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// [5/2/17]

what if we treated humans like rabbits left, torn apart, is it dying? is it dead? oh well, someone else will get it soon

what if we treated humans like deer there is a list and you call the next hunter who comes out with their pick-up truck and hauls away supper

some of them, i guess, get stuffed or, eaten or, picked at by vultures until their blood blends with the blood of the earth- some just rot like a worm you stepped on in the rain trailing its sad little stepped-on half-shell of a body everywhere you go step step step

is that the way it smells after the rain?

how will it smell the day i’m gone will someone call the next morgue in the phonebook will the most available vulture pounce upon my parents, asking mahogany? chestnut? white pine, lined with silk?

i once knew a dad who spent ten grand on his mother’s funeral but only four hundred for her medical treatment

it’s all very, very easy nowadays. rabbits on the road. open. swimming with things hungry for life. deer on the road verge. there’s a waiting list of hunters to pick them up. take them home. dress them nicer than they’ve ever been dressed before in mahogany? chestnut? white pine, lined with silk?

is that the way it smells after the rain?

do we know why she killed herself?

oh well, someone else will get it soon

untitled//// [another sketch/not real poem. i am practicing]

POLICE TAPE, DO NOT CROSS written across her forehead i visited the place where the bad ones go, where the bad thing was, where the bad thing started I MET YOU on the internet and you walked straight to my car, i told you to be safer in the future YOU’VE GOT to protect yourself, you do. you did. or, i guess you did, because i didn’t, or in spite of the fact that i didn’t, or enabled by the fact that i didn’t, or I’M THE STEREOTYPICAL PREDATOR in this situation:

2 years your senior “the boy” the one with the car and that’s the thing about stereotypes, i guess, is they only go one direction maybe that’s why it’s also true that ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS, but powerlessness corrupts absolutely, and i absolutely never loved you, and you were the powerless prey, but somehow i became corrupted absolutely.

i visited the place where the bad ones go, and i didn’t think of you. i didn’t think of you as i told them of the place of the island in the middle of the campus of the bridge of the maple with initials carved into it of the bark with my initials knived into it of the tree with the car i tried to mold into it push into it move into it live into it die into it i

I LEFT YOUR PLACE SOBER AND ARRIVED DRUNK AT HOME, i didn’t think of you when you had to be safer in the future i had to be safer in the future i don’t have to be SAFER in the future you’re not in the future you--

“i didn’t think of you,” i said as i rounded the corner to your apartment and told my friends that i knew that “mccandles is that way” and, how did i know that and, why did i know that and, why have i been here so many times before?

“i’m not thinking of you” i say often police tape on my your head and mine THE MOST DANGEROUS PREDATORS ARE THE ONES WHO LOOK LIKE SHEEP, i think that i’m not thinking of you as i write a whole poem about it

beginning sober arriving drunk where the bad thing started where the bad thing still is

laundry [not a poem - just sketching. why don’t writers get to “doodle” the way pen artists do? anyway this is my doodle LOL]

i think of you doing the laundry not because, you did it or, that you did it a lot i guess or, i mean, i didn’t really, see you doing the laundry, but you probably did it. i think of you while i’m doing the laundry, doing the laundry, doing the laundry because it’s all the time. it was new. and now it’s old. and you apply dollar-store dish detergent to save the clothes you can’t afford, and i think of you doing the laundry because i do the laundry too, and this is simple, and we were simple

they say to separate the “toxic” people from your life dark-wash from cold, tumble dry, warm, high press, low rinse, delicate cycle. the laundry feels like a human thing, it’s how i felt when i was with you 20 minutes, up. 15 minutes, up. the laundry is done. and worn for a day. and ruined again. and you get up, and you redo the laundry.

there can’t be any grand metaphors in doing the laundry, and maybe now this is getting meta. -- but there’s not supposed to be.

no one judges you doing the laundry, you in your bandana jeans sweats braless t shirt you won in a bowling tournament in the 7th grade and somehow are still holding onto. still. with the stains and the holes and the crummy old rows of fabric pulled out from the tussle and turning and rumble and swerving of the water of the machine of the thing you do the laundry in.

when you do the laundry, you get to put on the warmest pajamas and feel GOD hugging you.

i think of you doing the laundry, because i think of you done, and ruined, and again, and done, and stained, and ruined, but loved, and warm, and warm, and still worth doing again.

i think of you doing the laundry: i think of you all the time.

