The table in the back
near the drink machines
and the bathrooms
was made for a person
like me.

I don't know why
they put two chairs
at this table
(it's only large enough
for a drink and a laptop
anyway)
when they know
i'm going to be sitting
alone.

The other chair
just gets stolen
by larger parties
anyway. 

          And they don't even use words.
They just raise an eyebrow
at me alone with my computer
and I nod.
The awkward proportions
of the table once the appendage
has been so rudely excised

makes me feel
even more
          vulnerable.

I'm used to it though.
I gave up on “my other half”
a long time ago.

when you come home,
i'll turn you inside out
like the way i
peel
my tights off and
spread my legs
to get out of them.

you'll attach your skin
to mine
magnetically
(fuckin' magnets how do they work?!)
and we'll giggle about
my north meeting your south.

i will mark you
like a bad first draft:
gouging your most
tender places and
relishing in your screams.

and when you go out,
you'll wear my scent
stitched into your flesh
haphazardly and oozing
and your internal bleeding
will show the world
who owns you.

what's with me
posting first drafts
and calling them Art??
(like i have
any claim at all
to that word)

i think
it's a brutal (re)appropriation
of that word
to call what i do
art,
but
i still do it.

if i wasn't on a watchlist, i am now

if you want to
commit a crime,
be sure of
one thing:
who is(n't) around.

if no one is around,
no one will know.

if people are around,
no one will act.

last august i learned
that probable impossibility
was the aristotelian way
to measure the success of an idea.

this august, (somewhere
different
around the sun) i learned
that loving someone
was okay,
but only if you left out some
vowels because that made it less
intimidating,
and that by not saying
that word
and substituting
i want your words
tattooed on my body
somewhere close to my heart,
the message was just as
(probably impossibly)
clear.

whenever i try to write,
i get frustrated
because nothing i say
seems to be what i want
or how i intend.

kind of like if
hemingway and bukowski
had a child.
and named it me.

my sentences are short
and my words are simple.

but i think
i can make
something(s)
work.

why i will never smoke in the car again...and then proceeded to do so two hours later.

i was driving on i40 today. having a cigarette while driving isn't new to me; having a cigarette while driving on the highway isn't new to me. i usually squeeze the last remaining tobacco out the window and throw the filter into a bottle i keep in the console so i don't litter.

not today.

i went to squeeze the last remaining tobacco out the window...and it came back and hit my neck. i freaked out and went to brush it off me and out the window--

but it went down my shirt.

      damn it.

so there i am driving on i40, flailing around trying to stop the burning tobacco from staying too long on any one part of my skin but it fell down my back and i tried to squish it with the fabric of my shirt but that didn't work and i'm trying to stay in my lane and then it fell down to the waistband of my pants and i'm freaking out hoping that the cloth seats don't catch on fire and OH MY GOD WHY WON'T IT STOP BURNING I REALLY CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT NOW--

      and then it was over. just like that. the burning stopped.

i ran my hands over my neck and back and the seat and only felt skin and cloth. huh. i guess it just burnt itself out...

i placed the filter in the bottle just like i always do. and i turned on the radio pretending that i totally didn't just have a moment where i was seriously teetering on the edge of Emergency.



i'm just glad no cars were around; i'm just glad no one saw.

when i took algebra
in the seventh grade,
we had to do projects
on the order of operations.

daniel made a song
and i thought it was clever.
so i told him i had a crush on him
and we "dated" for a month or two.

when i came to college,
a one night stand asked
if i liked the red hot chili peppers.
i said of course so he picked up
the guitar. it sounded familiar...
daniel's song!
i asked the title.
he scoffed and said
under the bridge.

he should have failed that project.