Canvas

I spent three years intimately involved with me
and am having a rough time breaking it off
It is as selfish as you think
I woke up one morning and thought
What is the most important thing to me?
The answer was not poetry or friends
or boys or family or even world peace
It was building a home for me

The task is complete and now every thought
I have about this home feels like masturbating
I have to break up with me

Today while vacuuming my only rug I thought,
If I end up in hell, it will be on cleaning detail.
I will look at my assignment and then at God
and I will smile and I will say, "Thank you."
What is the most important thing to me?
The answer is world peace but I am afraid to die
so I plan to start calling my mother more
and to visit my sister in Oklahoma City soon

Grind

The last time I did drugs was six years ago
after I found out my boyfriend was an asshole
I did a line of shitty Arkansas cocaine
and moved his mother's dining room table
into the hallway of our condo
stacked those heirloom chairs and all his clothes
on top of it so he couldn't walk in
An hour later I put everything back in its place
It was almost sunrise before he came home
and we had sex for the last time

I buy lottery tickets with my tip money

and you would ache for me if you only knew

how much I really think I will win every time

that I scratch the quarter across the paper ash

My modest daydreams are not asking for much

The most heartbreaking thing about it though

is my favorite fantasy of not telling the one

that I want to marry about all my new money

until he proposes to me and then, surprise!

I am rich. I am very very very rich

It has been eight months since I have had sex

and I still entertain the concern
that I control the weather
I am trying to let people be close to me
by telling them my inner thoughts
while animating my current thinkings
but feel further away as they just laugh at me
Funny is a code word for deeply thoughtful
and also I am obsessed with cleanliness
because I am trying to be close with God

Stopschild

At the intersection I put on my left blinker
and remembered my passport

Wilco was playing, I tapped the gas
"Just remember what was yours
  is everyone's from now on"

We locked eyes
The pedestrian waved me on
 we conspired a plan
I would go
Then he would go
No one was hurt
There was nothing to worry about

but Vonnegut said it best

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt"

Welcome to the slaughterhouse
I hope your feelings are intact