Where are you going

Two Christians came to my doorstep while I drank coffee
This was a couple minutes ago, on my porch (right
now I’m recording it in a poem). They spoke
of death. To me, the man and woman, probably
married, very old but in an endearing way, seemed
possessed of knowledge concerning some end/hereafter
The woman tried to read of death to me
I ended up reading to myself out loud, for her
Afterwards, the man asked me if I was a ‘scholar’
I hesitated and said ‘yes,’ then came quick
a vague discussion of my hobbies leading
into one, as directionless as death, about
a perceived lack of ‘goodness’ in the world
and resulting senses of fallacious hopelessness
Our reasons for defying/defining loss are different
They still gave me a little pamphlet though
On the back of it is a blurb titled ‘is it designed’
demarcating the biological system of navigation
dung beetles use, specifically in regard to
their utilization of the Milky Way’s band of light
as a sort of GPS satellite, but more efficient than one
I feel, re: significantly less computational power
Even on the darkest nights they check distant starlight
against their position in the universe for movement
I don’t know what the article is implying, but it brought to mind
an occurrence yesterday, wherein waking up outside
the chapel, I went in and almost prayed
instead opting to sit at the organ and attempt to play
realizing it requires a labyrinth of neural organization
I’m incapable of aligning my body’s movement with the electrical impulses needed
to operate complicated machinery in a purposeful, directive manner
I’ve been trying to figure something out ever since
like if God was watching me and laughing at my failure
in his/her house; some people really don’t like a house
being disrespected; God might be one of those people
or simply detritus in the pockets of those people

PERFECT PERSON

and when I laid my hands upon his person
I thought this is the perfect person
and so was stricken
and became nauseous

then he asked me for money
and I was honored
I felt flattered

and when his freedom finally leaked
I thought how terrifying
how torturous
and was touched again

everyone around us grew disgusted

I leaned over
and threw up into their milk

Vampire

I am a vampire in a grayly coughing dawn
I prepare a ritual of the hallucinogenic sleep
I lay down and spread
My gnatted arms by my sides
I cannot
But let
An Autobahn of blood be mealy in me

You know what I mean
We king our impulses, love
Eat and prey
Every day

It’s a fakey arcade
And I am its operator laughing copper with blood in my teeth
I spin a bright novelty ball on my finger
While I watch you watch me

I can’t make myself be alive
I do not feel sorry
I only talk about me
the laptop shudders violently when I type my About Me

You ask if I will stay here in the ruin
With you, and of course I will

When I say those words exactly
I let them rope out of my mouth
And twine around my fingers

What I do is a conjunction

I smooth the gothic filament of my agreeing
And I close my eyes

And how an hourglass is wide on both ends
But wide enough in the center for one grain only
That image is my voice
Working in my throat

I use it to gorge you
With my gentle introduction
“I can smell you
It’s nice and I like it
Did you know that I am real”

Selected Tweets

so no i don’t exactly think there’s hope for any of us ok

ice isn’t melting btw it’s rejecting you

can’t tell if this sunshine is trying to be ironic or what

not a statue i just stay still a lot

what if you “listened to your body” and all it said was “goodbye”

the furniture seems to be a lot more on fire since i started thinking of you

*pregames with bone marrow*

my fantasy is a room you’re not walking out of

writing “who did this to you” as the caption to every childhood photo of yourself you can find

there are a lot of cups of coffee but this one hasn’t betrayed me or made me feel worthless yet

i’m the part of the story you fall asleep during

how old is your depression supposed to be before you talk about girls

i like to drive real slow like my life isn’t meaningless

what’s the yoga position where i lie down in your driveway and promise not to breathe

yelling at my blood that it’s not allowed on the bed

twisted dark fantasies about emotional stability

point a camera at me and watch it detonate

now count back from you miss her but she doesn’t miss you

every five minutes i whisper “it sounds like someone’s dying out there” and even i do not know what I mean

teaching the baby how to say yeezy

have your funeral at a poetry reading so you can blame poor attendance on the genre

put my name in your bio wrap it up in a blanket and weigh it down with rocks drop it off the pier

your heart’s first words were “no touching.”

there is cornbread in my tears tonight

i thought i was in love but it turns out i just left the oven on

gonna take your temperature by burning you at the stake

“i always wanted to fuck the most depressed cheerleader in the world”

“you’re making it worse” me every time i look in a mirror

smh if your entire body isn’t a cast you never figured out how to remove

there’s like one self esteem for every twenty people on twitter and they pass it back and forth

today i wore a canary yellow shirt so that people would know i am completely dead inside

taze me until i cum

tbh every time i look at a baby i can already tell how bad its twitter will be

#girlslikeitwhen you kill their parents trust me this one works

So You Think You Can Cum Without Crying

gonna keep buying diet coke until this vending machine is empty enough to double as a coffin

gonna raise these feelings like they’re my own

lower yr expectations lower them gently into the ground

happily married couple seeks third party to kill them

hey girl are you science friday because you are the only thing i love and it seems like you never come

how many fireflies do you have to kill to cure a depression

i look too good to wake up

IF YOU REALLY LOVED ME I’D BE FUCKING DEAD BY NOW

jealous of all the people whose iphones keep killing them

like you’d notice if the fucking rapture happened

no one who can touch a girl’s collarbone needs to build a dream catcher

people only ever want one thing from me and it is space

PORTRAIT OF MY STALKER

When my stalker stopped stalking me
I died the death of
a million fat blue genies.
That’s how sick in the bream I was.

