Tumorous

I'm sorry,
The doctors' whites bled into the bright light,
Their goggle eyes blinking at my aberrations.
The words are wrapped around vital organs.
They are firmly attached to your spine.
They can't be removed or
You will die.

The doctors know science,
Their shiny degrees frown down in Latin with wax seals.
I will die.

The doctors don't know that the words must come out.
They will come out.
They will grow, expand, pile up, push on my diaphragm
Till every breath is a belch of swallowed sentiment,
Every hiccup a propulsion of pickled, sour prose.

They will grow and leach the iron from my soul,
Absorb the toxins that seeped through my skin in
A long lonely soak in a mire of grey moods.

They will grow and squeeze my liver,
Wring out the lemon-scented melancholy buried under tequila,
The bile of tabasco-hot temper I never expressed when you stole my light.

The words will come out and I will die.
And when I awake from the torrent of trance-word explosive
vomiting death.
I will be whole, and light, and I will know the science of healing
Myself.

Things to stop

Stop biting your nails
Stop swallowing your words
Stop eating fat

(When you swallow feelings that you have half buried since childhood

How is it they in turn can devour you? Parasitic.)

Stop recycling passwords
Stop picking
Stop chewing with your mouth open

Do's:

Drink milk.

Eat greens.

Choose superfoods.

Stop drinking

(Never sip the bitter bile of the things you will never do in life, it's as toxic as hell. Live in the now.)

Stop smoking

Stop underachieving 

Stop caring so much

Stop being so fucking smug

(Just be awesome. Just do it.)

Stop hating.

Stop being angry.

Stop arguing.

Stop talking.

Stop being defensive.

Stop being crazy.

(Choose life!) 

Stop dying.

Process matters.

Process matters.
We live in the process
the process is the continuum
the process is now
there is room in the process.
For things that grow and change
like hearts, feelings,
minds and bruises.

Destination is a
two dimensional room.
No one lives there.
You see your destination only
over your shoulder...
After you've passed into
the next process.

elemental

A writer is a worm.
Crawling through the dark, devouring
Converting the bitter peels and discarded
thoughts to rich soil, Wriggling
in double-ended discomfort,
two heads always
Thinking in different directions.

A writer is a worm
Feeling the way through dead rotting flesh
To the heart within that still holds
A charm, a blessing, a kiss.

A writer is a worm in the apple
of time, browning syntax to squirm
into a pentametric rhyme scheme,
Rotting away with a barrage of
metaphorical dismay and
outrage.

A writer is a worm.
The spice must flow.

everything is great

everything is great
except for the damned ghost
it dogs me into the shower
cries into my ear when I would sleep
i feel it when you hold me
when we silently apologize
to each others hearts
for the future breaking

Everything is great except
for the one thing you want
I can't give.

No one paints a calm sea

No one paints a calm sea.

Okay, some artists do,
Paintings that chronically stressed women
Choose to match the sofa
And never sit and meditate before.

Calm seas and happy endings do not merit art.

We need to feel,
To be caught in the churn
The sloppy, salty tide bearing down on
Dark rocks, barnacle-jewelled,
And crunchy shell-strewn shores.

We journey with the turmoil of
The storm-thrown vessel on burning cold
Rivers, through a washing cycle of
White water beaten on hard sand
And we emerge clean.

We need to be tossed, shaken, inverted, pummelled,
Hearts battered, no timid knocks,
To be reborn.

Let my words be big and violent, thrash and pierce.
I do not want to soothe. I want to wound.

No great loss

That kind of guy
Who unselfconsciously in open robe
Retrieves his paper
Bathmat-scratchy chest exposesd,
Coffee slopping as he waves pleasantly to
The greymalkin next door, who purrs
Into her cane.

That kind of man with a touch
Of clinging shaving cream garnishing a
Lengthening earlobe, who dashes, late,
To his Volvo, but brake-screeching stops midblock
To retrieve and return a wayward basketball
To a sheepish purple
Hello Kitty shirt and a wide
Pair of eyes.

That particular species of fellow who,
Mostly harmless in all his peanut-munching
Placid days, who loves his digital watch and
His high-achieving accountant bride, and his
2.5 kids and normal existence
In middle America.

That man.
Wobbly, in his third
Buddy-delivered-with-high-slaps beer  of
A Thursday night, post-game.
Pulls out his phone, friend ear-talking loudly about the
Pros and cons of heavier characters as
You drift on a corner and
The way pretzels bloat him.

That dude. Pokes at the fuzzy bird icon, scanning
Timeline while agreeing heartily in a vague nod,
Bowser! Am I right?!

Inside his face, a foreign snarl forms, feeling
Like a hot flush on his droopy blotched cheeks.
He squints with one eye, hits reply,
Starts to index-finger type at the
Awkward, robe-wearing woman in the tiny square, answering
Her comment on a technical play strategy in the
latest Star Wars game, which he hasn't played yet but Goddamit
it's STARWARS and he and his dad had agreed mom knew
Nothing about the logic of Tattoine and what the hell
do basketball-losing, slack-jawed, job-stealing, ball-busting
LADIES even think they are DOING having opinions on StarWars
It's not like a doily set or a where the hell the sofa goes or whether your
Feet should be on the coffee table or not, even when it's your house,
Having OPINIONS like a goddamn unnatural talking trained dog, a mouse in a maze
Pinky and the Brain, so he types, he types words he would disavow later
If anyone asked, It was that Brian stealing my phone, he's
Such a jerk, he's just trying to get me in trouble, words
That would make the awkward woman feel cold and alone and afraid,
Dictated by the lump of reptile logic deep within his manbrain,

"Die in a fire you stupid cunt."

As he holds the screen back to squint for a final look before posting,
His planet is unfortunately destroyed to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.