A Lake in...

A glass of water motionless with ice
sits on a desk
amidst two months worth of dust

It wants little
on a coaster
It waits to be picked up

The sun rises
and glows hot on the unsuspecting ice
It distorts the image
of everything
beyond
the steadfast glass
Frozen
Now it wells up
with sweat

Somewhere outside
a cloud survives
the sun
A light goes on
above the quick
shrinking ice

Unlike plants and mammals
water doesn’t need
natural light
to grow
beneath the surface
of the earth
a myriad waterways
toss
and turn
uncharted land make paths
few gods will ever know

The cloud moves beyond
the now setting sun
A light goes out
allowing the moon
to illuminate a thing
motionless in itself

The glass is no longer cold
It's grown hot
lukewarm
and diluted
with small pieces of skin
that sat amongst
two month and one day old
dust.
The water waits

It wants not
what humans crave
It wants

Only to be left
quietly
as victim of the sun

A Response

After a lark
with a stranger
it grows earthy in the room
and our bodies stretch out
Rich tones, dew shine, a draft
dries the sweat

Outside,
a day laborer hammers the
brownstone across the street
It wakes us up
unexpectedly
and I can’t help but think
there is somewhere
and someone
I was supposed to be

In a sleepy confusion, she mocks my misstep
"You fool,” she laughs
“Those men don’t have enough money to be someone else”

It is quiet in the room
It has become so cold that I try to feign sleep
so I don’t have to
deal with
waking up in the afternoon

Inspired by 2008 predictions and pop music

1: Has 1 hrd of Rivers Cuomo?
Cause he like revitalized
Rock and roll
In the late twentieth century
He did it with lightning
And nineteen fifties shades

He wrote a book once
No a bible, about rock
And roll and songwriting
Apparently he studied
Guns and Roses
And Nirvana
And knows
He knows
How to make the perfect
Song.

2: A girl with a crutch
That I used to know
When I went to bars
And got real drunk
On weeknights
And missed class
Said hi to me
In a coffee shop
Off campus
I enthusiastically
Responded with
“Hey.”
I used to think
This girl was cute
Now I can’t
Remember her name

The bar we used to
Frequent had this way
Of making her face
Look beyond beautiful
Almost fake
I saw her in daylight
At her work
Making smoothies
And saw her face
During the day
And not buzzed
Off two for ones
Or two dollar specials
And she had this make
Up of epic proportions
Strewn about her face
At that moment
I realized why she was
Beautifully fake
In barlight because
Her face was smothered
In paste and white and creams and moisturizes
Seriously grotesque
Riddled with scars

I felt bad then
That I had liked her for her face
And not because I thought
She was interesting
Just a good lay
I stopped seeing her
At the bar
I stopped going
And I saw her studying
In a coffee shop
With two crutches
High on pharmaceuticals
Studying identity.

1: I like Kevin Barnes
As far as entertainers go
He is without compare
As far as his generation
Is concerned

Glam seemingly has not
Lost its initial definition
From the late seventies
Early eighties and he
Embodies it successfully

His voice is something
Of a miracle. Semi-monotone
Suggesting a subdued
Personality altered in slight
By chemicals or weed

Which I think speaks
For a certain number of
Those in (between) youth
And his theatrics mimic
Our mutual escape from reality.

Into fantasy
And shenanigans on stage
That make us all believe
We’re not living. We don't
Breathe despite lungs
ing

Nineteenth Century

I do not believe in God.
Not yours or your father’s
Or Chaucer’s or Gaius J.
Caesar’s I do not believe in
A higher power
But I believe in you
Your words and Nature

Why not begin again?
Like you proposed
New gods for a new era
New Traditions to follow
New scenes of the picturesque
Where I’ll walk with you
Beyond retrospection

Yet time moves and has
Since your days of youth
And I’m sorry I’ve read
Your psalms a century
And a half too late to
Believe in your god
Your concept of faith

But I do believe in you
Your thoughts, your pen
Timeless
In an age where everyone
Believes in themselves
Endlessly
I think of you, dearest Emerson

As I sit and watch the tide come in
And the moon wane
And the ants bear weight
And the children play
And the birds wade off the vibrant
Green banks of Lake Michigan.

