Contrition

I painted the walls with your name
and then burned the fucking house down.

The oceans aren't going to boil themselves,
and what are we going to do with all this salt?

Cake me, baby. I wanna repent for the pain.
I can't hurt you like he did, or does, or will --

it's so hard to keep track of your movements.
Why did I spend months splashing Seagrams

like holy water when you like the pain?
You could've just told me that. I can find

the right shade of grey if that's what you need.
Irony is not lost on me, and the definition

is not lost on you. Your new life is built
on top of the concept like a haunted house

on a burial site. Bury me or marry me,
I'm not what you need right now anyway.

You need a familiar ache, fangs that know
how to tear into a heart, eyes that can't stop

wandering, a mouth made for half-truths
and other peoples' lips. No,

I am not what you need right now.
You needed someone to call you

when you were lying next to me.
I could call you when you're lying

next to him. And you could give me a second
chance because I don't deserve one,

and that's how this all works, isn't it?

[Pray high, sinners]

Pray high, sinners. Take the pills and parcel them

out amongst the lot of you. Find forgiveness

in the lighter head, the warmer numb.

Ask our lord for a hand and he’ll shake us

clean. I died for you one time, but never again.

Lift lines like lifting spirits – we live in heaven now.

At least we think this is where we are. Darker

than originally imagined, louder than the place

we came from. Our fathers said this will pass

and we don’t believe them worth a bit of salt.

We’re worth a bit of salt. A bit of sound, quiet

or otherwise – good men know where they are.

We are not good men. We are the big-eyed bugs

who can’t see the future. Who are built to ruin

moviesets and pretty girls crying in their homes.

Eighteen eyes, eighteen drinks in, we can’t see

eighteen inches before us. Damned by our loves.

Silly rabbits – they thought we’d scatter when the lights came on.

Untitled, May 5

Hell used to be further away than the front door

and I can only recall the better lines.

A heart of black gold –

there was a beating to it

once, but the mass

it don’t breathe no more. I want to dig a hole in the world

only to find someone

has done it

before. Baby, defeat me.

There was a desire once, and pure thoughts.

Noble action. A truth that would

burn itself at the stake. Truth like a kiss

like a rock.

Kiss like a rock. Now we kiss like rocks kiss.

She found a strange sweetness in my mouth once,

a taste greater than the smoke.

            More saccharine than the tinny blood

            the sink finds each morning now.

I filled the lungs and the hole. I burned the truth, burned the sugar off.

I learned a lesson once,

            quickly learned to kill:

Killed a heart and it turned black.

Killed a girl and she kissed me back.

Kissed me ‘til the cows came home.

Kissed me ‘til her stop came up.

Fucked, forever

The beautiful boys and girls used to run

ragged through the East Village, puking

on sidewalks and fucking themselves stupid

with the joy they borrowed from each other.

We used to meet their cousins – tight

and smooth, trusting adolescents

from the Midwest. They let their hands

rub up our thighs, to our soft or swollen spots.

Nobody’s cousin is fucking anyone tonight.

There was a time we said: love.

Then, we said: appreciate.

I discovered a lady’s tells, and she sent me away.

I could steal her money and cut out her tongue,

but she would still play with my fingers –

an aimless, silent monologue through a mouthful

of blood. This is how we knew each other.

This is when we drank and fucked, forever

looking for a path. She showed me her light

and it turned out to be a train and a tunnel

and we don’t know what we want anymore.

We do know what we need.

I need a bed that won’t quit and a meter

that won’t expire, something I can keep

time to when the light goes out.

And all she needs is the hard cock

of her handsome man.

For Boston

Boston is not our home, but our sisters
live there. Our sisters' boyfriends live
there too. The former loves we knew
are down the street, those wet-mouthed

boys and girls we kissed on Commonwealth
wait on corners with cold faces.
Kin, made of shared blood
and shared necessity, are creating

new life in the city. From within.
With one another. We are visitors
but our people are not. The city
has adopted them, like it always has.

Boston is not our home, but our mail
gets lost there sometimes. Traveling
by train or by bender, we look
to be welcomed by the ghosts

we left in the backyard of our
neighboring town. We want to have
a drink with you soon, Boston.
You're the friend we've had

since childhood. We don't always
think the same, but we all want
the same thing now. To get back
to the sweet closeness of when

we all felt safe. The soft where
that gives New England its heart.