I wanted to call him Porgy—
because he could follow the scent
of my truffle—
before I knew a porgy is a fish.

The lava lamps slid all the way
into the psychedelic canal.
Fiddlehead ferns wove a shag rug
that couldn’t fly.

I wept hard
in the terminal.
I couldn’t weep.
My god wings
looped in the gold
from a dying head.

For seven years, I didn’t
hear anything
from the state.
And then my certificate
thighs returned
burned.

I tried to soldier on
without. I vacuumed
in the powder
all the way up the snow scraper
and sucked my hair
into a trapezoid.

Running of the things
off a cliff–
Running of my nerves
off my spine–

Porgy, I begged,

I’m a dwarf
planet, I’m a morphed
laminate.
I’m a shut canister
in shut cycle,
spinning out of time.

Explanation

Two days ago, my job went missing. Yesterday, my house went missing. And then I went missing too.

*

For some reason, I can’t stop moving. I would like to stop moving and settle down.

*

My job is a three-dimensional rectangle with four floors and is mostly filled with people I do not care about. But two days ago, when I cycled to work, it had been replaced with a hole. I looked down into the hole and saw fire.

*

Upon walking home a day later, my house was gone. My house was a warehouse unit with a car garage next to it. That, too, had been replaced. But this time, it had been replaced with a mass grave. Everybody inside of the grave was naked and pink.

*

And today, I woke up but when I opened my eyes everything was red. As if my eyes were closed. Around me, the sound of traffic but the sound was muffled as if two pillows were cushioning my ears.

*

My vision slowly came back. I was on the floor. I couldn’t get up. My legs had been replaced with walking sticks.

*

This couch is uncomfortable.

*

Things got better for a while. I came back. I was conscious and my legs were legs, my arms were arms and my head was still intact. This is the way life should be, with everything in place, where years go forward and minutes die in seconds.

*

Suddenly, everything was worse. I was sitting in a chair at the top of a Georgian townhouse in 1765. Samuel Johnson, writer of the first English dictionary, and other artists, were taking turns kissing me all over my body and I didn’t say no.

*

And then they taped my eyes open and my glued my hands to a Nintendo Entertainment System controller. Johnson laughed at me and I asked: why me? No answer. I was forced to play Duck Hunt. Duck Hunt is a two-player game. Player 1 controls the ducks.

*

Back to reality, I decided to go and buy a flute of bread to satiate my hunger.

*

Outside, the weather blinded me and I couldn’t see again. All I wanted was to go back to work and resume life as it was.

*

I woke up in a field. Cows surrounded me. I was thirsty so I grabbed an udder and sucked. No milk came out.

*

Upon returning home, three of my high school friends were sitting in my sitting room. I asked why and they said they wanted to talk about my absence. Theodore remarked that my drug abuse was ‘pronounced’ and I said: please leave.

*

My job came back to work. So I went back to work.

*

My colleagues commented on my shaking.

*

Upon returning home, I had a shower and all my skin came off. I went to dry myself. An elderly gentleman called Fellows told me that’d be a bad idea. I went up to the roof of my apartment block and dried off my skeleton.

*

Don’t worry, they told me.

*

I was told that I could take a two-week holiday. My boss said I looked thin. His assistant said I looked like a skeleton. I told them that I was a skeleton. I told them I was trying to find my skin again.

*

They fired me. Now what?

*

My house didn’t want me either. It told me to leave. I asked if we could talk this over and my house said nothing.

*

I asked my friends for help: could you help me out/have you got a couch I can sleep on/Just until I get back on my feet. The answer was no. They said they didn’t feel safe around me.

*

I went to the library and found a small opening behind a bookshelf. I now lived behind a collection of medical journals. I would travel out every day to bring provisions for my new home. I had a pillow, a yoga mat for my back and some tarp for a cover.

*

I learned many things in my new house. But there are only so many times you can read about Central African lymphomas and ambiguous genitals.
*

An artist named Koonig said I could stay at his place. He picked me up because he liked my legs. He said to me: “do you like my apartment?” I said: “Sure.” And I did. He laughed and patted me on the back. My jaw fell off. He said: “the ceilings are high. Don’t hang yourself in here!”

*

The weeks passed by. I liked Koonig and he liked me. I was not sure whether I was coming or going most of the time. I asked Koonig just to check. “Koonig, am I coming or going?” He said neither and this didn’t really help.

*

Koonig got me back on my feet. He gave me some new skin. I wasn’t moving around all the time anymore. People weren’t forcing me to play games I didn’t want to play. People weren’t kissing me on my body against my will. Time was suddenly finite and organized.

*

Koonig sat me down and stroked my legs. I looked at one of his paintings. It was of a man sitting down having his legs stroked by Koonig. I struck Koonig aside the head with a tire iron.

*

I left the house. I ran far away to a mountain and looked out on the city. The lights were moving. I had a headache because I felt every single person in the city moving. I just wanted to stop moving and be surrounded by silence and a black blanket of darkness.

*

And that’s all I remember: how pretty the world looked when it wasn’t there.