birthday gifts

For your birthday I bought you perfume
that everyone in the store turned to smell again
a pair of shoes
that were expensive enough to prove they were stylish
a watch
with a lifetime guarantee.

After my birthday I promise
to smell better
dress better
and be on time.

you're never lost when the only place you intend to be is

here.

Today all I have to say is

I miss her.

(If her is you (and you know who you are)

I miss you)

the meat district (pessimism)

poetry is swine walking a plank.
grabbed at their feet by a chain
and flung to their deaths.

One after one after another
they fly and screech
and their cries are carried to the folks looking on
listening to one screech after another
until you can't tell one from the next
and all the squeals become a squeal
that starts promptly at eight in the morning
and is carried to bed by the workers that drive the machines
that pick up the pigs and throw them into the chutes.
Carried to bed next to clothes splattered with blood.

Tomorrow the workers will start it again,
throwing thousands of pigs to their deaths
making them scream
not caring what each pig has to say.

follow until

one word is drowned by the vowels on its heels,
and you struggle to understand
or even stand under
and watch it tumble down upon your ears.

last weeks sutures strain
under the leftovers
of suggestions left
at your door.

Hearing nothing but echoes
of low breaths,
and low brows.

I stood mute
by the side of the road.

I feel generic every time I open my pen to say something.