#...on second thought i do like pieces of this #it needs editing but it may actually be ? somewhat good and or workable? idk #let me kno what u think i guess

scribbling shit......not a poem[3/5]

AFTER FUCKING a stranger off craigslist on their kitchen counter you’ll drive home a little too fast thinking of all the kitchen counters you’ve encountered in your weird little life. you’ll remember pumpkin carvings and easter egg decorations and making PB and Js at kelseys house and cleaning the blood off the floor, seeping into the island’s foundations, at mikaela’s after her first suicide attempt. you’ll wonder how you got here, to fucking a stranger off craigslist on their kitchen counter.

you’ll wonder if they had children, if the children ate on the counter, if you made a child on the counter, if you’re still a child yourself. you’ll feel weird for thinking about kids in relation to sex, and you’ll push away thoughts of your first sexual encounter, and think back about the kitchen counter. the kitchen and the BJs and the PB and Js.

they say you can tell a lot about a person by the simple things in their home. is their counter granite or laminate or quartz or marble? is it concrete or butcherblock or tile? you’ll think back at the counters you had around you growing up. yours was laminate, because you were the poor family (relatively). your friends’ were granite, because they were the rich families (relatively). you’ll start to think about income inequality and why people spend so much on a countertop that’s just going to be used for easter eggs and fucking, anyhow.

while you’re driving home a little too fast, you’ll think about driving through a red light just to see what would happen. you recall you don’t want to hurt anybody, and you resist. are you anybody? a body? do you want to hurt yourself? you’re fucking strangers on counters off craigslist to get your mind off stranger encounters that bleed into your foundations.

all this talk about blood and sex and you forget where you’re driving. are you going home? do you have a home? are you going home?

you consider driving forever. but, because this is in your foundation, you keep going.

you’ll make it home, someday. (relatively.)

bad poem(not a poem) - 3/5/17

being queer with irish catholic parents is like kissing a dog on PCP

la tristesse durera toujours [3/5/17]

in war we call them mercy killings and i’m begging for one right now. i’ve been fighting for so long, SO long, without backup, and i need permission to call it quits

IN WAR WE CALL THEM MERCY KILLINGS because we know how much it hurts and the suffering is too long and too extreme and too unbearable and too unfixable to solve

in life there are those among us so blessed as to believe DEPRESSION isn’t a war and their MINDS aren’t a living battleground and they’re not DROWNING to STAY AFLOAT in a cerebellum deluded with disease

there are those among us who’d think us malingering when we tell them how we were drafted into a war we never wanted to fight in the first place and now we want out, and the only way free is an IED

in war we call them mercy killings and in life we call them suicides. one is honorable, the other - dishonorable discharge, but can your honor be judged when you never entered this willingly in the first place

in war we call them mercy killings because we recognize that some deaths are necessary healing, even, and we allow it.

i need permission to be healed.

half-formed thought (((nota poem

i would save this as a draft but tumblr keeps deleting my drafts :( dont read this lol

“triggered” [2/22/17]

the internet loves the word “triggered” or making fun of the word “triggered” and yes, i’ll admit, it’s kind of a weird word (especially for its gun-like Call of Duty-like Halo-like qualities)--

the internet loves making fun of the word “triggered” i’m so TRIGGERED that you mentioned sex or gender at all she’s so TRIGGERED that you mentioned a story in the news she’s so TRIGGERED she’s a SNOWFLAKE she gets SO EMOTIONAL OVER NOTHING, SILLY WOMAN.

there’s a bit of gallows humor about it when people use it for themselves. the problem with the word isn’t that it’s reminiscent of Call of Duty or war games video games GAMES that debuted several years ago, that debuted years ago--

the problem with the word is it’s a word and, what it captures is bigger and, it is actually real and, so much realer than Halo-like guns and, he liked Halo and guns and, Call of Duty-like guns and, I WAS LISTENING TO A LECTURE TODAY AND THE PROFESSOR SAID SOMETHING AND THE CONTEXT THE CONTEXT IS LOST THE CONTEXT DOESN’T MATTER HE WAS SHE WAS SHE WAS THEY WERE SHE WAS WEARING SHE WAS SAYING SHE WAS SHE WAS DRINKING THE CONTEXT DOESN’T MATTER i--

i was listening to a lecture today and the professor said something.

i don’t remember (exactly) what he said, but i disappeared when he said it.