Reoccurring themes in last Saturday’s writing

I

Some things I have been
thinking as of late,
writers are vain.
I’m looking into a mirror
as I write this
and I see my face.
Someone told me this,
I don’t believe him.

II

I talked to some woman today
about a cake she ordered.
On a message I left yesterday
I told her it would be ready
in the afternoon She was thoroughly
pissed at me and wanted to talk to me
Personally
about how much I ruined her day
and how hard it was to order a cake
because when I said afternoon
it was much too late.
What I was supposed to say
was “Twelve, Noon.”
Apparently
“afternoon”
means
after
three
to this seedy fucking Lincoln park bitch goddess
who lives on Deming Street
two blocks from the bakery
who needs to get her shit kids
fucking football and helmet shaped
Cake
Delivered
And I,
I was the one who ruined her day
because “afternoon” was much too late.
All I wanted to tell her
As she effortlessly chewed me out
over the phone was,
“I don’t give a damn about your business,
or your babies daddy’s bank account.”

III

I found out today
that this girl
did not stand me up
because of my moustache
apparently it’s just because
she forgets to return
phone calls?

Now I’m bored.
I’d rather have her
blow me off because of my face
than call me back three days late
cause like, what kids, this guy
(points to face)
does not wait.

IV

I went on a bike ride today
with my roommate.
It was forty degrees or more
today
and not rainy.
We went to Joe’s place
and I walked in on him
and Lara eating a Mexican feast.
they were really happy
and about to watch TV
and handed me my things
that I forgot the previous night
too drunk to remember
where I hid them.

Then we rode to Starbucks
to visit our beautiful friend
Carrie who works across from
her favorite bar, Drum & Monkey.
She gave us free passion fruit
green teas.
It was nice.
Her boss and I
talked about weed.

Afterwards we had
to endure the long haul
back to Lincoln park
and away from UIC
and let me tell you,
Greek town didn’t seem so big
and the three bridges we crossed
weren’t so steep
and that bar we passed
where I got stood up
didn’t sting

I smiled and went to Whole Foods
to buy some expensive sixers
and chat with this gay dude
about growing up in Stillwater
cause I’m from Arden Hills
on my brother’s ID.

V

I rode by this giant post office today,
some headquarters or something
in this tre chic futuristic
building on the west side
of the Chicago river.
I realized then that it is right
next to the greyhound station,
where I’m convinced only
sucky people hang out.
One time I met my friend William
there and he bought some weed
from a homeless man
and it was not green.
It was orange.
We threw it away.

We were young then.
Younger I suppose
And what was that?
Two years ago?
Now we have hair
on our backs
and in our noses
and drink a bit
when we should
be going to school
but I like writing
with him.
We get along well.

your problems my space

Yesterday while studying in a local library branch, I happened upon this ditty of a message typed up on a computer. At the time, it was ready to be posted on some, I'm assuming, young boys myspace. I ignored the piece at first because I was busy reading about dead people in a Norton Anthology and it wasn’t until a friend called that I started to zone out and listlessly read what was on the screen in front of me. I don’t know who the “Tiffany14” this letter is addressed to and I haven’t a clue as to who “Hockeyman48” could be. What I do know is “Hockeyman48” hates global warming, likes hockey and action movies, and belongs to an evangelical church. Maybe you, avid reader of words and poetry, can help figure out more about the genius this prose paints...

Dear Tiffany14,

Today I realized that I’m very upset. I wrote some really sad stuff about global warming and got frightened. Sometimes when I think about global warming, I think about two scenes from Mel’s Opus and eighties classic, Beyond Thunderdome. One of them has a group of kids looking at a viewfinder at images they’ll never see. One’s of the Eiffel Tower and one of Taj Mahal. I think there’s one of the Great Wall and one of the Statue of Liberty too but these kids don’t know what they’re seeing and they have no one to explain it to them cause they’re future orphans. The movie ends with this other scene of people sheltered in a bombed out building in Sydney. The woman elder is holding a baby and telling stories to the people of how they were saved. But you know what? They’re just screwed anyways, have you seen Road Warrior? Where are they going to find oil to motor their cool cars? Besides, there’s roving gangs of dudes in bondage and chicks with sharp boomerangs all over Australia.

