Nobody Told Me

A young girl died today on an icy stretch of highway.
Fourteen.
Two Christmases ago she signed her name on my bedroom wall.
Today her body was hauled from the metal wreckage that used to drive her to school.
My little brother's classmate.
We'll be weeping over her beauty for years.

A young woman came to me again today, bloodied and bruised, and asked if I had any more peroxide.
Nineteen.
Over the past three months she's emptied two first aid kits from my bedroom.
The lawyer that beats and fucks her is rich and has a finance two time zones away.
Black eyes and the purple rings on her neck.
I'll be weeping over her ugliness for years.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these.

Montana

I think it's about time I did some time in Montana.
I've heard of the pipes stuffed with tobacco
And the tired cattle and their tired masters
And the mountains and skies that roll on forever.


I want to shovel cattle and horse shit.
I want to eat thickly and heartily 3 times a day.
I want to bruise my hands with rope
And cut my jeans on rusty nails poking from wooden fences.
I want to go where no one knows me,
Where I don't have breathe the smog and tension of a million.
I want to go where everyone speaks my native tongue, but there's no one I have to speak to.
I want to go where I can wash myself clean in the snowy mountain runoff. 


Maybe someday I'll take time to do time in Montana.

Wishing

The last time I saw you off at the airport
You said you loved me.
You said it like you'd never see me again.

I know how hard that must have been for you.
You're too like your father:
Stoic. Quiet. Suffering in silence.

I promised you everything would be alright.
Biting back
tears
sobs
wails
I told you I could manage the next few years alone.

When you graduate high school I promise
There'll be an apartment somewhere waiting for your luggage.
There'll be a room needing your ugly 70s-brown furniture choices.
There'll be a friend waiting to hold you close and not let go.
There'll be movies needing watching
Popcorn needing popping
Books needing sharing
Records needing cleaning
Guitars needing playing.

When you're ready, when you're old enough
I will help you start your own life.
If you want.

And I'll be clean.
And I'll have a job.
And I'll own a puppy
To show my responsibility.

For you, my comrade, my confidant, my friend.
For you my brother.
I'll be clean.

Sometimes

Sometimes I just want to take pictures.

Fuck this city.
Fuck this work.
Fuck this school.
Fuck this [lack of] money.
Fuck you never being here.
Fuck me for not really caring.
Fuck these addictions.
Fuck this loneliness.
Fuck me forgetting how to give head it's been so long.
Fuck it all.
Fuck earth and wind and water and sky.

But most of all,
Fuck.
Sometimes I just want to take pictures.

Mirrors

I've been looking in
At me
At my Addictions
At the stained bedsheets
At the grimy doorknobs

"At the skirts that trail along the floor"
So, so much more. . .

It really is impossible to say just what I mean.