It's gotten to a point

where the devil won't even buy my soul –

he said it's too broken and there’s no way

he could make a profit.

All I wanted for it was a few 2 milligram bars of xanax

and a cheap bottle of brandy,

but apparently I ain’t even worth that.

But maybe it's all for the best

because if I really am that broken

then at least I know damn well

I've got some character –

a rusted tractor rotting away gracefully

at the edge of a barren field in Kansas

filled with stars...

I’d 'wanna sit somewhere like that

to spend the night drinking

and then sleeping the day away,

not someplace where I know there’d be

an angry old farmer up before dawn

to chase my plastered ass off his property

with a shotgun.

And so it seems to have come to this,

when all my fields have finally died

and I can sit back and harvest

the moon with my eyes.  

She tells there's music 

in my soul

while I lay here, drunk 

in her arms 

falling asleep

to the same old demons 

playing me the same old 

lullaby 

on bone flutes 

they carved from my own 

skeleton.

“Oh yeah?” I giggle, trying not to puke

“So 'dafuk does this so called 'music' 

sound like then?”

“it sounds like….” 

She pauses

“Pain… It sounds like 

pain.

But it makes me want 

to sing along”

While going through a box of my old shit in my grandma's basement, looking for something to smile about, I find nothing but blue ribbons everybody won, report cards with straight Fs, and school photos of a child with pain bursting through the seams of a broken smile. Nothing of any value whatsoever, except maybe this this old picture of the night sky I painted when I was too young to know that the world is full of things far scarier than the monsters under my bed, things so scary they'd make you wish those monsters were real so they could reach up from the shadows and grab you, ending it all.

watercolor stars...
when I could lay down the weight
of the universe

Your kisses
were the fangs
of a snake in Eden
nibbling gently
on my adam's apple
until the skin became purple
and broke
dripping red with juice from the
sweetest fruit
your daddy told you to never
touch –
but it's just so
goddamn delicious
isn't it?

I hiss
when you lick it
and whisper
“you're such a good
little bad-girl”
and you hiss
with me
while you giggle
curling and flaunting your lips
like a set poisonous
pink fangs
deadly enough to kill a man
with just
one
kiss –

I trusted you

but trusting in love
is no different
than trusting
in Satan.

Not a Masterpiece | Power Poetry

Not a Masterpiece | Power Poetry

 I've been driving

for twelve hours

aimlessly, and alone,

despite knowing or caring

that I didn't have enough gas

to run away from home

or even enough

to bring me back.

So now, running on empty,

and 800 odd miles away from home

with fifty dollars

crumpled up in my pocket,

grandpa's pistol in the glove box,

and enough alcohol on my breath

to get my locked up

for a long, long time...

I decide it's best to stop for the night

or forever.

So long story short

the only room I could find

for $50

is a fantasy suite

in a sleezy motel

out in the middle of

butt-fuck nowhere.

So with an empty tank in the parking lot

and an empty tank in my soul

I check in

alone,

and lay on the filthy, heart-shaped mattress

suspended and swinging above the floor

by chains

and I stare at my pathetic reflection

in the mirrors on the ceiling

while inhaling the residual perfume of nicotine

from the lungs of lovers

and dead hookers.

There's no tip-toeing around this

so I’ll just say it

because it's not like anyone's listening –

I fucking hate myself.

I haven't even a scrap of love left

for this person I've become,

and all the little crumbs

of self-compassion

have been swallowed by freeway rats

who're now laying dead

with broken throats

in this trap called life.

While I was writing just now

I began to think of this poem

as my suicide note

that only the slut

at the front desk will read...

So while I began searching my soul

for some profound quote about death

I remembered

that I forgot grandpa's pistol in the car,

and now I think

that this is the story of my life.

And the plot, all summed up,

is probably something

like this;

“either someone up there is looking out for me

or someone down there wants me to suffer.”

I'm not sure which one it is,

but maybe, just like my favorite stories,

there’s some room

for interpretation.

It just seems like everything

is such a goddamn contradiction

especially tonight

sitting alone in the “Cupid's Arrow” suite

with what I'm almost sure

is a bloodstain on the carpet.

Tonight I just wish

that the little diaper wearing motherfucker

would break in with a .22

point it to my chest

and blow open my heart, too.