Anyways, I felt really sad today after I read all this history about books and people that won’t care when the ice caps will finish melting. What are we going to do then? You know, it might be kind of fun. We can both get boats and meet in what used to be the Grand Canyon. Hopefully by then it will be a sweet water park with awesome slides and no lines! So much going through my head and I can’t think of much right now except for the Chipotle I had for lunch. I’m going to miss Chipotle in the future. Today I had some and it was really good. Do you know they make their chips fresh everyday? Don’t tell anybody but I always get a cup of water and when I leave, I fill it up with diet coke

Anyways, when I come visit you, I’ll bring a VHS copy of Beyond Thunderdome. I think you’d really like it. This church I used to be a part of had a copy of it in paperback. Pretty neat huh? I used to sneak out of church and read it on this damp shag carpeted library that had pretty cool books. You know, Lutherans are alright but what are your favorite action movies? Commando was on TV the other day. Have you seen that? There’s this part where Arnold is with this girl and they are in this awesome car chase. So Arnold smashes right into this terrorist and flips his car over! He then gets out and dangles the guy over a cliff! The girl doesn’t see this, she’s in the car or shopping or something, but Arnold drops him and the guy falls and dies. When he meets up with the girl, she asks him about what he did to the terrorist and, this is great, you’ll never believe this, he says “I let him go.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!
I know right? It’s funny cause the girl is satisfied thinking he really let him off the hook but Arnold dropped him like 60 STORIES onto rocks!

Anyways today I read that Shaxberd (people used to call him this in history!) left his second bed to his wife after he died and not his first which I don't think makes sense. Someone told me he wasn’t real though. I think I saw a history channel program about it once and they did a really good job of covering all the potential people that he could have been. Some people even think Queen Elizabeth could have been him! You know the British used to go to Italy and Spain and see women acting and get blown away because the women were actually good at stage. Can you believe that Tiffany14? They would come back to London and talk about how women were actually good at acting! In London they did this cross-dressing thing which is okay with me. My daddy doesn’t think so though. He got kind of upset when he came home and I was wearing my sister’s shoes. But he got over it and decided to take me to my new church that the president likes. It’s kind of creepy but we sing great songs and I get my head touched and sometimes I spasm a lot and fall down and bawl but everyone else is too so it’s okay. Do you believe in God Tiffany14?

Well I gotta go to sleep.
Hockeyman48

Predictions From Blogopolis

Hi guys, it’s Blake and it’s that time of the year again! Predictions for 2008!!! Perhaps this list is a little late but what of it, we are living the future right now and cool stuff happens like every day. So here are some things I think would be cool if they happened in 2008.

1. Sheena Easton will make a massive come back and a shocking dance statement with her smooth moves in the critically acclaimed “9-5 (Morning Train)” music video.
2. A couple new fashion trends will sweep the nation. The first being matching ones clothes with what they are drinking. Margaritas? Yellow t-shirts and tan shorts duh. Cosmos? Pink sweaters and shiny jeans. Beer? Brown turtle necks and fucking brown dock martins. Aprons will also become popular.
3. In 2008, America will elect a president who fancies dueling. Wait, America will elect Andrew Jackson’s bones president.
4. KFed
5. Dinosaurs will become hip and the kids will start calling their friends by their reptilian surnames. Like Greggasaurous Rex. Or Jilatactyl. How about "Bronteosusan?"
6. On April 4^th, Scientists will invent a jacket that keeps warm by sending text messages.
   
7. Steve Rocco will reveal that he is not Andy Kaufman but rather John Lennon. Everyone wins.
   
8. Parents will demand they attend school with their children in order to keep them safe from terrorism. Also the kid leash, a favorite among traveling/mall going families, will be written into the constitution. On January 17, parents will be forced to keep their children on leashes at all times.
9. No one will say “pants.”
10. History will acknowledge itself and throw an awesome theme party for the world.

Well gosh, that is about everything I can think of right now. Hopefully these cool things will become fact in 2008! I’m curious to see what you predictions are for the upcoming year. Comment/post your guesses of what will make 2008 great!

