I gots...

 I   g o t   a   c h a i n   s m o k i n    m o n k e y   o n   m y   b a c k .     I   g o t   s o r e ,   r e d   e y e s   a n d   a  
 d e c a y i n g   s m i l e .     I   g o t   p o c k e t s   f u l l   o f   l o n e l y   l i n t .   I   g o t   a   s t o n e d   g a z e   a n d  
 n o w h e r e   t o   b e   a n y t i m e   s o o n .     A n d   I   g o t   y o u & p a r t   t i m e .     I   g o t   y o u   w h e n   t h e  
 w a t c h e r   a i n t   w a t c h i n    a n d   t h e   l o o k e r s   a i n t   l o o k i n ,   w h e n   t h e   r e s t   o f   t h e  
 w o r l d   i s   s o u n d   a s l e e p   w i t h   d r e a m s   o f   b e t t e r   d a y s .     I   g o t   t h e   f e e l i n    I m   b e i n g  
 u s e d .     I   g o t   b a d   n e r v e s   a n d   n e r v o u s   e y e s   e y e i n g   m y   b a c k .     I   g o t   a n   a c h i n g   i n  
 m y   s w o l l e n   l o i n s   w i t h   y o u r   s h y   p r e t e n s e   p a i n t e d   p r e c a r i o u s l y   a l l   o v e r   i t .     I   g o t  
 s o m e   l i q u o r   a n d   a   p i e c e   o f   r o p e .     I   g o t   a   l e a t h e r   b e l t   a n d   a   b o w l   o f   i c e .     I   g o t  
 a   h e a d   f u l l   o f   b a d   i d e a s ,   d y i n g   t o   b e   t r i e d .     I   g o t   a n   a m b i v a l e n t   s t a t e   o f   m i n d ,  
 a n   a m b i g u o u s   t r a i n   o f   t h o u g h t ,   a n d   a n   a m b i e n t   l i q u i d   d a y d r e a m & o f  
 y o u & a n d   m e .     I   g o t   t i m e   o n   m y   h a n d s ,   t i m e   t o   t h i n k   a n d   r e c o n s i d e r .     I   g o t  
 n o   j o b ,   n o   c h e c k ,   n o r   s c h e d u l e .     I   g o t   n o   p a t i e n c e   f o r   p e s k y   p o n d e r i n g ,   n o  
 t o l e r a n c e   f o r   t a s t e l e s s   t a k i n g ,   n o r   m i n d   f o r   m i n d l e s s   m a s o c h i s m .     I   g o t   a  
 d i r e c t   i n t e n t i o n   t o   l e t   y o u   p l a y .     I   g o t   a n   o p e n   d o o r   a n d   d i r t y   f l o o r s .     I   g o t  
 h a r d   w o r d s   t o   s l i p   i n   y o u r   e a r .     I   g o t   e a g e r   h a n d s ,   o p e n   a r m s ,   a n d   a n  
 o b s c e n e   o r a l   f i x a t i o n .     I   g o t   a   c o u p l e   o f   n o i s y   d o g s   a n d   a   l e s b i a n   r o o m m a t e .    
 I   g o t   a   q u i e t   r o o m ,   a n d   a   s o f t   b e d   a l l   t o   m y s e l f .     I   g o t   a   s i x t h   s e n s e ,   a   f i f t h   o f  
 J a c k ,   f o u r   l i t e r s   o f   C o k e ,   t h r e e   h o u r s   b e f o r e   d a w n ,   s e c o n d   s i g h t ,   a n d   o n e  
 s l o w ,   s e d u c t i v e   s e n s a t i o n   s e e t h i n g   s o m e w h e r e   j u s t   i n s i d e .     I   g o t   a n   e m p t y  
 s p a c e & i n   m y   e m p t y   l i f e & f o r   p a r t   o f   y o u .

Produce was his Life

Produce was his life

“This is a little different than stocking.”

the store manager told me as his hands quickly rearranged potatoes.

He moved as if on auto-pilot,

like produce was his life

at one time or another.

“You can put your own personality into produce.” he said.

“It’s kind of fun if you ask me but you’ve got to

stay on top of things. See, this is called grading the rack.

I’m weeding out all of the bad stuff.”

I watched with wanton interest as his hands moved like

a machine. All the potatoes moved into a neat pile as

his fingers passed. He talked as he worked making his

movements seem effortless.

“Have you ever seen a green potato?” he asked.

“No, I can’t say that I have.” I replied.

