Understand, neurotic perfectionists are mostly calculated

We left after midnight. We entered the forest, dark and green all around us, hundreds of miles deep.  Woven together in the little cocoon of our car, our world was as large as the headlight beams in the dark forest.

For four days in 1997 I was a beam of light. Fuck off if you don’t believe me: I lit shit up. Daniel Ladinsky says Hafiz says, “The oil in the lamp the sun burns come from forests you once were, from rich deposits you left [behind],” but he was probably speaking metaphorically. 

The next day I send the above photo to a friend in Michigan. She asks if I'm fine. And what the doctor recommended. My response is typed laughter. I tell her I've been taking it easy. Staying medicated. But the chance of seeing a doctor is slim. The hospitals are over run. She's a little surprised. It's contrary to what she's been told.

If you require more of your ferret than simple love and affection, our staff of specialized trainers will provide you with an ATTACK FERRET for your security.  

They aren’t the most attractive boys at school—not smarter or more stylish and certainly no more articulate. Their appeal is a mystery to anyone who isn’t under their spell.

thinking about how all of it started

thinking about how the poems ends

The problem was I’d forgotten about the change in altitude. The grief counselor had suggested a getaway, so I fled the Alleghenies for the Rockies and the guest bedroom of my best college friend on a quiet block in Denver.

Once, at the watering hole, a man with a knit-closed eye

kissed me until I spat up a silver coin.

Thank you, everyone, for coming. I'd like to thank Mrs. Keether for this opportunity to speak...

I believe it now—I’d be a fool not to—but that doesn’t mean I agree with it.

four small test tubes.

It was a franchise, the Prez thing, but one as secret as the mob.

Your face, my light. What terrible things I’d do for it. 

But life was good for clowns back then

Trump & A Syllabus of Goals

To gift you the stink of goats.
To gift you bright whey.
To neon-bright your mouth

with sorrel & rind
& mouth for you
some many hums.

To

The blonde girl I liked made a scooping motion with her hands while saying things like ‘it’s not even that late’ and ‘come on, come on’ and ‘it’ll be soooo much fun’ and ‘let’s go you fucking piece of shit.’

Portrait, with Negative Space

Running faucet, orange light hollow as a pill bottle,
images submerged in a bath of chemicals, blooming
into black-&-white being. That was the only

Okay, so there’s that sound again, and you know it isn’t Tommy or Lindsey trying to scare you, because they’ve been asleep for over an hour and you’re certain the sound is coming from the basement

My friend takes caffeine pills between classes and shakes in the bathroom, on the floor under the sinks.

I am reading a poem called “George Washington” in a book of poems called George Washington in a bar called The Library in the Lower East Side of Manhattan where I am spending my last twelve dollars on four beers and my last four dollars on tipping the bartender because happy hour still hasn't started.

Tiny Evolutions

okay so let’s talk
about the exes we mythologize
for the wrong reasons   like leave
a toothbrush at my bathroom sink
and call it love   and baby
I’ll promise ring your

I kissed Jesus up the neck until his hearing aid caught my gums like a chicken bone.

MONUMENT

YOU SPECIFY IN YOUR LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT “BURY ME WHERE I STAND” SO THEY REMOVE A CHUNK OF TILES FROM THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF THE GOLDEN PANTRY’S CHECKOUT COUNTER AND THEY SET YOUR