Will told me to post this and I still don’t want to but happy new years to all of you who read my shitcan poetry

I’ve been stood up.
I should have left a message.
I’ve put myself out there.
I think it’s because of my moustache.

We could have been great you know
I’m not like anything you’ve ever had
(I probably am). But I have brown hair,
do they? Do they trim their nose hair?

Or give you great vanilla sex?
Cause I can do that.
Have you read about condoms?
Cause I do have them.

And I’d love to lay with you
and I’d love to cry with you
just in case you have to
and sometimes we all do.

Have time to procreate?
I own a queen sized bed and some really nice shirts.

And at your work
I knew I was struggling
with my face
and this thing above my upper lip
that you most likely despise
because of your father,
who molested or beat or babied you
had a thing
on his face like mine.
And I’m sorry I like theatrics
and facial accessories
because baby, just tell me
I can shave
and I think you’re worth it
and maybe I’m not good enough
right away. But I’m more than
an apron wearing shell
that makes you great sandwiches
and gives you that extra cheese
cause, baby I feel for you
and I want to know what makes you tick.
I want to know you
crazy.

Good Christ
Are you this lonely?

Cause I sit in certain corners
of my room and get cold,
I mean really solid,
frigid.

I can’t move against
these things that have been happening
beneath ice clad sheets
I can’t get up

in the early morning
although I like that time of day
for falling back to sleep
in what could

and will never be of our memory.
Now I sit and watch the cold
dissipate on the big window
that acts as my mind's sentry.

Scraps From Microsoft Document, "Going Home Rituals," Written December 22, After Work, 2007

Tonight I prepare to go back home
Like so many times before
A six pack and I
Will unearth a royal blue suitcase
and fill it up with my nicer shirts.
The ones I only wash
when I’m at my parent’s home.

These same shirts, collectively,
don’t get clean for weeks,
sometimes months
because I’m too old to tell
my mother I don’t know how
to get them clean myself
But I think she's finally caught on.

Sometime in the next week
I’ll be in my old bed
with the shades turned down
but open enough for the moonlight
to come in.
And I’ll see the same view
I’ve grown up with;
a frozen lake,
a couple pine trees,
and light pollution
from downtown Minneapolis
and I’ll think about things
like where I’ve been
and where I’ll be.

At that moment, I won’t be
at my home
any longer
for I know nothing
of the city I grew up in.
Now that I’m older and
living four hundred miles away,
I feel all Chicagoan and grins
in vintage tees with jeans
but my heart will always be stuck in
Minnesota winters,
even if I don’t feel like a native
In my bed room,
In my heart, I always will be.

Now I’ve drank half the sixer
and packed my weathered bags
and I'm ignoring the other brews for
my scavenger roommates
like I usually do
twelve hours before I leave.

And in my wake a woman,
no, the thought of what could
And never will kill me
Sometime in the
next week I imagine it loves me.
I imagine it lulling me to dreams.

Everything is as it seems

I’m going out tonight,
a zombie on the streets.
Decked in black jeans,
a sweatshirt,
and headband from nineteen ninety eight

I was eleven
back then.
I used to even ski!
And in these clothes
I will feast.

On passerbys.
Others will watch and think
we’re just pretending.
But, I won’t be kidding,
I will eat.

Motorists pull over
In an attempt to calm me.
A bite of them and I will be forgiven
in the name of Jesus. Amen.
My victims will experience martyrdom.

Be seated, sir, at the right hand of our lord.
I will be forgiven.
In the name of Jesus, I feast.
For I’m eating thee with regards of the spirit.
Welcome to my church.

Your body is my temple
and to this I pray.
Amen.
Now say thirty Hail Marys
For now I eat.

A city full of sin,
Of gays,
And bars,
And junkies.
I won’t have trouble.

I will find my congregation
Ten Bloody Marys deep.
Thy will be medium rare,
On earth as it is at dinner,
Amen.

I will eat

I will raze the trash bins
and pick out everything
behind maternity wards.
Unborn,
like a demon.

And I will be forgiven
and seated, with respect.
In my vicious martyrdom,
of which you’ll all be victims,
I am forgiven

My acts are justified
for I am legion.

