The adorable ballerina

Life at the bar:
Like a naughty/nice list.
The adorable ballerina
puts up with your shit.

Nothing is good enough.
No one is ever sated.
She fuckin smiles
no matter what.

i must have looked homeless

that flawless face,
the no-makeup makeup,
the tilt of her hips,
wings sharpened to scalpels.

i must have looked homeless
as i passed her by
with a polite smile,
hair in all directions.

stains on everything,
not even wearing socks
(or underwear) but
appearing just as effortless.

fuck denim, give me latex

this is what killed Tasha Yar,
what inspired Nietzche
to write all those sonnets.

the slick, inkiness, spreading itself thin
in between my legs, around my neck.
it stretches enough to let your lungs work,
it adheres to each contour and shows off
every imperfection perfectly.
this beats cling film any day.

i stare at it for minutes, lightly
passing my fingers over it
again and again.
i imagine myself preserved
underneath stone focusing
spiritual energy into space.

i want its unyielding authority,
i crave its surface tension,
i want to feel as though i am the sexiest Darth Vader.

i think about the horse people
who attended the convention,
expecting to be accepted
and only finding themselves.

i wanted to touch them without sarcasm,
to hold their straws still during a conversation
that would fascinate me to no end.
instead,
i watched people
circle the meatballs
because they are free.

imagine how beautiful we would be
preserved,
vacuum-packed for freshness,
smirking knowingly at every groper.

tucking that thought away,
bookmarking that page,
for when my disposable income
surpasses my common sense.

head to toe in leather

head to toe in leather,
hide tanned from corrosive salts,
waiting in line to wash it all off.
but the rain's coming baby,
roll those smokes up in your sleeve
safe and snug.
i'm living the free life,
i'm living in the matrix,
huffing e-fumes. then she resumes her speech politely
ignoring my constant interruptions:

"you're so cryptic,
and people don't want to think
to decipher the content.
they want to drink on Sunday"

i blink and it's Groundhog's day.
i blink and it's Christmas.
i blink and i'm reminded that
Autumn dies as fast as Spring.

my hide is weighing me down,
so i shed it.
my helm is chalky and brittle;
one tap and it crumbles.
my sniper's scope works mid-range at best,
and everything sounds good when it's not now.

turtles live forever at home,
those intrepid agoraphobes,
tracing their world out of a magazine.

so i took it all off, and blasted whatever is closest
to fill in and drown out the sound of airplanes
and trains
and people mumbling to themselves into a telephone.

i mention it often, but my tongue is loose
and sharpened and nowhere near my cheek:
i'd love for it to snow, to increase the albedo,
just a smidge or two until our marble reflects
what ugly ignorant assholes we are.

i watch her polite expression, knowing that
i am going the same place forever with my thoughts.
the matte surface of boredom and nostalgia presses me
to cross the street, despite my desire to
sun-bathe in the intersection.

dirty feet

my feet are filthy,
5 miles of blacktop
run entirely in circles.

my lungs protest,
but nothing can beat
a good ole chemical peel.

my heart sinks down
into the pit of my
grumbling stomach.

my mouth is a matchstick,
heartfelt and honest but
mostly incendiary.

my pronoun

i never want to have the discussion.
i don't like to think about it,
because no matter which one we use
someone is misidentified.

can we take a sledgehammer to this vestigial tail
passed onto us from dead languages?

parts

behind the couch as our parents tried to melt the roach clip,
i met you twice a week after school
and we fingerpainted.
you showed me yours, i showed you mine and we noted
all of their similarities
and unique properties.

there was a knot in the tree behind your house,
and you laughed
when i said it looked like a butt.
i spent weeks in my room after the shame
and promised i would
never touch it again.

i stole a kiss from you when we ran away from home,
lost in the row of pines
behind our school.
it was the first time i realized that i could see better,
and with more clarity
up close and honest.

...

sometimes it's better not to share or think of those times,
like when i compared it to the boys'
and i watched their faces contort.
i often wonder why we never met up again after puberty
to compare
though i wanted to.

earplugs

headphones are a pleasant partition.
half the time i didn't even have music on,
i would just struggle toward the sounds muffled, imagining i was deaf.
i learned ASL from grimy truckers.
i just wanted to explore,
to feel that part of me
that acknowledged.

we are surrounded and bombarded every day.
i started using earplugs instead,
and found that i ignore so many things in my environment:
the engine in the car,  the whirring of the fan,
the inconsequential ramblings of idiots.
i just wanted to think,
to feel like i have some space
uncharted.

we built the tank to suit,
like an iron lung,
like a womb,
like a sarcophagus.

in here you can barely hear a thing.

the implant

clawing at the implant, i loose the skin.
it's very messy, but the itching
never ceases.
those robotic skitterings on bones made of marble.
like a glass countertop
that insists on being shattered.

i'd love to tell you all about it.
wouldn't it be nice?
removing components that serve no purpose
other than to slow the CPU
and make a buck.

we're all born in the void
and the void is inky
(yet warmer than i remember)
and the universe hums and pulses.

i spent the whole weekend
talking about innies and outies,
and the curly-haired pixie laughed inappropriately and then
caught herself.
while you didn't crack a smile
because you're used to it,
my advocacy for all devils:
the lone champion against misandry.

(i think it's fun to note what the spell-check catches)


i want the jukebox to play on repeat
"would we be alive?"
and we would all swoon like it was Elvis.
i want the signs to say
"bathroom",
i want to dig out the implants,
i want to show you things that just seem really obvious if you take half a second.

think about the songs we sang, and then imagine
Ann Wilson singing them
like a fucking banshee...
do you need to borrow a knife?

i've been digging and digging and my arms and legs and hips are bloody,
rended like a failed armor save,
and i can't find it,
but the itch is still there.

it's a half-dead fever dream at this point to keep consciousness
in a world i know to hate me.
dig out that fucking implant.

wrist watch

she wants to wind me like a wrist watch,
i want to get off of the sofa
and toast to burning out the last lights:
those fateful packets of photons caught in the big freeze.