The Current Political Climate

We shouldn't feel this way this selfish way we shouldn't feel this way
At all. There's a lot going on out there & I just happened to see this
Come across my desk: A man wrote us a letter saying 
He was concerned about receiving mail from us 'cos

Of the current political climate & I said: Well what the fuck
Does that mean? & they said: The goddamn town is boiling!

All the lines can't all be winners. It's a sad state of affairs when
You're too tired to think & too drunk to chase the skirts
To act like you've been there before. But we have been there.
We've been there since the summer of 2002. We get our mail

There. We bring a cup of something hot & sit & wait
For the man to bring us good news about the climate political

Or otherwise. He hates our stupid names & stupid faces
& loses our letters like I'll lose your scent. Just because
He can just because it hurts too much to hold on.
He & I are old enough to know we're being naive

& we still don't give a good god damn. Fuck the right
Thing the adult thing club it like a baby seal & sell it

For a profit. 'Cos some good can come from the loss
Even if it is a bit messy & just a tad unpleasant at times.
These words just this particular set is a waste of wasting
Time & I'm so very sorry if you see them and think less

Of me at all so think of me when I was good when I was
A fucking monster unstoppable & damn-near bulletproof

When all I had to worry about was a finding a home a couple
Of bills I could call my own. I'm running an old program
In a new machine & the gridwork doesn't know how to react
& I don't know how to react to it & I feel we are all getting

Close to something we won't see coming won't be able to put
Our fingers on until it is wringing our weak & sore & stupid necks.

Burn the World

It is 12:15 a.m. on a Saturday, and my hair looks too good
to sleep alone tonight.

But I got drunk off that stupid joy,
and lady? I can't stand up straight no more.

Don't bother searching for my network, you can find me
underground. This is where/how I will live now. 'Cos

the light can't get us here, but the cold
sure will. I'll invite it in, make a home for it

like I did for you.

We were too full though, I see that now. We had no room left
for the things that should matter.

I see that now.

There was a time when it was bright, and I thought about buying new sunglasses
but I kept the ones I had because I was wearing them when I met you during the storm
when Ian and I went for beer and they almost got taken away with the wind, almost
got knocked off my face, but I kept them on, and you read me Whitman, and I wanted
to tell you how important I thought you'd be to my life, that I had never met anyone
that looked like you, that had your voice or history, but I didn't tell you that then.

I won't tell you that now.

There was a time when it was warm, and it was only one day, but in that day
I was thankful for the fullness and I was taking sips of you, taking swigs of stupid
joy, and I was feeling sublime and you were feeling like you never had before.
You have a brain, you said, and I laughed and said "I do". You have passion,
you said, and I nodded and said "I hope so". You're something rare, you said,
and I wanted to write you a novel, or maybe just a love letter for when you woke.

Now is not the time for overdramatics.
Now is the time to burn the world.

I'll puke on the flames if I want to feel warm again.

Talk

We talk about "love like the whole world", but we don't know a fucking thing
about it. We want to be movie characters; that romantic comedy ending
that plays for Sunday matinee schoolgirls and bitter intellectuals.

We talk about the future like we have a single clue of how it will look.
I'm going to live in a cabin. I'm going to have a two-car garage.
I will never settle down, and you will never be able to find me.

We talk about finding the one, and we're convinced that we have
when we find someone we've never known before. I've never seen
the cut of his jib before. Her scent is from far away places.

These things are important. These things are not love.

We talk about happiness like it's something permanent, like a disease;
once we catch it, it will never go away. We'll have to call former lovers
and tell them of the diagnosis. It's only right (and we're all about being right.)

We talk about our lives like they're worth talking about.
We are not special. We are not unique. We are painfully unoriginal.
And the loves of our lives will smell it on us. We can't hide the scent.

We've been damaged and tainted, brainwashed and slightly bruised.
We've done too much living and not enough in the same useless breath.
We were banished from our homes to look for new ones, only to find

the new homes don't want us either.

The Queen of The Salt Water State (For Kathleen Bennett)

But at least I know we'll never be that far now from each other/

just a couple hundred feet either side of sea level.

- Los Campesinos!, "Hate For the Island"

We thought we could solve the world's problems from this bed,
but we were woefully unprepared. We knew not what we were doing

and we liked it this way just fine.

In another postal code, I have given you a new name; a badge
you can carry and flash when you're in need. We should be so lucky

to bow before you: The Queen of The Salt Water State.

And just because I left, it doesn't mean I left you. For how could I?
You are the conversation topic now. The reason to return

to a place that won't have me. And I love you like the whole world;

that's still enough, isn't it? 'Cos that's really all we have
when it's hard and cold, and the soft spots and hot hands

can't be found. I stole that line from that Welsh band we like,

because we can communicate with chords and borrowed accents,
even though we are so very (sort of) far away. I drop my R's more,

because I thought it would make you smile.