Prophylactics Keep Us Clean

After daylight savings time
but before the first snowfall
night doesn’t last
so long as we’re up for it,
huddled close.

And life isn’t that bad
when spent in twin sized beds
with naked strangers. Sober
(“So long as your okay with it”) one
asks to hold my hand.

A whole season comes and ends
and said stranger becomes a friend
as a confusing haze dawns a question,
“So long as we’re both alone....”
A squalid love is formed.

And a year later, after I meet her family
I can’t stop seeing her mother while
she's on her back and coming hard.
“So long as you’re cool with it,” I ask
if she can start to straighten her hair

But our once pleasurable sex turns
vanilla at best and reaps sorrowful
results huddled close
(“So long as we work for it”) we agree,
something needs to change.

And then nothing begins to make sense.
And mascara stains twin sized beds.
And what ever happened to true romance?
“So long as we’re both upset,” she starts
and confesses she's three months pregnant.

For My Kids

I drink coffee from a cup I found in the dumpster behind my apartment. It’s black and reads, “Chicago” in messy block lettering. I look at the skyline etched in gold below its brim. I look at it and think, “that is where I live.”

I found this zip file on the internet. I got it from a website that gets off on thinking it’s important. That it creates 90% of the humor transmitted wirelessly to pixilated screens and HTML pages. It is trash and thrives on the immediate attention given to people who place coded images immediately on the web. But, still I found this file, and still I downloaded it.

I drink coffee from a cup I found in the dumpster behind my apartment. I sip, tongue the hot liquid, sigh and grin. I whisper to myself, “this is where I live.”

Fifteen hundred pictures, taken by tattooed and pierce laden women. In front of bed and bathroom mirrors, they’ve hidden themselves discretely in a folder titled, “Scene Girls 15.” But I didn’t name them. Some kid on the interweb did.

And I looked at all of them. Fifteen hundred self-modeled poses. They made me feel sick. So I looked at them again and watched as fifteen hundred women looked through me and drooled at their own sordid reflections.

I drink coffee from a cup I found in the dumpster behind the building where I live. I get too hot. I move outside and sip and lose myself in an airplane circling the cities grid. Eventually it lands, and I imagine it a ship. I’m on it, sailing across Lake Michigan

Earlier today I tried to masturbate. Twice in bed, I dreamt of old girlfriends. Then three times in front of a computer screen. But the internet offered nothing and left me feeling empty and now I think about the fifteen hundred women oblivious to the fact that I know their bodies. That I’ve thought only of them as human between gasps and heavy breathing.

I drink coffee from a cup I found in a dumpster behind my apartment. After I exhale into the steam that rises from its moist, obsidian brim, I try not to think about the world in which I live.

An eternity spent in ceilings

Where I go from where I am
is fate enough for Fortuna’s sake.
I'm presently vexed by a wych elm
that’s grown and grown and grown.

Seeds fallen from serated vines
find solace in dreams that
see cloven branches transformed
into the visage of ancient ladies.

With wings not grace.
No goddess or deity,
succubi that hunger,
feeding while I’m asleep.

Mayhap these seeds sown
with help from a spring breeze
infiltrate the ranks
of friends. My family.

And in a forest of golden strands
once bright, now brown, they'll
lay blinded inside a plumage of
twigs and cracked eggs of insecurity.

Only an arbalester's gaze
can find me an escape.
A victim of lovelorn history.
A cockatrices fabled treat.

Nothing changes, I suppose

Even at your funeral
I didn’t say goodbye.
How could I with you
bloated like when you
woke up hung over.

Back then, with beer stains
on your white (now black)
polished shoes, we’d sing
Westerberg’s "Portland" till
our faces turned blue.

I had never seen a dead
body before. You’d laugh,
I had to hold someone’s hand
to keep from loosing it
when I looked upon yours.

You don’t know this,
but your best friend
did your hair. It looked
good and he didn’t want to
see you,

I hope you know. After
you did it, he didn’t want
to remember you forever
hanging. Or how I do. Blue,
pale. October cold.

He'll still remembers you. Running his hands through your hair.
He'll still remembers making you look great, like all those times before.