I DIDN’T SEE when he pulled the trigger when you came at me when i disappeared when he said it when you did it when he said it.

you don’t see the shot when it’s coming.

but it shot you.

and this isn’t a game. and this isn’t something funny.

but you laugh anyway.

because you wish it was.

GREETINGS from starpool indiana

YOU HATED AIRPLANES and i get it, it’d been 32 years since you’d stepped foot on one, and then 9/11 happened, and you’re from white plains, and your nephew worked at morgan stanely, and your niece heard the rumbles in jersey, and i get it. you hated airplanes and that was why you never got to come out here, but god, is it beautiful out here. i wanted so much to show you the turtles on the side of the river and the skies that inspired me to paint like you, the skies i saw you in, the skies i still see you in, every goddamn day. i wanted to take you to the cathedral, you always were so very catholic and LOVED the byzantine, the architecture would have wowed you and you would’ve spent a whole day in here, i know. you would have loved the big bright gold dome against the pink and orange sand bits up in the blue blue sky, you would have told me “see how the blue and gold are complementary” and WHENEVER I SEE A BLUE butterfly on campus i wonder if it’s you saying hello. you were always very catholic, and didn’t believe in reincarnation (but i kind of wish you did) I SEE YOU IN THE SKIES and i see you in the butterflies and i hope you’re here with me now i wanted to tell you i love you THIS MUCH and YOU’RE “the one,” too. i want to tell you i’ve STAYED AS SWEET AS YOU ARE and i know you’re ALWAYS ON MY SHOULDER but i need to rest my head on yours sometimes, too. and you’re not here. and it’s not your fault. i guess you believed in heaven, or i know you did because you said “do my makeup so when i meet my husband, he recognizes me!” of course, though, frank would always see you. you are the sky. there isn’t a nice way to end this little note. it hurts too much to be called a poem. god. i miss you. and i love you. always.

WISH YOU WERE HERE, x.

/

when you died i listened to crystal castles’ not in love over and over and over again, so loud i thought i was gonna go deaf.

the song isn’t relevant.

which, of course, is necessary during real, hard, grief.

i’ve grieved before. i’ve grieved lovers and past selves and memories and girls and boys-

these are, to an extent, a pity-grief. these are, to an extent, your fault.

you broke up with them or, they broke up with you or, you both broke up with that small thing, that whatever thing, that was holding you together. i’m not saying

that that doesn’t hurt. it does,

but that sort of grief hurts in a way that you can listen to it, you can

talk about it, you can

think about it, and feel sorry for them, and feel sorry for you. then there’s the real stuff.

when it comes to real, hard, grief

the loss of a best friend, parent, guardian - all three, whatever.

i’ve tried to capture this in the poems the way i’ve talked of love and loss. you can’t talk about this the way you talk about love and loss.

“not in love” is about love and loss, and that’s why it worked. it was irrelevant. you didn’t have to think about it.

it was loud, very loud, and it deafened life out. music as paralysis, not, music to cope.

that’s the difference between love-grief

and real, hard, grief. the kind of grief when a parent dies. that unspeakable thing.

i’d lose a thousand lovers to see you once more. i’d write a million poems over the “easy” kind of grief if it would deafen out the hard one.

i’d give up 50 years of life to see you again for fifty seconds.

i’d die today if i thought it meant i could see you tomorrow,

so, no, i guess i don’t believe in heaven,

i guess i don’t believe in god.

you were the closest i ever got to her,

and you died. where does that leave me? where did that leave you?

god died the day you did.

tourist [not a poem///// 1/2/17 also holy shit it’s 2017 yall]

the first time i witnessed a robbery was in venice which is a very posh thing to say. “the first time i witnessed a robbery was in venice” because robberies don’t happen where i come from

i come from a little blue house (A BIG BLUE HOUSE) on a little green hill (A BIG GREEN HILL) and dental care and snapped branches on the lawn that the LAWNMOWER PEOPLE will take care of tomorrow

