Toast

You can’t find the lighter you say,

You need a lighter for your cigarette. 

So you grab the toaster, take it into the bathroom,

And I sit in the rocking chair and watch TV, a story

About the mundane horrors of polygamy.

Somewhere in my head, I know what’s happening,

That you took your shirt off, that you needed a

Fucking toaster in the bathroom

And a spoon

And a needle. 

Forty-five minutes, still an amateur. 

You come out and I grab your arm,

Keep my face in check, keep my jaw from dropping

At the giant, mean welt on your arm,

Ridged dents where you tied a belt to make your vein pop.

Your eyes rolling, your skin wan and sad.

I can’t look at you. 

And I never want to again. 

Be that broken winged bird that can walk away

Nemesis

I'm tired of her too.
All smiles.
Always offering golden anecdotes,
Take one of these and I'll call in the morning,
Wink, wink.
But she never calls, does she?
The phone as silent and estranged
As her heart.
Comfortably encased in a durable, metal cover
So that if you happen to drop it,
never a crack will you see,
no new calamity,
only the mask that is she
Never the frigid, lost me.  

I simply do not have a poem to sum up the last week or so.  I have been trying to write exclusively through poetry...to remember things, but there is too much.  My car was wrecked AGAIN.  I kid ran a red light, hit my brand new car, and of course, of all the driver's on the road to hit my car, this kid had no insurance.  So, the great news is that I now have to come up with another fucking $1000!  That's my deductible...and I just scrambled and borrowed $2868 for this car in the last three months..  I have had no money for gas or food, but have had this goddamn car that just got smashed into useless strips of metal and plastic all over the road on Sunday night.  The good news for everyone else is that I am fairly certain that I am the convergence center for much of  human population's bad luck.  I am saving others from a lot of heartache and ruin by taking it on for them.  A quick run down of the last three years:

• Mercury Sable over heats; no one can fix it; am stranded on the freeway at least a dozen times, usually during a snowstorm
• Got rid of Sable.  Nice friend gives me 94 Honda.   
• Honda overheats as well.  No one seems to know how to fix it.  Am stranded on the freeway multiple times, usually during surging summer heat waves.  
• 94 Honda is stolen, along with a blank check that will shortly be rejected by my bank written for $1500.  Subject: housecleaning.  
• Adam loans me various cars, the he sells overnight while I am sleeping so that I wake up and have no way to get to work.  
• Decide to purchase vehicle that will never leave me stranded on the freeway.  Paid much money.  One month later, a giant rock hits my windshield.  
• Two months after that, Adam borrows car, gets high, totals car.  
• Buy new car, but insurance won't cover all of the old car-because of "excessive soiling on carpets" where Adam spilled his fucking food during his heroin excursion.  Still fighting the claim.  
• Dealership asks for additional $1600
• Finally get license plates after three months of waiting because of insurance problems!  
• Three days later, eighteen year old kid with no insurance hits my car.  Car rendered UNDRIVABLE.  

And all this, this is just the car part of my life.  Lest I mention the deaths of my brother and nephew, the homelessness, the face punch, the various names and police calls by out-of--his-mind-Shane (ex husband).  The heroin addiction crisis (not mine), the re-involvement with Adam, who despite everything single horrid thing he does, will forever be the love of my life.  All the other things...just too much.  This year, 2014, though utterly fucking heinous, still spotted with some headway.  Some of the moments have been some of the happiest of my life.  Those moments with Adam and Max and the kids....a piece of comfort and amenity.  

Yeah.  Fuck that.    

Wolf

You eat me from the inside

Chew into my flesh

Until I am a listless heartbeat

Beating for you; bleeding for you;

Weeping for you;

In a vast, black void

Waiting for you to

Enter me, cum in me,

Fill me 

Make me alive again

For a smoldering moment

Send me back into the void,

Cadaverous deadlands,

A lone black wolf

Hungry, starved

Poised to devour whatever

Comes my way.   

Painter

There is nothing wrong

With lifting your face

Towards the scorching sun

And screaming

Until your pain streaks the sky

Because

The price you put on me

Couldn’t purchase a loaf of bread

In the best of times

In the worst of times

It couldn’t purchase a slice. 

Because

I turn lovers away at the door

While you grimace over my shoulder

Patting my back. 

Aren’t we happy? 

Because

You are.  EXCEPTIONAL. 

And I am

Exceptionally aware.