And I took distance for granted.
And talked about your problem
behind your back when
I should have told you upfront,
like a man.

Would it have saved your parents
sleepless nights? With you, it’s
unlikely, but at least your friends would
still remember the vivacity in
your laugh.

After all, you left people thinking
you were into meth. Funny, I keep
telling myself that you were stronger
than that. But you were an idiot
and obnoxious when drunk.

So now, after glum precessions
and cumbersome clouds of regret,
I’ll talk about you being an idiot in
death. For that is how I cope with you
not here. You dead.

Repetition’s Song

On a porch, a breeze reads
the book in my hands
faster than I ever have.
Digesting words as if they
were leaves, strewn about
a graveyard.
Like specters from
fairytale lands.

The pages move faster,
reminding me of the things
hidden in my head.
Things I don’t like
to touch on awake, or
sober, during daylight.

Upon my bed I lay
defeated from 14 hour
tirades of words and work
and people staring as I
walk by. Asleep, I’m
no longer on my continent.

A panther on its hind legs
playing fisticuffs
as I try to land a punch.

Familiar house on a
race track
circling around a zoo

Afflicted humans waiting
for me to escape
quarantine: A late lunch.

Preternatural visions of
werewolves in
catacombs clawing off boots

Airships dipping in between
imaginary buildings
of cyclopean size

and familiar beauty
that'll last, unending
until my physical demise.

As a breeze reads my finger tips,
my mind jogs through people
I've never seen in places
that don't exist. Their names
I know not, but what of it?
We're all here together to
love and touch and remember
who to forget when we wake up

For Alex and a woman named Squidkid

A friend of mine has a hernia the size of a Rubrics Cube.
Fifteen minutes and he pushes his small intestine in.
He can’t pee without thinking about it.
It makes me nervous just thinking about him.

A girl friend told me that this is all chauvinistic.
“Well…” she says bitterly, but I’m not going to correct it,
“We all lie,” I tell her, as if I have multiple literary friends.
She rolls her eyes. That’s when I know she understands.

A something something comma big thing period
Everyone knows that there is only one way to drone...
I continue with, “Did you know…”
I retell a story I read on CNN

Vice

Do you remember what it’s like to believe in someone?
To really think that you’ve got a good thing going?
And then it hits you bluntly, you’ve missed
Good friends on weekends and countless hours of sleep.

I know how it feels to really believe in someone.
To think that I’ve got a good thing going
Only to have it blow up in my Face-
Book…. Welcome to the information age.

My mother knows what it’s like to really believe in some things.
Catholic priests caught her with fishnets when she was only
Fourteen. Now I go to church with her on holidays.
I think about the Virgin Mary.

Coincidence

A hiss. Something about a party resonates through his thoughts.
A woman. Today she’ll board a plane bound for -----.
A café that is musky and smells of sweat stained sheets.

Of all things in the 21st century, he dotes on the fact that he’s never going to see her again. A party last night for one of his friends still bleeds through the pores of his skin. Last night, a new bar opened. Last night, an old one shut down. He thinks about her three month trip to ----. She’ll be back in October. He hopes that he’ll forget about her by then.

A phone call interrupts day-dreaming. In response, he breathes out a hiss that sounds like a b-movie bombing. Hanging up, he mutters something bleak and continues to stare at a dull laptop computer screen. He’s lost in himself. He doesn’t notice a woman walking past him. Long hair. Small hands. She’s on the way to the airport to catch a flight that leaves at three.

He doesn’t see her as she walks down the street.

“Falling in love,” he whispers, “with the concept of a woman.” He doesn’t sound so sure of himself. He stares deeper into the screen.

A block down and she just checked her missed calls. Three from a man who wanted nothing more than to lay next to her in bed. She’s apprehensive. She deletes old text messages from him. A shiver strolls through the street. A block down and screaming, he feels its presence. He decides to pack up his belongings and leave.

“Feelings are trivial things,” reads a slogan etched into one of the café’s wooden tables. He thinks about how someone must have scratched it in with a black ballpoint pen.