IN THE WAKE OF POST-CAPITALISM THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED because everything else is everything.

i snap on the tv and come in from the living room with the bugs under the wallpaper i sit on the floor next to the litterbox for the dead cat who escaped four years ago who everybody thinks is gonna come back one day I DON’T BELONG HERE

i feel sad because the litterbox is here and sad because people believe the cat will come back

the first time i witnessed a robbery was in VENICE IT WAS A WOMAN IN A ROSE DRESS IN AN ALLEY IN THE DARK ON THE COBBLESTONES BY THE RIVER AT ELEVEN O CLOCK AT NIGHT AND I WAS WEARING a mask from the venetian carnival in the middle of the summer and it glittered in the night it glittered in the night it had glitter in the night it cost two hundred dollars to buy

THE FIRST TIME I WITNESSED A ROBBERY WAS IN VENICE WITH THREE ADULTS WATCHING THREE ADULTS WATCHING THREE ADULTS WATCHING and waiting for the cat to come back

the cat never did come back, of course it never came back, their fluffy never came back, their flurry didn’t love them enough

the first time i witnessed a robbery was in venice and the three adults didn’t turn back but they bought me a mask to hide in they have dental care and lawnmen and tv and bugs under the wallpaper and that’s why the wallpaper’s there and that’s why the wallpaper’s there

AND SHE WAS SCREAMING AND HE THREW HER AGAINST THE BUILDING, THE ANCIENT BRICK BUILDING, THE DARK BRICK BUILDING OF THE BACK OF A KITCHEN IN AN APARTMENT WITH BUGS UNDER THE WALLPAPER

AND EVERYONE HEARD IT the screaming the screaming the slamming on brick the ancient old brick the ancient brick building with bugs on the wallpaper AND NO ONE said a word although i was the only one in the mask

THE CAT is dead. but at least it’s getting attention

it belongs

(small poem)

WE’RE TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT IT (sexual assault) We put it in whispers and parentheses and “asked for it” language and “what does consent really mean, anyway?”

I’ve led the presentations

“If you’re drunk, if he’s drunk, if they’re drunk, if she’s drunk.” “if he’s in a jersey, she’s in a short skirt, he’s in a short skirt, they’re in blue jeans.” “if you know a person you’re more likely to be rap- sorry, sexually assau- sorry, be assaulted by them.”

The lesson, here, is don’t get close enough to anybody Drunk enough to anybody In clothes enough to anybody Close enough to anybody– To let them fu- sorry, have se- sorry, fucking destroy you.

The power points use “green dot” language “Bystander intervention,” and, “How not to be a victim,” and “How to be a good victim when you’re, inevitably, victimized–”

You give the presentation to a hundred college freshmen. 60 are on their phones in the middle of it, 2 look attentive, 7 nod off in the back, And 20 will be raped before they graduate.

Their perpetrator is on their phone in the room, asleep in the room, attentive in the room, it doesn’t matter.

Green fucking dots don’t mean shit in the real world.

I’m giving a presentation, abstracted, and nobody wants to be here.

I don’t want to be here.

We don’t know how not to be here.

And we’re not going to talk about it.

not a poem////sketchin’ to try to get back into the habit.

you want to wake up when it’s over. nobody wants to watch the carwreck

i once watched a carwreck at a stop sign in kentucky on a 25mph road a mother and son in a pickup truck and a young man with nowhere to go

young man ignores the stop sign, on the 25mph road, going far above 25 the mother and the son in the pickup truck pass through the intersection you want to close your eyes you don’t want to look you look anyway

you think, “i’ve never seen something crumble apart so fast” the bumper crunches into pieces the truck, like a toy, spewn apart all over the road the stuff in the trunk, some photo frames and what looks like an old sofa, memories, scattered all over the road

you’re at the stop sign thinking, if yield-to-the-person-on-your-left wasn’t a law, you’d have spun out just now

you’re at the stop sign thinking, “we should help them.” your boss says, “shut up and eat your sandwich, we’re going to be late.”

you drive away as the mother gets out of her car and falls to the ground she isn’t hurt, but she is crying and the son is in his 30s and the young man with nowhere to go is already gone and you say, “shouldn’t we call the police?”