“You see, the potatoes actually start to bloom under

the lights.” he continued, “Their skin begins to turn green and the

potato will go bad soon after. There’s nothing worse

then the smell of a bad green potato. The stench will

linger in a room for weeks. We’d never be able to get

it out of here. You’ve got to stay on top of things like this.”

I didn’t see the severity of the situation but his words

hung heavy with serious undertones. All the potatoes looked

brown and healthy. The store manager worked from the bottom

of the rack to the top, talking the entire time. He wanted me to

feel his passion for produce, the kind of team spirit found only

with a job at a corporate grocery chain.

The problem was, I just didn’t feel it. I never would.

My ambitions in life far exceed middle-management.

I have marvelous dreams that may never come true,

but they’re my dreams and they carry me through the

passing years. They carry me through endless work shifts

amounting to nothing more than sore feet and short-lived

paychecks. And maybe I am a good worker now that

I’m out of rehab but I still don’t care about this job.

It was as simple as that. But I couldn’t tell him how I felt.

Not when he was sharing so passionately his lust for produce.

I did need a job. I couldn’t jeopardize it by interrupting his

diatribe with my true feelings about job security.

Finally, he was to the top of the rack and towards the

end of his speech. I listened as I watched his hands as

he watched me. Suddenly my eyes caught the glimpse of

the ugliest spud I’ve ever seen. It was standing out at the

top of the rack like stepchild with a kool-aid moustache.

It was way up in the corner of the rack, forgotten or overlooked,

for god knows how long.

“Well,” he sighed, “None of these are green but you’ll see one

sooner or later.”

Just then I pointed at the lone potato hiding up in the corner of the rack.

The manager’s eyes followed my finger and mute words towards the

potato. When he spotted it I think he immediately achieved an erection.

“Yes!” He exclaimed. “That is a green potato!”

He went on to tell me more about the dangers of the green potato while

mixing in his philosophy of produce. I listened still, my interest growing

fainter with the passing of each word, my need for a cigarette growing

stronger with each reference to freshness.

I suppose he thought I did care. Drug addicts are good at pretending.
I’ve had a lot of practice looking attentive after living with three

different women. But deep down I feel like an outcast. I feel like a misfit

in this world, who wasn’t born with the innate ability to care about his

financial future. I feel like a drifter, a discarded cigarette butt slowly

rolling down the open interstate never to be loved again. Come to think of it,

I feel like that ugly, green potato standing out amid the flock of healthy, vibrant

spuds who will eventually find homes. An ugly green potato that will be thrown

out of the pack, left to grow old as its stench builds and all its eyes become blind.

One Way Street

I woke up on a one-way street
dying from addiction.
You were there,
with hopeless care,
still framing forms of fiction.
I looked above and saw the sky
spread wide and overcast
I lent an ear,
with reflex fear,
and listened as you asked:
"What is this, this game we play?
 When will it finally end?"
I said, my dear I do not know
though odds are we'll depend
on higher hopes,
and strands of faith,
on nights unending
pending fate,
and this is how we'll come to cease
when least expected, vexed with grief.

Lost in Endless Night...

days run together like buoyant blobs of watercolor...
penniless, jobless, stuck steady to my slapdash bed
staring blankly into the tv
watching make-believe lives that seem so much more appealing than mine
wondering when the violent waves of catastrophe
will wash down upon us all
It's not that i wanna die,
(maybe part of me does).
It's that, as selfish as it seems,
even to me.
i didn't ask to be here.
There, i said it.
I'm the asshole.
I'm the son of a bitch that can't accept the beauty of his existence.
I've been called worse things.
It doesn't matter
and i don't know if anything does
right now.
The thing is,
I'm stuck in this southern hell,
this redneck oasis in the middle of nowhere,
where the meek breed ugly babies,
and violent beasts roam the vast wasteland of strip-malls,
looking for bargin discounts on versatile solutions for modern trailer park living...
 weed-whackers, gun-racks
 mechanical singing fish to mount on the wall
 welcome matts for the front door
although not everyone is welcome,
especially 'the blacks'
and 'faggots'
and intellectual know-it-alls that read 'books'.
This is where i am trapped.
This is my purgatory,
my private prison,
the bane of my apathy,
and the penalty for all my past trangressions.
I can feel the world breathing
within the darkness and death of endless night.
I sense life seething out there, somewhere.
In the vastness of metropolitan skylines,
the city whispers to me,
'Nathan, we're waiting.  Waiting for you.  Waiting for your voice to echo throughout the iron jungle."
I can feel the loneliness of empty souls
all waiting for that one voice to sing to them,
to tell them what's going on,
to say the things they can't
loud and resonant.
All those lost sheep leading desolate lives
waiting for that special someone
to reach into their souls and turn on their passion,
to remind them what it feels like to be alive.
You wanna know something?
I am the chosen one.
I am that special someone,
the sleeper cell
waiting within the pinetree kingdom...
Waiting for that day to lash out at the world,
to get up on stage
under the lights
in front of the camera
and speak,
say something that the whole world will listen to.
I am the one.
I just wonder
if the wretched rulers of this world,
the ones wielding the power with iron fists of greedy green,
will destroy this race
before i have my chance,
before i find my way
out of this southern hell,
and into the minds and hearts
of those listening.

