the destination you’ve been dreaming about
digging through the pockets of our minds, but only 
finding loose change and lint and used gum wrappers instead of the things that matter
and this doesn’t matter
but I still remember how to drive to your house without directions.
I just don’t know how to navigate through the fucking mess of my own mind

so I’ll keep making excuses for why my legs don’t want to move 
why I feel like a car tire that’s stuck in a fcking pothole that no one had the time to fix;
I’ll give you some shit about how my serotonin and dopamine levels don’t know how to regulate themselves,
or how lethargy is a notable symptom of seasonal depression,
that fear is a present-oriented mood state and anxiety is a future one -
but the truth is I don’t know

what
the
fuck

is going on in here 
and I never have
and someone told me that language was supposed to create some fucking order out of the chaos of life
but what happens when language stops making sense
people don’t make sense
and

                                                       structure

doesntfuckingMaTTEranymore                          does                     it

theres no need for question marks or punctuation because life starts and stops on its own without giving you any fucking notice doesn’t it

people rip you out from under their veins
it gives them something to do
and you’re nothing but the thread that’s coming apart from someone’s sweater
expendable
but necessary
to someone

or something

somewhere

or nowhere

you sit on the train and you don’t know what side you’re on and you don’t know why the person sitting next to you chose to sit there instead of anywhere else on this goddamned train 

maybe they like your face
or maybe they don’t give a shit about you  

you sit on the train

and you don’t know
what side you’re on

and you don’t know which direction is which
but you’re going somewhere
when you get there everything and nothing will be the same  
when you get there everyone will be missing limbs  
everyone will use their lips

instead of fingertips

to say what’s worth saying
and no one will get close enough to catch your disease 

Not for All the Love in the World

You could slit my throat and I’d probably just apologize for bleeding on your shirt. 
(if less is more,
                        nothing is everything.)
I gave you none of me.
                                   I gave you all of me, then.

I gave you side-glances and my hand on your hand and drunken confessions.
I gave you short, shallow gasps.
I gave you a good story.
I gave you damage and you gave me damage
and I put it all into poetry;
but I’d still regurgitate it all and you’d just clean it off of your shoes with a shitty towel
you’d be stained forever and you wouldn’t be able to look at your shoes again without being reminded of me, the same way I can’t look at some mundane thing like a fucking a street-name without being reminded of you,

and that’s exactly what I want,

                                                asshole.

                                                              (You can call me anything you want.)

These are what the days are made of:
the smell of baked cookies mixed with the trash in the kitchen
feeling like shit for no reason
and crying about it 
I think I cried last week for 3 entire hours
sorry
I don’t know what you want from me so I’ll just make a cup of coffee instead
or maybe I’ll pick up a new language so I can tell you how much I despise you in an unfamiliar tongue 
and create another barrier to separate us, as if enough barriers don’t already exist
I forgot to call 
sorry
I don’t need extra credit
I don’t need any credit
I don’t need currency in the physical sense
unless currency in the physical sense means my body and I guess I need that,
but I’d like to sell it to someone who likes it enough to use it even if that makes me less worthy in the end.
when someone else tells you that he loves you,
how do you respond?
Right. 
         With beer. 
The fridge is empty.
                              No beer. 
Out of bread.
                    How the fuck can we be out of bread? 
Empty out the ashtray. It’s full of shit. (This is both literally and metaphorically important.)
The vinyl is cracking.
I keep expecting to hear your voice in the middle of the record’s labored pauses.

I took a nap.
It was light out.
I had this dream where my dog was pissing on everything. I don’t think that means anything, unless it’s a metaphor for the fact that I feel pissed on; that some fucking dog is pissing on my life.
I had this second dream where I was in high school again. We made out in the shower. Your tongue was slick.
I woke up from these dreams, overcome with that disorienting feeling that I’d missed something monumentally  important while I was sleeping; that the world had somehow shifted;
that I was the last person on earth to realize it. 

It was dark out. 
The heart growled for something it shouldn’t have wanted. 
The Beatles are not making things better. 

ImissyouImissyouImissyouHowdoIstopmissingyou? 