But he won't

he ain't real,

nothing is as far as I’m concerned,

because for all I know

this soul that burns with words inside my chest

could be nothing more

than just the product of a billion years

of evolution.

But right now I don't give a fuck

what is

or what isn't

because I do know one thing

for damn sure –

and it's that I won't be killing myself tonight,

and this twisted little novel of mine

will keep on going,

for a hundred more chapters

or for half of a page...

but I don't care either way

as long as I can dilute my blood with

this whiskey

and close my eyes

for the night.

 I've been lost

since before I could even walk

and now it makes me sick

that I can run, jump,

and rip the moon down from the sky

if I wanted....

but still wouldn’t know

where to go with it

or how to get there.

So tonight I drank

for the first time in months

and wished

on the only star

bright enough to pierce through the smog

of the D –

on that one little dot that says

“You are here”

like on a map in some failing shopping mall

full of empty stores

and kiosks of fake jewelry

painted gold.

I don't know.

Maybe if I keep drinking

I'll find my way

somewhere...

to brilliance, to rehab,

or to the ground.

But I don't give two shits,

I'll just let Jack take the wheel

take it from my hands

because I can't find my way on my own.

There's just something

so unexplainably beautiful

about kissing the lips

of a cold bottle

under an empty, polluted sky

then watching the stars appear

one by one,

telling me exactly where I need

to go

and be.

breaking windows with my heart

Love is a cannibal

chewing on the bones

of my heart

while I walk down Harper

vaping THC

at two in the morning

looking for a thug to piss off

who'd leave me dead

and bloody in the streets.

But I've walked all the way up to Nine Mile

and haven't seen a soul...

only a sad-looking puppy

who peeked out from a parking lot

looking for my affection.

I left him there to die.

Little fucker would probably just hump my leg

and eat my food

if I take him home

just like every skinny bitch

who said they'd love me forever

when I brought them back to my house

from the bar.

Nope, that dog's gonna die

under an abandoned car

and I'm gonna keep kicking

this heart-shaped rock

down the shattered slabs of sidewalk

until I find a window

to throw it through.

Through all this shit

I wonder how my eyes have stayed so blue

and didn't turn black from the poison of all I've seen.

But the skin around them

has been sculpted by the hand of pain

into a scowl that's dried hard

as stone on my face.

Looking into the mirror I think

this is the face of an angry, tired old man

with the eyes of a newborn, oblivious

to the suffering of this world.

If the old saying is right, that the eyes are really the window of the soul

then maybe that innocent blue is a child, staring out from his broken home

with dreams leaving

while his dad still beats his mom

in the back room of my mind.

But if only he knew

that once the alcohol has killed his father

and the therapy has cured his mother

he'd be able to step outside

to look up at an unimaginable sky

and make it jealous of the blue

that has been shut away for years

in his own darkness.  

I painted a caricature of my soul
on a McDonalds napkin, with my blood.
It looked like Van Gogh's starry night
swirled, dark, distorted,
beautiful –

so I squeezed it inside my bloody fist
then tossed it in the urinal
and pissed on it
because I know I'm not
a masterpiece.

I'm just a drunk
punching mirrors in empty restrooms
at 1 in the morning,
leaving philosophical quotes inside the stalls
with a red sharpie
among the crudely drawn penises
and phone numbers of whores.

But I suppose
that after years of doing this
someone taking a shit had to have notice
what I left
for him to see,
and sat there for a while
thinking
about the beauty of life
and what it all really means
after finally seeing through the cocks and cunts
that plague the walls of the world,
then wiped himself
of all the shit
and walked out
inspired.

I am an artist
not a masterpiece.
And that’s exactly how
I want it to be.

Burn

sticks and stones

might break your bones

but my words

will fucking kill you.

this poem is a bullet

in the chamber

of a sniper rifle

and you're just cruising by

like Kennedy –

I'm about to blow you're mind.

take everything

you thought you knew about

poetry

and burn it,

rip pages out from Shakespeare

or the holy psalms

then roll this shit up

and smoke it –

I'm going to hell

not after some divine sentencing

but on a meteor crashing through the heavens

through a storm of pearly glass

then into the ground and all the way

to it's burning core

where evil souls scream

in eternal pain

bang

they’re all dead,

killed on impact.

immortal my ass.

the only immortal things in this world

are words,

and they drive people to death

insanity

or sometimes even

bliss.

