Weak Old.

Sometimes the shadows cast cool spots
over your skin, you think of what luck
you must have to experience brief relief;

the sun beats down again,
too much of anything good,
it'll kill ya--suck the soul right out
and spit you into a cup full of week old saliva,
filth floating in it.

the future is almost enough to gag on,
enough to send you running to the trash can,
globs of mucus pouring from your throat,
and the volcanic heaves push tears
like raw egg white,
and after the savage holocaust in your stomach
has ended, you hold your head in your hands,
sitting on your knees,
and weep.

the future is almost enough,
but it never is all it takes,
to kill you.
I can't promise it will be alright,
but I can promise you that when you've vomited enough,
the pain will endure into the next day,
and your body won't let you forget,
how much it hates to sit in direct sunlight;

it'll kill you, unless you can kill yourself first
and that's a success you're confident about.

Baby Is Desperate

The newborn has pneumonia,
has been asleep for thirty-seven hours,
this season, this cold, this era
has lasted too long,
and this town,
needs to burn to the fucking floor,
outside this town,
there's a whole earth that gets to thrive
and swell with beauty,

the baby is in the third drawer down,
I was too tired to hold her anymore,
I needed sleep too,
plus, I don't think she'll be waking up,

my eyes are as glassy and lifeless as hers
i notice while staring into the mirror
who belonged to my grandmother, mildew
in the corners, or is that mildew on my walls?

How could I have not kept it breathing?
Failure, failure,
does not ring like church bells,
putting her in the drawer seemed sane,

she quite breathing a while ago,
i don't know the proper procedure at this point,
they don't teach us things like
where to take your baby when it spits up
blood clots and asperates it's own vomit,

they teach us how to feel guilty
immediately wanting to slide the evidence
under a floor board
with the roaches and the syringes

it's wrong,
and the evangelists were right,
i'd go to hell if i died right now,
but i'm not trying to mask my fault
i'm just ignorant
and she didn't have pneumonia afterall.

Deliberation on Survival

It's not as late as usual,
we sit in the car, leave it running,
wish I was running away
from you and everything i feel
about this education and the money that i need to make--

we leave the car running, the headlights on the bushes
and I heave my exhaustion out through snot in my nose,
desperate addiction, needing alcohol through my tears,
saying anything that might make sense to myself
because goddamnit, it hurts
and i'm embarrassed that I need alcohol to sort out
my life
/life--
don't understand why battles are all uphill,
i don't mind battles,
can't they be on a flat field?
I'll throw the fucking flag at the top,
take a few bullets,
come skidding down dead bodies--
we all fought, some lived,
I keep living,
I just keep breathing,
I'm the one who is still here
every.
time.
and it's getting to be too much
on evenings like this--
needing thirteen gulps of divinity,
gulps of air, I am trying to tread water--

and you listen so well, baby.

which makes it worse,
I begin to rant and sort and write unecessary poems

so humiliating to be this human in front of you,
such a stab in the gut to feel this alive,

once I could suppress it,
anymore it burgeons from me,
fat from a wound,
oh it's so desperate,

fat from a goddamn wound.

there are times when feeling alive are intolerable,
times when I prefer to feel invisible,
a sweet ghastly idea,
times when being dead seem the most appropriate--

but I always make it out of that battle,
and each fight I realize that the odds are against me,
so I'm waiting for it to end,

knowing I've always been the exception'
"Good woman, Beth Smith"
isn't always the cheerful greeting others think it is,
I might look at you in shock
realizing I've come away from it,
still bleeding red, pissing yellow-
conscious, and irate.

To See Your Brother Go

In pictures,
he already looks like a ghost,
somehow the camera captures
the truth you purposely forget,
fail to acknowledge;
but I can't blame you--

you grew your hair long,
because he couldn't grow any,
worked pottery with your hands,
because he couldn't control his,
laughed hard, laughed hard
uncontrollable and sincere
with him, because he can laugh--
and he does,

he looks like a ghost in some pictures with you,
all shallow eyes,
black and white, auras blending into skin,
those are the pieces you throw away immediately,
like touching them,
breathing,
might turn them in to truth--

he's a ticking time bomb of dying,
but you didn't expect he'd live this long,
and although every day your entire family
pretends to live it to the fullest,
so that he may drink every drop
of life wine,
he's so drunk,
oh, but you're so sober--

your brother admires you because you're so beautiful,
and your friends play with him like the twenty-seven year old
child he really is,
he dances, you dance too--
a special handshake constructed out of madness
trying to create everything you could possibly endure
with a best friend

before the slipping occurs.

pictures can be destroyed by fire or compactor,
they can be degraded under piles of the entire city's trash,
but the slipping has to happen,
the fading has to begin,

continue to love him,
your heart might turn desperately cynical,
but never let him know,
he should begin to ghost away with that grin
that beautiful grin,
his ghosting will begin,
and you, my human soul, can not stop it.