And then a credit card is charged and then he heads for the street and then he’s cautiously sipping at a recently concocted latte. North of him stands a woman in a sleek black summer dress. She reminds him that someone somewhere said black was "in" this season.

"None the less, an otherwise listless silhouette in a summer dress," and turns his back. He proceeds south on the street but again, a cold shiver flushes over him…

“The warmth of a woman,” he sighs and thinks about one.
A block down, a lady hails a cab. In it, she passes a familiar looking stranger. She squints. She tells the drive to take her to the airport. Then she reveals that she is going to -----.

She's already forgotten about the man on the street.

A Decadent Windigo in Heat

A good friend of mine tells me not to worry about my over-active sexual imagination.

“You’re a fine young man with a healthy libido," he tells me.

I find solace in his words when I can’t stop thinking about the girl in the train seat next to me naked. What does her skin feel like bare against mine? Or her breast on my back as she wraps her arms around me like wandering ivy?

People sometimes say my apartment is cold.
"Touch the walls. Do you feel that?” I ask.
“That’s plaster.” I tell them

No one really gets the joke.

After I shower and before I shave, I don’t prepare my razor because it’s been done while the showerhead ran steam to prepare my skin for the city-tap’s wake. The blade is heavy. My father picked it up for me on my twentieth birthday.

I sat naked in front of the cheap Target mirror that leaned up against the bedrooms east wall. Behind, a woman took control as she nursed an erection damn close to expulsion. Naked and watching, I never thought myself to be much of a voyeur. But considering the circumstance (a weeks worth of pent up morning woods), I permittied myself to gaze upon her pirouetting body as she wrapped two serpentine legs around my waist.

I shave with two blades that sing Gregorian verse as I drag them across my face. Seven sleek strokes. Save the throat’s apple for when it’s less slick. It’s rather slippery when wet and succumbs to cuts upon cuts due to hasty mistakes. I move up then to my right cheek, drawing it downward, but not too far without first rinsing in the sink.

Along the grain, two to three inches, water to rinse, shake off, repeat.

Before we undressed, I asked her if she’d lay on my back. She did and I got to getting her off. Before we came, she reminded me not to tell anyone.

“Our secret is safe.”

Thusly, my roommate was disappointed to hear that we didn’t go all the way. After all, semen only leaves stains on a stomach unlike what a bruise does to the pale white of a leg.

The upper lip is one of my favorite places to shave. The stubble is strong, allowing me indulge in the gap below my nostrils. Usually, I move clockwise across the face. Right to left, leaving the chin for last. I always cut myself right before the weekend. Apprehensive on Thursdays, waiting for a day’s worth of class to be done. I scraped my chin this Thursday. The cut wasn’t deep enough to bother, but the blood tasted great as I washed the white lather from my face.

She bit me on the arm and like a vulture, I circled imaginary lines onto the inside of her legs. She touched the tips of my fingers to every strand of her hair as I engrossed my nose in the comfort of her smooth sultry feminine scent.

Sometimes I forget her taste and then sometimes I wake up from a dream, satisfied with the thought of her long muscled embrace.

Warm water washes the blood away from my face as the taste of a foundry begins to displace a slight suggestion of crimson. Of Iron and tin melted down into one dark liquid.
"I taste outstanding," I think.

Naked and lovely, I think of all the things I can do with her breasts. So I touch and rub them, and long for a time when I can look back at this moment, telling myself that everything was okay. And with eyes closed, she moans. Trying not to think about the man who holds her genuine feelings.

I taste like a machine

For her, “What the fuck is wrong with me?” becomes the evening’s reoccurring phrase.

So we switch positions. She sits up and I'm upside down. While I'm looking at the scratched wooden floor, she stumbles, falling shoulder first into the nearby bedside wall.

“Oh god! that’s cold.”

Only this time, I don’t have to explain the joke.

Manifest Destiny

Call in the Apaches
This country is hungry

For defacing sovereignty
And indigenous ancestry
Labeling war machines
With Native American majesty

Beckon the burning Tomahawks
Navigate Navaho infantry
Contact the Comanche fighter jet
And seek out Seminole ATVs.

Technology will scalp the enemy
Tradition razed their ranks
Terror leads our nation’s brave
Onto big and better things