she wants to get away

i know this woman
in a maddening situation.
she's not where she wants to be.
she's not who she wants to be with.
"but such is life,"
she says. "when you plant a tree,
you can't expect it to come up
anywhere but where
you dug the hole."
after the children
have went to school,
and the husband is gone
for the day,
she sits beneath
a shade tree
with a book
and pretends that the story
is her life,
where it should have led,
who she should have been.
she often wonders
if there is an alternate her
out in an alternate there
living the way she
intended.
she wonders if this other her
is happy,
but she's sure she is.
"anything's better than this,"
she says closing the book
and placing it on her lap.
she stares off into the clouds
and wonders aloud,
"who the hell am i, really?"

when the children come home,
they scream for a snack
before diner.
they hit each other and cry.
they break the family picture
that was hanging in the stairway
that resembles the lie
she has lived for far too long.

when the husband gets home,
he makes a drink
and settles back
in his favorite chair,
unaware
that she is at the brink,
hovering over the sink
in the kitchen,
wanting so badly
to puke
it all away.

in the morning,
the children have went off
to school,
and the husband has gone too.
she's finally alone again
and takes a walk to
clear her head.

sometimes she wishes
she were dead,
but that's a silly notion.
she's more than aware
that's it's them
that puts that thought there.
it's the thought
of an ungrateful family,
regret for opportunity
lost ... in a type of purgatory
that makes her stomach clench.


and that's when an idea comes.
"maybe i just need to
be fucked. maybe i just need
a way to get away
from this and that
and those children. maybe
it's me that's the problem."

soon,
she meets him.
he's rough
and rugged,
nothing like the man
that comes home
in the evening.
this one is different.
he looks at her in a way
that makes her feel
wanted,
needed,
lustful,
upended.

every morning
she goes to see him
after the children
have went off to school
and the husband
has left for the day.
it's a way
for her to unwind.
she melts for
the texture of his hands,
the curve of his beard,
the edge of a smile
that comes from his eyes
when he stares
at her
for too long.

and she doesn't wonder
of that other her
in that other there
somewhere,
living the life
she always wanted.

"maybe one day
i'll just go away
and never look back
at what used to be
and finally see
that the life of the other her
is the life i want for me."

The man in the beige sedan

Glen drove his beige sedan
past 11th and Grand
the first time that he saw
her.
She was at the stop light
next to him
wearing a casual grin
that was trimmed
in bright red lipstick.

He tried to smile,
but he was struck with awe,
and he was sure she saw
through to the part
of his heart
that skipped
at the red of her lips.

She glanced back at him
through the rear view mirror
before she sped away
and no matter how Glen
wished she could stay,
she was on her way
before he could think
of what he needed say.

He thought long and hard
on what he would tell her
if he were to ever see her
again,
of how she had
been
on his mind ever since
then,
of the pins
and
needles that
coursed through his chest
whenever he imagined her
and how it made him lose his breath
as well as his composure.

He wanted to say that
he fell in love with her
the very moment
he laid eyes upon her,
but he knew that wouldn't sound right
right from the start
to lay out his heart
like that.

"But what do you
say
to the woman
you know
will be
the love of your life,
the woman you want to
be your wife,
the woman with lips
like a knife
that cut so deeply
into the core of your being?"

It was a few days later when
he saw her again and smiled.
Her eyes were wild,
and her tongue flicked the edge of her lips
like an illusory kiss.

He wanted to mouth the words:
"I love you,"
but he maintained his composure
and tilted his head
in a gesture
as if she should follow.

She gave a small nod of her head
and sped
up
to cut off the car in between them.

He pulled into the parking lot
of a cafe
just a few blocks away,
and watched as she parked
a couple spaces over.

They walked toward one another
as if they were future lovers
just waiting for this moment
to take them.

"I'm Glen," he said
with the same type of grin
that she had given him
the first time he saw her.

She gave him her name and said,
"It's a shame we didn't meet sooner."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well," she said,
"I just fell for a man in a beige sedan
at a stop light a few blocks over."

last night's show

the scene was rampant.
bodies shrugged,
bent,
and bore down upon one another;
brother against brother
as the sound slammed against the
ceiling
in a type of social healing.
a wave of sweat and angst
like the last supper
where christ gave thanks
to the execution he was yet to suffer.
an arm flailed across their line of sight
where there broke out a fight.
two young men blowing off steam
in a manner obscene.
a single bloody lip ring
clattered
against the floor and out of view
where ripe and bloody mouths
reeled from fists thrown anew.

