Vomit ALL the Words!

Playing Van Gogh

Lets play Van Gogh
only
instead of an ear
my lips

to FedEx or Kinko’s
(it doesn’t really matter which)
across the two-thousand-odd miles
between us

and peck you
on the cheek
(just remember to return them, please.) 

I need more writers to follow.

Compliments

“Congratulations on losing those extra pounds!” my friend says

“Congratulations on losing your car keys.” I reply

I receive a confused look — I’m not quite sure why. 

Drift

Bar stools stand
occupied by empty vessels
slowly being filled with
society’s karkov

“There’s a three-beer-betty if
I ever saw one”
It’s hard to see if you’re doing
the dead man’s float in heineken

guffaws

the leftovers drift
home
wishing on miller lite
for the approval of
no one they know

false authenticity

onnothingandeverything:

why is it so hard
to be honest?
we spend so much time
withholding
distorting
misleading
each other
and ourselves
in the name of ease and convenience,
selfishness
protection
but always it returns
with gnashing teeth
to make us bleed
and wonder why
we didn’t hold strong to verity
when we first should,
and why not?

wouldn’t it be nice
if reality could stand
hard and bare,
without the hazy
covers of deception
and words (and their speakers)
could be trusted
unconditional
to be truth?

How to Vomit

I can’t say this wasn’t interesting
see, there I go breaking my rule already
I tried to keep myself out of my writing — that is, the “I”
I guess I’ll chastise myself with a birch whip and try not to like it too much
Isn’t the slant here interesting
too bad I broke
the pattern

poetry
is a four letter word,
you see
right up there
with excrement
and bitches

so I don’t see any reason not to degrade it just as much as any of the others
faulkner, shakespeare, renowned, sure but
why?
because they were moving?
because they pandered?
Well, I won’t be a sellout! I write for myself!

said the beggar from his cardboard box

oh well

this line is a thoughtful, yet elegantly simple conclusion. 

Two Hundred and Twelve

Two hundred and twelve.

Two and hundred and twelve, my mind Vesuvius reincarnate.

I was doing everything right. Salads, food diaries, running just a little farther every day, visualizing myself eating all my indulgences, picturing myself pushing them away and quoting the immortal word of Kate Moss.

“Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels”

What a bitch. What a lie, I recite as I make yet another offering at my porcelain altar so I can stop having pointless arguments with dressing room mirrors

What a fucking crock, I declaim as I cling to men like Velcro and they peel me off and throw me away because you better be grateful for any affection you can find, fattie.

What a goddamn horrible no-good very bad sham of a statement

as I beg the doctor to make me better. I am sick and he can heal me and maybe I can be more than a size on a clothesrack

but men don’t get eating disorders.

I gave up. I gave up for just a moment and calories swarmed into me, each one a fire ant, heartburning me from the inside while I tried to put them out, fighting fire with fire and my throat muscles clench like a fist please god don’t let me swallow any more and I’m in the bathroom crying softly, burning on the inside

and I feel my finger, a skeleton key unlocking my throat. And it’s over.

It’s here, that I realize that this portrait of myself ragged, broken, dripping snot isn’t ever going to be a model either. The scale may read 175, but I’m nowhere near a 10.

and I’m tired. Tired of nailing myself to some kind of cross with fashion stigmata, tired of turning down offers to go to the beach, when I’m not even being ashamed for myself. I’m being ashamed for you, America. I’d rather not be your cream-filled eclair when I could just buy one from a bakery myself. 

My body is not an apology, and I refuse to live my life on a treadmill, running miles to where I started. Because knowing that I’m fat doesn’t make me different — fuck, I look like america. But loving my fat makes me a pillsbury rebellion. I’d rather stand in the rain, listening to thunder thighs thunderclap and jelly bellies wobble, trying on clothes and feeling like the Grinch because I grew two sizes that day, and standing on a scale
and feeling like God.

Two hundred and twelve.

Yeah, I can live with that.

Business Partners

It wasn’t rape. It was just business.

We met at a casino, and I spent my body like poker chips. I bet on hand-holding, you on handjobs – but I didn’t know that the house always wins.

You told me I was safe here. Here, in my loft apartment overlooking the city skylines I couldn’t have been more on top of the world. Or more under your body. Then, the gifts: a new phone, fancy restaurants… once, a bouquet of roses that withered in half a week.

 As if this were romance. As if you were wooing me over when I was nothing more than your foster fucktoy, a dependent you clothed, fed, and plunged yourself into at the end of the long, hard day

“Daddy” was your name. That was a condition. “Daddy needs you to keep the weight off, sweetie. Unless you want to be homeless, haha!” That was another one.

In the morning, you leave for your work. I would stagger out of bed and limp to mine make yet another offering at my porcelain altar, paying with the leftovers of last night’s gluttony in an effort to keep my home the only way I could. This became a ritual of ours, until you got bored.

My body was reduced to shreds – the wrapper of a candy bar that your greedy child teeth couldn’t make last.

I found a phone, called my family. They said they loved me, please come back, suck as much dick as you like.

One night my mom found me trying to cry over the toilet, eyes brimming only from the effort of pushing up dinner. Old habits die hard. They took me to the doctor, and I learned more than I wanted to.

I had always thought of positive as a good word. I had always thought HIV was something that happened to other people.

I try to cry again. Mom succeeds. Somewhere, I’m sure, Daddy is crying out too, just not in the same way.

But it wasn’t rape. It was just business.

you’re not jesus; take the wheel anyway.

i’ve always thought i was a control freak

but i long to be a bitch, not napping at heels
trained
domineering cock attached to domineering personality
at the hip

 i thought i was a control freak but really i just can’t
responsibility burns like hot grease and all iwant is to wash it off
and bottle up my trust in an urn 
and put it

on your mantelpiece

Whips, chains, blindfolds
sexy, yes but
also release

 like the kid in the candy store, i can’t make my decisions
make them for me
please

i’m not a control freak
so please be mine for me. 

A Guide to Fulfillment

Don’t stop
‘til sorry is a synonym for holes

snowball down desert hillsides
and into an electric fence
just to feel it.

throw blame to the wolves
or anyone else who’ll take it

cling to medication like a security blanket

face the corner
let it embrace you
a
     little
at
        a
time 

this isn’t a very good guide

it’s just a real one