Buildings fall

countries and empires crumble

music goes out of style –

but a king could end a life

or start a war

with just his

tongue

and watch the world end

if his heart so desired.

this ain't no goddamn poem

it's a hand possessed by the ghost of

Genghis Kahn

writing these words on a restroom mirror

with my blood.

I'm the anti-christ of literature

the savior of no one

but myself

and maybe a few other fucked up souls

I destroy along the way.

I am here to influence your children

and make them forget Wordsworth

and float with me like a cloud of smog

over a field detonated landmines

and bloody limbs –

fuck the daffodils

lets kill them with this acid rain

and reanimate the corpse of H.P. Lovecraft

with the lighting of our rage

while Cthulhu rises up from the sea

into our wild storm.

so burn the flags

but never

burn

the

books.

burn the corpses

but never

burn

their

words.

burn your skin

with cigarette butts

so you can write

about the

pain.

burn your poem

into the sun

so the world can revolve

around you.

and burn your mind

with the fires of your
soul

until everything you thought you knew

is ash

and everything you can't help but feel

is the wind that carries

those ashes away,

and kisses your skin, as if to say

“everything

will be

okay”

Romanticized

A heavy woman

with heavier eyes

stares attentively at the endless array

of romance novels

while I peek up over the cover

of a Bukowski book

after reading another poem

about his many whores.

We're all lonely, aren't we?

I wish I had money for a whore

but I don't even have money for this book

so I’ve just been sitting here, reading it

for an hour or so

and people watching between each

shoplifted poem.

“Hey kid, buy the book or leave!”

*Sigh*

so without saying a word

I nod politely

and get up to put the book back

but head towards the childrens section instead

and set it on a shelf

in front of fairy tales with sparkly covers

and leave it open,

pages spread like the legs of a used up slut

with a beautiful soul.

On my way out

I notice that the woman has left,

gone home to lay in bed naked

with fantasies of Fabio

or some other long-haired douche

with a disguising accent...

And now I'm going home too

to get drunk

pop a couple xanax

and write this shit

like the stereotypical poet I am.

What romantic fucking lives we all life.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Because the chicken was walking home from work, dreading the fact that he would have to tell his wife and baby chicks that he had just lost his job, and the traffic zooming by looked like the best escape there was. So, he boldly set one little chicken foot on the hot black asphalt, closed his eyes and raised his beak, and trotted on out, preparing for death. But to his surprise, he made it the whole way across the interstate without getting hit. So in amazement, he fluffed his feathers and looked up to the clouds, with a tear in his little eye and said "God, you must want me here for a –" but before he could finish his sentence, a homeless man grabbed him by his neck, and choked him until the last bit of life escaped his eyes, and took him back home to his box in the alley and fed his children who haven't eaten in days.

Speech of the Underworld Laureate

I want to be nothing but bones, a skeleton with a wardrobe of tattered and tattooed skin, picked out from the morgue in the night like a resale shop for life. I want to walk the streets dragging a dead dog on a metal leash while I bark my favorite obscenities to the moon. 

I want to be one of them, a creature only visible in the night or in nightmares. A person who a little girl would see from the backseat window with dreary eyes on her way home from Disney World, while awoken by the dull glow of a strange city – someone who'd haunt the hallways of the magic kingdom in her dreams and dangle her innocence over the balcony where her Prince Charming jumped to his death after being raped by Jeffrey Dahmer in a mouse costume.

I want to die in an alley with a needle in my vein and a hooker's face in my crotch, after ejaculating my brilliant ghost all the way up to its throne of rooftops that crown the abandoned highrises that ooze darkness from their windows. I want to find Shakespeare’s spirit in the afterlife and call him a pussy. I want people to read my poetry and vomit, and teachers to hide my books from their students. I want to bitch slap Billy Collins with the hand of the underworld laureate, then sip absinthe mixed with lighter fluid from a teacup and ask him what he thinks this poem means.

For Angel

Angel –

no other name

could've suited you better

you beautiful, promiscuous

atheist

bound for hell

if it exists...