“somebody else will” is the reply, and you’re grateful for the yielding law, because otherwise you’d be dying now, or somebody else will, or whatever

everyone was fine.

at least i think. we forgot to look back when it was over.

The Ex Talk

You know when you love somebody? I mean, “you could die just thinking about them” love somebody. I mean, “you built castles in your head where you live together when you’re apart” love somebody. I mean, “it’s been so long you don’t even know them anymore, and now they’re an image, the most beautiful image, the image that breaks you” love somebody. I mean, “they left. You tried to move on too but died here instead.” love somebody.

You know you’re getting serious when they want to talk about the exes. “Who did you date, who did you fuck, how many boys, how many girls, who did you love, who wanted to marry you, who did you bury, who was your muse, why did you love them, why didn’t you love her, how long have you been still in love with the first?”

How long have you been still in love with your first?

You think you are ready. You think, “I am moving on.” you think, “someone good just hasnt come around yet.” you think, “I deserve better than him, or her, or them, or that other one.” You think: “I never ‘deserved’ the first and that never mattered.”

The psychology books describe break ups with the language of grief. You are in disbelief. You are bargaining. You are angry. You are sad.

What they get wrong is these aren’t stages. It is everything all at once. And you are sad. And you are sad.

And you are sad because you miss them, and you are sad because you’re not supposed to. And you are sad because the girl lying next to you in bed, wants to know how many people have fucked you. And you say "only the one."

Nothing not a poem, whatever.

It's almost 2017 and I'm still listening to snow patrol. "what if this storm ends / and I don't see you / as you are now / ever again" It's almost 2017 and the storm has shown no signs of ending, but We've showed signs of ending, and I haven't seen you in such a long time I've been Buried in the cellar locked away from the windows Don't go near the windows Don't look, don't look I've been safe from the storm and the storms all around us, my mentall Illness is all around us, THIS storm Will never end. I want to see you As you are now As you will always be Yourself always For a minute Just for a sec now As you are now Ever again I can't live without seeing you ever again It's almost 2017 and I'm listening to snow patrol and Chasing cars was supposed to be our first song but You were out of town so another boy stepped in and I'm sorry for that and you didn't care about that and I wish you never left town and I wish you didn't have to hide from the bad weather I wish I didn't bring the bad weather It's almost 2017 and you said you'd never forget me I'm wondering If you've already forgotten me, I'm wondering If you're still thinking of me too... This is all very, super, really very cliche. I always hated cliche But I'd be cliche for you (I'd be anything, for you. If only I wasn't sick, for you. If only I wasn't sick For you.)

This isn't a poem but like, a doodle or a sketch. If that makes sense. Anyway.

I see you in TV sets and hot pockets I see you in the cracks of my winter worn hands, think of When we didnt wear gloves, thought we were fearless, Snowball fights, so childlike-- I hear you in the swish of a skipping rope I hear you in the shaky voice in the voice in my head in the voice in my head I think I'm going crazy. Maybe you were crazy too. I hear you in the voice box of memory and youth I know you through children and through the very old. You were simultaneously untainted by the world and Somehow immune to its bullshit, like you'd seen this all Before. This is a teenage poem for a teenage soul, Missing a pre teenage friendship and an elderly love You were my old love, my oldest love-- My newest love. My love. My love. And that's my bullshit, because you were hot pockets and cheap TVs - - Entertainment without purpose, and Food without sustenance-- Frozen hands refusing gloves and All the bad parts of childhood, and all the best of being old I grew a thousand years with you. I'm old now, and my skin is cracked. I'm looking for what's gone in what's to come. I'm doing time all wrong. My eyes only look in. But the world is spinning. The world is spinning, my love. My love.

Anyway. These bad and sappy and bad-metaphors-everywhere posts were brought to you by my brain giving me a sudden memory of a smile. Isn't that wild? A smile. I haven't thought about his smile in years. It was never something I considered very uh.... Attractive or memorable or whatever you know. This is the sort of thing you miss. Half a decade out, you remember the smile.

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