*
i'm gandhi on the beaches
of northern california
i take comfort
in the fact that
the government watches me
on public transportation
i can relax
i want to stop a subway
between stations to hideout
with you and your gay drugs
they're putting in
cell phone towers underground
soon we'll be talking
to our parents
wherever we are

*
i'm cultivating a southern
accent and a pile of dirty
laundry on a clothes line
hang my body out
the wind holds back my hair
we're blessed like days
when the train stops and
doors open at our feet
on the other side of the
country my family is dying
rain clouds cover the valley
the dog bones fill with cancer
the redwoods uproot and collapse
under their own weight the neighbors
eat their chickens leaving nothing
but the empty coop full of ghosts

*
i feel like i'm lying
even when i'm telling the truth
your eyes are ice cubes
melting in an ocean of pop
let me make you a bolognese
i make the best pasta
you've ever had
in tired microscopes i
watched germs reproducing
faster than our calendars
fall behind
even the leap year can't
save us now
we're completely fucked
inching forward like caterpillars 
on the side of a freeway

*
i'm not joking
where did you lose your
thirty-five  years and dollars
my phone is disconnected
from calling you too many times a day
just to see where you're at
to learn how you lay down
on the beach and
became this sandcastle
which i am now
the king of sleeping on

*
the kids are losing their ways out
i'm throwing batteries at them
but a flashlight isn't the only
thing you need to escape
from where you're at
it's all abstraction in a
mcdonalds bathroom with
your toothbrush bristles and your
chucks worn down to the rubber
i'm throwing batteries so
listen up these restrooms all
have trapdoors you might
climb out of to find yourself
back on the beach
seventeen years-old  again