And while confined on house arrest

for snorting dust

you called me in the middle of the night

to spill your demons

to the only guy who never asked you

for sex

while I jacked off to the sound

of the pain flowing

from your angelic voice –

I was always a good listener,

not for anyone else

but only for you.

And sometimes I wonder if you knew

what I was doing on the other end

while your eyes squirted endless orgasms

of tears…

I was too scared to tell you.

But it doesn't matter

because you don't talk to me anymore anyway.

I like to tell myself that you were scared too

even though you probably somehow knew

what I was doing

by the way I would breathe

when I said “keep going hun, I'm here to listen”

and you realized

I was just a creep

like everyone else

But there’s more to me than that

I hope.

Doggie style

The old dog

watches on inattentively

while I bend my girlfriend over

pull down her panties

and fuck her

doggie style.

Spot hasn't humped my leg in years

and I think he's jealous

that I've moved on

to better “tail”,

but what he doesn't know is

I never liked it

and me screaming “NO! Get the fuck away!”

only seemed to turn him on more.

So now he just sits there

with gooey eyes

and patches of dead, hairless skin

while my bitch moans

my name

and calls me

an animal.  

Broken

When I was eight or nine

I started drinking

and smacking my pretend wife

when she came over to play,

me and my friends in the hood

would play cops and

serial killers

on the dark side streets

just north of Eight Mile

where the streetlights never came on

at night

where we never went back inside

to our parents, guardians,

or single mothers

who were strung out on meth

or puking up whiskey

after another man left.

My dad was always there for me though

he taught me how to love a woman

with my fist

and how to clean up her blood

after you busted her lip.

How to throw a bottle

through the window

then board it up

before the landlord started bitching.

But I don't know how to shave

change a tire

or what the difference is between a flathead

and a phillips

or even how to use a damn screwdriver

or wrench...

so tell me,

how am I supposed to fix myself

when I cant fix anything else?

Tattoos and Barbed Wire

When I showed you my body

I put down my hair for you

removed the piercings

and let the studded bracelets drop

to the floor...

You, the only one to ever see me naked

of both my clothing and my walls

saw Stephen

and realized that Chase wasn't nearly as strong

as he looked.

You saw the slashing patterns in the scars

that I told you were from fights,

and you realized they were only from fights

with tired old demons...

you saw how my pale skin looks strange

and unnatural without the counterweight of darkness

achieved so easily with black shirts and bandannas.

I was your other half

your yin yang symbol

that disappeared

behind the white backdrop of the world

when the dark parts of me left –

I don't exist to you anymore,

and I don't think I care.

I have trouble sleeping now

not because I miss you

but because I don't wash my mohawk out anymore,

and it's hard to lay comfortably

with that row of hard black spikes

glued up six inches

from my pale scalp

like barbed wire around my prettiest dreams and thoughts

preventing them from ever escaping

again.

Soul

In 200 years

everyone alive today

will be dead.

The enemies who tore me down

will be frail bones,

the whores who left

before I could wake up to love them

will be unable to move...

But I, I will be a ghost

a vague memory

a whiff of strange perfume

floating through the pages

of forgotten books,

the sound of a keyboard

being struck in the night

while a few citizens of that strange new world

lie awake in fear

of the poltergeistic rhythm

that my words will refuse to stop playing

on a stage before millions, or in an attic

with no one.

Tonight I'm typing

a million miles per hour

and this energy

can never be destroyed

despite whatever lies after the day that the lighting

in my fingers finally burns up, and they are folded

around a rosary

in a casket

before a funeral of grieving family and friends

or a funeral of no one.

Self Medicated

I swallow the anti depressant

with a big swig of wine,

the one that's bottle warns

“do not drink alcoholic beverages

while taking this medication”

But after a few glasses

the wine bottle begins to say

“do not swallow anti depressants

while drinking this medication”

I start laugh, hysterically at my own humor

then shove my fingers down my throat

and puke up

what I hope is the pill,

and continue laughing

not because I remember the joke

but because my puke is shaped like Texas.

Then I remember a girl I dated

who lived in Texas

the one who got away,

so I drink a few more glasses

until I throw up some more

and the Texas looks like Alaska

or the pacific ocean.