Short History of Bad Relationships

Caught head lice in Mexico
from my younger brother.
My mother recommended 
pet shampoo, but it didn’t work. 

We took a trip to the ocean:
me riding shotgun, and
my siblings in the back seat. 

For two weeks, I pulled bugs 
from my scalp, flicked
them out the car window
into the highway. My sister helped. 

We were nitpicking.
Going through everything
With a fine-toothed comb.

Had one-night stand in Isla Mujeres
with a drunk frat boy from Texas.
I hope he caught my head lice.
We never spoke again,
so I never found out for sure.

A hurricane hit the island,
and I contracted dysentery.
I lay in my hotel bed, moaning
as the gales roared outside.

Back home in Chicago,
I gave my boyfriend head lice.
I didn’t tell him about 
the asshole from Texas.

My boyfriend was the jealous type
and prone to sudden violence.
He had to get a Kwell prescription
filled at the corner drugstore.

Later that morning I stood in the shower,
washed parasites from my scalp,
and watched nits swirl into the drain.
I didn’t think about the future, 
just the eradication of pests. 

Something That Sings

There’s more truth in the silence of the dead
than in the next hundred poems you’ll have
the misfortune to read

seems like poets today can’t be 
bothered with the music of things 

their words half-clever
careful and stillborn

clamoring for praise
offering praise in return

with their poet beards
and poet hats

their poet boots weighed down 
with important things to say

I choose not to think of them

as I drink wine and watch
the women on Broadway

trying to translate their magic
into something that sings

as it all comes apart

All That Sticky Stuff

I hate myself for it,
but despite their lifestyle
of the decadent idle rich, 
I’ve fallen deep in love
with the Kardashian sisters.
I see them every afternoon
for a fantasy hour as I ride
a stationary bike at the gym.
I try to pretend I’m watching CNN
or ESPN, but on the big TV on the wall, 
those Kardashian smiles are brighter,
their hair shinier, breasts larger,
and kissable lips even fuller.

Even at my age, I can’t stop
thinking about them, especially
when I go to bed at night.
Visions in the dark of Kim,
Kourtney, and Khloé send my hands
under the covers and shortly 
I fall into a familiar dream –
the whup-whup sound
of helicopters in the sky,
fires burning in the distance.
The Kardashians are lined up
against a burnt out building.
A bearded guy wearing a red beret 
and jungle fatigues hands me
a pistol. Execute these bourgeois
enemies of the revolution, he commands.
I take the gun, and as I pull the trigger,
I wake up with a long moan, then
relax for a moment there in the dark 
to catch my breath. I fight the urge 
for a cigarette, and smile when I realize 
it’s only a dream, and all that sticky stuff 
I feel, thank God, is not their blood on my hands.

Moribund

poetry is moribund
lil peep wrote better than us
meat computer writes better than us
poetry is a lame ass art form
too worn out
rimbaud would be doing something
different today i promise you

i wish i made fashion
8th art
or video games
9th art
even better
90’s video games
or hypermodern trap
or post anti folk
but u r stuck with me for a bit
if u still want to be that is
i am stuck with me, being me,
for ever and ever and ever ever ever.

how to be cool after van gogh, basquiat, modigliani,
rimbe, nick drake, césar aira, duchamp, alfred jarry,
manuel antonio, kafka, pessoa,
rosalía de castro, cervantes…
and the sky
and the sea
and the deeply rooted trees.

First Date Fart

call it a way of weeding them out—
the too uptight ones
the insane, pretty ones
the ones like so many Jersey girls
I’ve known…
obsessed with appearances 

I’ll make it look 
like an accident—
“Whoops! Sorry about that!”

any reaction 
but laughter
will be an immediate 
red flag—

because if THIS 
is a problem 
what else
will I have to hide?

Vampire Wine

The label read “Vampire”
“A merlot as sweet as blood”
But blood’s not sweet
Just the heart’s thing to pump
And if it is sucked out
The heart is low and dry
A tough squeeze and cry

The story:
Love drinks wine
Gets intoxicated
Chit-chats lotsa shit
Bits of bric-a-brac
Cool conversation
Masking the heat
Beneath the clothes
That want to come off
And lie like a heart
Body sucked out
A pudding without the pud

Love toasts itself
Two vampires
In the bite of night
Screeching like bats
Growling like wolves
Two moaning carcasses
Without a mind

Love has drama

The “ever after”
An empty bottle
With just a label

Romantics are monsters

The Empire Strikes Back

Up before sunrise.
Late night. Two hours of sleep.
Last call then fucking at her place. She was closer.
She sounded satisfied. Maybe the whiskey helped. 
Both of us mid-forties, lonely. Saturday night blues.
She liked my Charles Vess Death t-shirt.
I liked that she liked.
Her cleavage and smile helped.

There’s no offer of breakfast.
I wash my cock and balls in her bathroom sink. 
Never a boy scout, never swore the oath,
but I improvise. Tooth paste on my finger.

In search of my pants, I notice her walls
are decorated by images of Star Wars.
Old school – Vader, Fett, Tusken Raiders,
the Cantina scene. Even Bossk.

I grab her ass and kiss her
with what’s left of last night’s passion,
hoping she’s game for a sequel.

Write About Your Favorite Color

I like orange. But not the bright and bubbly kind. The dirty kind, like rust. The iris of rock doves, or pigeons’ eyeballs if you like.

I also like its neighbor, Dirty Yellow. Like mustard. The color of forgotten couches and curtains smelling of mildew and… dirty yellow.

I even like my pink dirty. Like intestines. Or a ballet slipper stained with sweat. And on the darker side of the spectrum, a dead rose, crusty like dried blood.

Imagine if every color were named after the dirtiest version of itself. “Burgundy” becomes “Dried Blood.” “Teal” becomes “mold.” Now mold is a versatile color. Everyone’s favorite color can be found in mold form. Mold is prismatic, polychromatic, breaking barriers, breaking…moulds. The Emperor’s New Clothes was just mold all along. Kind of ironic seeing as mold is one of the earth’s oldest life forms. The Emperor’s Old Mold. Beautiful.