at a television station

i asked her if she wanted to go to the beach

she said no way

and

i was really really sick

i mean

supersick; like—awful in the head

still

we like it when we get pretty words

stuck to the roof of our mouths

like dogs

with peanut butter mouths

and someone over us

pretending we are talking

as we move our jaws

in time

to the jibber-jabber

doing ape splits over jump ropes

etc.

and i needed to go to the beach

or anywhere

and

she needed to say no again

and

again and again

at the television place

other people i knew well were also

there and they looked like

they had seen me crazy

so many times

so much

that

if i was upset so what, so what

so what

joan is allowed to go fighting into the sunset with the brave

swordsmen

bloody feet and all

so i took her black lipstick and wrote a note for the angry

mob

on a call sheet

and i stapled it to the stake

we laughed

as some smartass in the crowd turned to his buddy, derrick

and punched him in the shoulder

and said

“burrrrrnnnn”

and snapped his fingers

like a split second later

like a drag queen would’ve

black and white days lasted forever

i loved me some black and white days

and

black and white nights

in the black and white city

still

it was all pain

there i was

again

at the television station

me and

joan of arc

no beach

not that it mattered

i paid for a holiday there

i just never went

i don’t even like the beach

and

that was that

now i am here—in the sunlight

undertow

ready for the colorized prime time

no war

new president

sober

golden

now

drumroll please

quietly kind of

happy

A Colorful Ending

A Colorful Ending

a book of poems

by me

everyone so happy celebratory

before reading

party ready and smiling teeth confetti

totally upsetting

i know, i know

alright already

me

cut it out

without the music all those words, they’re not so funny

not true

not kind

not me

but there they are

there they are—across the page

up and down like a depressive

box of chocolates

one second an elevator

the next a cage

with amphetamines and xanax

inside as slaves

to that guilty planet i walk alone

in its frozen wintry tundra

ice-cream cold

with ice-blue bowling ball eyes

inside i am screaming but outside i am calm

all “what?” and like “did that happen?”

course not

but alone biting the pillow

walking the halls like a ghost

in a perpetual self-haunt

i wrote what?

i didn’t even know i was on drugs

till i saw the ink stains on my paws

howling with sleigh bells

takeout vietnamese food

crazy like a fox

hungry like a dog

my face licked clean with a skull tongue

inside the house