[We don't want to go home, but we are so very sick...]

We don't want to go home, but we are so very sick
of the cold. We rush down stairs, we mind the gap,
and we look for a corner to keep us warm. How long
must we search? It feels like it's been forever

without a bed. We rent-to-own, sometimes sleeping
on a mattress made of air. Sometimes, a sofa
made of bone. No, no -- now you've gone too far.
This is our issue now. We have not gone far enough.

But we are the truest blue -- won't somebody
see this? We've strangled ghosts we've loved more
for less, and we are prepared to misbehave.
We loved them, you see, but they didn't recognize us

anymore. They had to go! back to bed with those
sons of bitches. They kicked and screamed, broke
the backs of chairs as they went. And we laughed
a little bit, like we couldn't see the future. Like

we didn't know their hold on us. Like we didn't
feel their soft, cold palms in our itchy ones.

Sentimental X's (A Title Stolen from Broken Social Scene)

The sound of this day is an incantation; we have conjured a spirit
both ancient and terrifying.
Why do we hate the state we've found?

We don't hate the state.

We are in simple disagreement. She was content
with the life she lead, the head
on her tanned shoulders swiveled.

We all want the next best thing. We all wait for

the next best thing. We all want the next hometown.
We all want the next Asian boyfriend.
Well how do you like them apples? 

We've got ourselves a comedian.

This room, we see, is too full of ghosts. I think our beer
has been dosed. Someone found us having too much
fun. Someone found our beds full-up with new flesh.

Found our volume too high, our laughter too sincere.

We don't want these ghosts anymore. Our new home,
grid like a maze, have hidden us in plain view. One
of many now. One of the disappeared. We have found

new life. You didn't believe, but we said we were exorcising. 

Please, don't read this unless you have to.
Sometimes writers
have a way of haunting back.

End Times

Take back your apocalypse,
we have no need for your prophecies.

We have found girls with sharp bones and cities
who don't know our faces, but welcome us all
the same. The wind has been kind
to our hairstyles, and the trains wait for us.

Take back your apocalypse,
we have no use for your end times.

A younger us, an ignorant us, longed for a
change; a violent shock, a blackened sky.
We have found new homes, have practiced
strange rituals of our own.

Take back your apocalypse,
we have no patience for your fear.

There was a time when we wished to join
the fray. (We were going to be firefighters
when the floods rolled back.) The time
has passed, like your relevance.

Take back your apocalypse,
we have no room for your words.

We have no room for your scrolls.
We have no room for I'm Sorry.
We have no room for stockpiles.
We have no room for the end.

Knocked-Down Homes, Burned-Out Hearts

The season brings knocked-down homes, replaced
with burned-out hearts we can burrow into. Make a nest
for ourselves and sleep for months. The accommodations
would be a fine place to curl up into. Won't you host us?

We don't ask for much, just a place to keep us warm.
Maybe a cocktail before bed. Simple creatures demand
simple lives; we are no different. We demand a room
for rent. Somewhere to get the mind right, the body clean,

the needs serviced. Though they may be simple, our needs
are many. Care for us, beautiful girls and beautiful boys,
and we will buy you a wedding, or a rent-to-own bed.
We can treat you all like saints or burdens. Friends

or paper dolls. We can tie you down to four stanzas,
locked to sixteen lines, so you can't bother us ever again.
And maybe we'll take you out every so often, just to say
hello. To say: we used to live there, but that was forever ago.

On Reflection

There was a time when you
were enough. You were built

to love and you owned me.
When the honey dried,

when the season

changed, there was a time
when the idea of you was enough.

Something to get me through
the day, like a kind word

from a stranger; a moment

of accidental contact. A hand.
A stray hair. The small comforts

could only replace so much.
I wasn't made to love you,

but my wires got crossed.

[Broken hearts don't exist, for the organ...]

Broken hearts don't exist, for the organ
cannot be snapped. It's a pulling kind, a motion
that wears out wrists and jaws. The rip

is the new break. A tear mark, like a dark
spot in an open chest cavity. Broken hearts
don't exist, as much as we'd like them to.

We've never been ones for stitchwork,
the slit is too small to work with. Our fangs
would do the job just fine,

but we've been warned. Eating our own
stupid hearts went fine until
we filled up. Floating and drunk

off wine from our living vessels.