we sat on a wooden bench by the Hudson River
the ripples of the river glistened from the moonlight
I commented how beautiful her big gold earrings were
said that her name, Tara, meant earth goddess
then her eyes asked me to kiss her
next we were behind the bushes and under a canopy of trees
pulling down our pants, fumbling onto the park grass
catching twigs in our hair
she said, “I’m going to fuck you white boy”
as a metal lamppost glowed faintly
I play these same games since I turn eighteen.
The rules evolve in ways I don’t choose.
Each time I say daddy things becomes more extreme.
I find a way to retain innocence to lose.
I spread my legs for cameras, on stage.
Still I cannot look these men in their eyes.
My birthday does not reflect my mental age.
They call me on apps to make me cry.
I hide my pastel knives near my Barbie dolls —
pink walls requested with the reddest of welts.
I swallow anything that will keep me small.
I suffocate doubt with a tight leather belt.
After they cum, I pretend to be numb,
a hard candy shell over bubblegum.
Always carry Bingo – my imaginary handgun.
Whenever I do anything bad or wrong or stupid,
I pull out Bingo, hold his mouth to my temple; pray.
Sometimes Bingo is an actual cocked thumb
with forefinger extended. Sometimes I shout, “Bang!”
as thumb snaps, fist recoils. My head often jerks
to the left when the slug rips into my skull,
tunnels through brain, lodges in left temporal.
Always shoot myself in the right side of the head.
I’m right-handed. So is Bingo. Nice thing is, that,
unlike other guns, nobody else in the world can fire Bingo.
Bingo can never be taken away from or used against me.
Nor can Bingo slaughter a roomful of people
before finally turning on myself.
But I worry about Bingo.
Especially after dark in bad neighborhoods.
I’m contemplating buying Bingo a gun.
For those lonely nights when I’m not around.
Something could happen.
Imagine if this were not a free country
and I could not go out and buy Bingo a gun.
Such thoughts make me more than ever want to
go out and buy a gun.
Just in case something happens
to make me bingo, say, you.
The monsoon season persists,
by far and away the longest
and worst one any of us has ever seen
The roads are nothing but mud,
the only bridge swept away
in the flooding weeks ago.
Supplies are dangerously low,
our children are loud and hungry.
We need desperately to harvest
the wild yams that grow abundantly
along the river in the valley
below us, but there are rumors
of rebel snipers, all crack shots,
all along the treeline. In the morning,
we’ll draw straws to see who goes,
so I’m praying I won’t be left
holding the short one, then handed
a hoe and a burlap sack.
I pray until my sore knees remind me
I’ve been doing this crap every night
for months to get this god damn rain
to stop, and now still can’t remember
the last time I even glimpsed the sun.
As I open my eyes and get back on my feet,
I can’t help but wonder if it’s true
that you never ever hear that final shot
that drops you dead.
What a perfectly queer place
This planet we inhabit
The ludicrous, fortuitous cocktail of elements
And precise proximity to our insignificant star
And here we are
Infinite possibilities swirling in the cosmos
Every whim an alternate universe
How can one decipher the most
Optimal course from the worst
Path to traverse?
The answer is in the crackle and pop upstairs
How appropriate that the most defining feature
Of Homo sapien sapiens, man twice wise,
Is the least understood
In the animal kingdom,
The concept of altruism
Is when an organism acts
Selflessly for the benefit of another
This is explained by kin selection
The need to pass on one’s genes
For the survival of the species
The human race need not be so concerned
So be warned
Behind every kind act is a reward
Donating all your worldly possessions
May seem charitable
And indeed it is
But the resulting pat-on-the-back
And self-satisfaction
Is no coincidence
Is there even such a thing
as true altruism?
Shit, I’ll come clean
I’m just a dope fiend
Jonesing for some dopamine
Going all in for seratonin
Endorphin Tunnel Vision
Brain screaming
“For the win”
Like mice in a lab
Neglecting their physical needs
To drink, to feed
Coming again and again
For the pleasure button
We’re just animals on a track
For that neurotransmitter crack
So when faced with questions like
Why are we here?
How am I going to get by?
I got one answer for you:
I’m just trying to get high
When I let you tie me starfish style to
your childhood bed, what I’m saying is
take all my trauma and digest it
slowly like a Thanksgiving dinner.
Use your calloused hands to begin a
conversation with this body bloodied
and disregarded by lovers past.
Drip paraffin candles on my bare chest,
flames licking my wild regrets into silence.
In this room, I release my natural
chaos to your steady hands for repair.
She called me up and she told me
That she missed me.
I told her
To have better aim.
It’s hard
in the morning
when hoping for stiff
but the mind is limp
I fiddle
my pen
but it refuses
to wake up
As a younger man
every morning came
with something to grab
under the blanket
Stiffness still
rises with the sun
it just breathes
in my back and bones
A whisper
raised eyebrow
or simple suggestion
can still pitch a tent
But no matter
how much
I stroke
and stroke
thumb on the tip
click and click
an impotence of ink
nothing squirts out
Dance. Nicole was always telling me
what to do,
orchestrating something wild
that she called fun.
If I didn’t do it,
she’d badger me, threaten me,
go into mini rages.
You’d better or else. You’d better
or I’ll tell your dad what you did.
Half the time I couldn’t even remember
what I did.
She was persuasive and conniving,
convincing
and beautiful in all the ways I thought
mattered.
I liked to look at blood.
Nicole would tell my dad. How sadistic
I was at age five asking to see
the cut my cousin got off the edge
of a rusty bike with no seat.
The family would hold me
under a microscope like a disease, disgust
written all over their faces
as if they didn’t want to see the blood too.
At age six I’d seen a whole movie called,
Kids, about how you get AIDS.
Up in her room with the door locked,
Nicole told me
if I ever even thought about having sex I’d die.
I never told my dad.
Truth or dare.
Nicole demanded. I stopped taking dares
because once
she wanted me to dance naked
in front of her
upstairs window with the lights on
while a car drove by.
I had to do it—
or I’d be banned from her room forever.
I didn’t want that
because then I’d be stuck downstairs listening
to the grown-ups play poker,
surrounded by clouds of cigar smoke,
smelling of whiskey while Nicole taunted me,
calling me names
in passing, like a ghost whispering on the stairs
or from behind a curtain.
I was stuck for days listening
to my dad’s wife talk
mad shit about my mom.
They’d see me
in the shadows and pretend
I wasn’t there, that I couldn’t hear.
I wanted to go home.
Nicole would say, it’s fun. Dance.
***
Previously published in Red Fez
The Chinese
had Lingchi
used to slowly cut
strips of skin
from the body
with a blade
then of course there was
the Spanish tickler
thumbscrews
the rack
& brodequin
most would agree
Western Europe
has moved on
since then
become more civilized
but here in Italy
if you’re not careful
they will still send you
to the department
of motor vehicles
and if you’ve been really bad
to the post office
Horror Sleaze Trash 