"let's fuck,"
she said.

"here?!"
he asked.

"yeah, here!" she
shouted over the music.

by the next beat
they were curving their way
toward ecstasy.
a single tit fell from a torn
t shirt. a scowl formed at the edge
of her lips. he bore down
and grunted in between the drop
of the kick drum.

sweat,
semen,
and piss
rose from the pit.

a socially ironic lyric
jumped from the PA
and rummaged through the crowd.
the vocalist bowed,
took his stand,
snatched up the mic in his hand
and pronounced
the next line in time
with the chorus
as it flourished
and drove out along the crowd.

"fuck me harder,"
she said.

but he was already
giving everything he had
and didn't think it was bad
the way he was pushing himself
into the melody.

"don't you fucking come,"
she said, "until i get mine."

he grabbed that
single tit
that poked out from her shirt
and wiped away the dirt
from his brow,
thrusting like a madman
on a crash course with disaster.
his hips thrust faster
and the girl was almost there,
her ankles adorned in underwear.
and a crude smile formed
at the corners of her mouth
right before her boy
bowed out.

the lights came on
when the song
was done
and there was nothing left
to do
but run
out onto the streets
in a stampede
of stomping feet
and thrash the society
that held their indignity
to the dropkick of a steady beat.

from the top

from the top of
my head
to the bottom of
my rubber feet
i seem to be asleep
and floating,
wandering and shifting
through this
simple daydream
and i gleam
like a shattered
diamond
broken by the hammer
that set me free
and it's hard to believe
this is all i can be
and one other thing
i'm not what i seem
to them or me or any
others that happen to be,
that happen to be passing
and see
while i flee
to another ocean,
another dream
once i'm clean
the dirt washing from me
i will love and learn
and yearn
for forgiveness
from myself
from wealth
and emptiness
and complacence
and grievance
to do justice
with a promise
from the top of
my head
to the bottom of
my rubber feet

the softest scream

i don't need marketing
i don't need to be told what to buy
i can't afford what they're selling
anyway
i'm fine paying for my car and living in a dive
with the worst plumbing and for something to strive

what i need is a new way to sell my ass to the system
i need a new type of lube
so it doesn't hurt so
bad
give me a fucking pill and let me wash it down with a frosty glass of bleach
and make me learn by a trial of fire always a few inches  OUT OF REACH
with a brand new commercial targeted to my particular demographic
WHERE teachers are taught to TEACH
in a curriculum pornographic

waste me not
land of the free
make me pay
learn me to
scream

pay away the demons
and grab another bag
of product they're pawning
you think you do
but you don't know
what's it's like
to waste away in
the commercial they're filming
shaken and stirred
give me a dream worth dreaming

waste me not
land of the free
make me pay
learn me to
scream

nothing but flowers

i feel the
heart attack
in my head
expanding
like the light
of an angel
already dead

i feel the
pain of purpose
in splintered bones,
the shards
of which
i've always been fed

i feel the
holocaust of motion
churning in my guts
and another ruined
war
as the maggots infect the cuts
sober and shining
like the angels
that defecate me,
slowly consuming
and setting me free

how the hand
slices away
this feeling of exposure
of the sickened blessings
for which we nurture
from tits of corpses
and trailing lies
and so soon enough
everyone dies

but we can pretend
to see nothing
but flowers

reaping

sometimes i see
the eyes
reaping me

now i know
i am the only one

how the heart
struggles
to beat
like a single drum
knocking steady
through
the blood of it all

sometimes i see
the world
wrecking me

i can't be the only one

how the soul
quivers
like a dove
in a torrent
driven
down into slick

all the eyes upon you
and the flame flickers
in your chest

you're not the only one

none of this
makes sense
until it's
robbing you
of death
like all of
the monsters
you thought
unreal

sometimes i see
the eyes
torn from me

now i know
i am not the only one

no matter how many
tears you shed,
it never
seems to become
entirely undone-
the matters of
what is reaping you
and the feeling
that you haven't
truly begun