I’ve seen seven tragedies today, all of which took place in ten minutes or less:

a girl tripping down the stairs
a boy throwing his trash at the trash can and missing horribly
(I mean, he was off by a good few feet) 
someone checking his phone to make himself appear less alone 
someone running across the street, as if she was chasing a dream
someone trying to light a cigarette but a gust of wind said “fuck you” instead
a person waving to someone else
the someone else missing the wave

and then there’s me
feeling tragic
without anything to feel tragic about; without a tragedy -
just a collection of past ones that bombard me on my way out of the apartment.
The door slams and the “not this shit, again” feeling passes 
and then there’s music and then
conflicting sounds and then
conflicting emotions and then 
some more “and thens” and then 
                                                  nothing. 

I thought about him with her
walking with her
past the coffeeshop
and the post office
and the liquor store;

How cliche
of me.

And out of nowhere, it hits you like a brick in the fucking face: 
you get used to the numbness with time. 

I went to the grocery store and bought
a loaf of bread
milk
a carton of eggs
a thank-you card for no one
a box of matches 
a movie no one cares about for 2 dollars 
a pack of cigarettes
2 bottles of cheap wine
and the clerk bagged it all for me
and it was heavy
for multiple reasons,
but at least I had 
                          something. 

Feelings are disturbing, and so is that look on your face

I act like an idiot because there is a void in my heart that I don’t know how to fill
and I’m killing myself slowly because it gives me something to do
and I’m looking for something that isn’t there,
running away from something that isn’t after me,
running away from you because 
love hurts

                 and

                        feelings are disturbing
and I don’t know how to tie things together neatly anymore.

Everything is a loose end and 
                                             I am a loose cannon,
firing “fuck you’s” and “fuck off’s” at will,
launching parts of myself in every direction because I can’t fathom what it feels like to be whole anymore.

The important things are the hardest to say and I’m tired of talking and my lips are sticking together because I speak less and less on the weekends and you are my Peter Pan - 
I will stay with you
because I have too many psychological issues to end up with anyone else
and I will keep coming back to you because it’s too hard to break away from the routine,
but when you call, I don’t answer.

It’s not enough and I’m not enough and the hours and days keep blending together and I am crossing a line and nothing is happening and nothing keeps happening and the line loses its meaning
and I’ve written this all before.
I’ve crossed this line too many times and 
I’ve written that line a thousand times over, and the meaning of that line keeps getting lost and I am writing myself in circles, trying to find the exact point where I spun myself out of orbit, grinding myself to the ground just to change the scenery;
but when I write about you and me and us and love and the absence of God, I want it to feel like being sucked into a vacuum or like falling out of a tree - every word covered with the fear that hits you before you hit bottom, knowing that you are about to be a little more broken than before,
everything overwhelming everything else,
like you are about to explode
                                            or disappear. I don’t fucking care which,
but I will make you feel like you’re on top of the world or plummeting from it if it’s the last thing I ever do. 

On the 1st, I drank good liquor and smoked too many cigarettes and stumbled around 
and I kept thinking of you, and about the gore that follows us, that stick to us
because emotions are bloody, and the business of having feelings is like a perpetually occurring accident
unpleasant and messy
shards of everything that was
the memory of how things were before they got fucked 
going too fast and being reckless
looking too closely
with too much care 
                              or not enough care at all
rubbernecking and causing traffic and the look on people’s faces that say,
“wow, isn’t that tragic?” because it’s not happening to them
or it is,
          and they haven’t realized it yet. 

When you tell me that I’m worthless, that there’s something wrong with my face,
that my voice is shrill,
I remember that my hands are strong even though my heart is a piece of shit because I don’t know how to love you anymore
I will scream at you againagainagain until you can’t remember the sound of any other sound
I will keep pounding my fists to the ground to prove to myself that I have a body
that I am fucking alive, goddamnit 
that
I
will
not
let
you
kill
me
this
time
around
because 

I’m too young to die.

So give me a head-on collision.
Give me another pack of cigarettes and watch me waste the seconds away,
regrets forgotten like the smoke that fades into the night.
I’ll take another shot, bite another bullet.

My teenage religion:
gathering dust,
                         getting expensive.

How I feel when I waste my body:
it never gets old,
                          even when I get older.