The Fill-In Dentist

fill-in dentist

“You’re such a nice boy,” said the dentist,

“I can’t believe you used to be a doper.”

He says things like that, to calm me down,

when I start jumping out of the chair.

He’s in his late fifties and still thinks

‘doper’ is correct street lingo for a

drug addict.

He’s not my real dentist. My real

dentist is in the hospital battling

his cancer. I know

it sucks for him but

it sucks for me too. I don’t

like this fill-in dentist too much.

Before I went to rehab, going to

the dentist wasn’t bad. I’d just

swallow five Hydrocodone beforehand

and never feel a thing. But now, every

visit is mentally tormenting. I loathe

this nerdy, fifty-something man staring

at me through thick glasses, with his

needles and drills and funny-smelling

body odor.

He hits a nerve and I come out of the

chair once again.

“Oh, stop it.” He says jokingly, “I’m

almost done. Boy, you’ve got big arms,

you must workout!”

I know he’s just doing his job, like a

nazi, like the guy at the pound who puts

the unwanted puppies to death on Tuesday

morning. But my first sober reaction is to

grab that drill and shove it up his ass.

“There we go!” he says at last, “We’re all

done! That wasn’t so bad was it?”

I agree with him using garbled words

slurred by cotton wads and Novocain,

just for the sake of leaving sooner.

If someone would have told me about

this, maybe I would’ve brushed a little

more during the ten years I spent staying

intoxicated. I doubt it, but it doesn’t change

the fact that this dentist is truly a sadist.

And maybe I do have cavities,

but I didn’t get sober for this.

Boredom, blood, and bones to pick

condensation on my diner window has me lost within a drip-drop paradox, fallen further than this high I’ve found this morning jobless, hopeless, feigning forms of flawless thought that’s like no other how have I found so much comfort within these walls of dull fluorescence? take me down where wild things play so I can witness something more than my forsaken endless night that never finds the sun awake but this may take awhile this may hurt a little this may take my disillusion and crumble up my needless want finding flightless foreign tongues I kept a heaven to myself for no one deserves this contrition no one has to be like this no one should ever bleed like this secreting needful apathy eviscerating inner ties do you read me? am I coming through? I hope so I hope so

Form and Function

she finds me in the dead of night

finds me here in my secondhand home

always alone and always waiting for her

my roommates ignore this situation

they turn their heads and pretend that

they don’t know she has

a husband and

two kids

asleep

at home

sometimes she wakes me up

I like that

I like that a lot

I can kind of image I’m waking up to

a woman who lives here

with me

we find things to do in the dead of night

games of sadist form and function

nudity

oral

sex

things that make us feel alive

things that make us forget

where we are

who we are

ourselves

she doesn’t smoke

but doesn’t really mind that I do

sometimes the smoke gets in her face

but she’ll move before she says anything

I notice this and put my cigarette out

I try not to smoke around her now

I didn’t used to

but she has become

important

to me

recently

I want to please her in every way I can

I want to be a better person for her

even though she isn’t mine

even though

I could never have er

all to myself

she said she’d try to come over tonight

she knows I depressed because the pills

are all gone and I’m feeling too sober

she could help that

she can intoxicate me with her sensual ways

at first it was just a fling

a sexual excursion that was naughty

forbidden

taboo

but it’s become something so much more

I feel myself needing her here with me

I feel my heart aching for her touch

for her flesh

for her evil ways

but I’m not a fool

this can’t last for ever

it’s all going to end badly

and I can never have her

but I can pretend

for a moment

that she is mine

completely

if she would just come by

and lay with me for a while