mmdccxlvii

     1) An unvert is neither an invert or an outvert, a pervert
         or a convert, an introvert or a retrovert.  An unvert
         chooses to have no place to turn.

                                                       —Jack Spicer

Toby Lee, guitarist and child
prodigy, stares out from the
computer and onto his bed
but momentarily, lost among
his various quirks and tradition-
al guitarist twitches. He is hard-
ly as historical as they are, these
traditional glitches.

Unleash, henceforth, the 9am
piece of misunderstanding (Oh,
do come back Mister Under-
standing…)….  Your promised
plans make fucked up moves,
make things like me hurt.  That
tough love disguised as bitter pills
to toughen up or make one better?

I’ve never been an easy scam (much
as I tease so) but next to you I’m not
but had. Isn’t that historical?  As if
the vapor of your fake death would
deign to respond.

Without a map, without a dollar, without
an aging couch, much less a familiar door
to open (close and deadbolt), I find my-
self (like I find Toby Lee).  In this bubble
of misbehaving, misbegotten emotion, I
am left to face this farcical non-existence
you invented for yourself, an omnipresent
tension that turns out to be as real as

your fake pills for love.

“Witches’ brew?” offers the magician’s
assistant, as he lifts the gargantuan
magic eraser up to the summer sun.

mmdccxlvi

Kill the Star Student

The lousy way
you’re treating
me is only hurt-
ing myself. Mary
very easily makes
teacher’s pet breathe.
I watch lovestruck
just to further distance
myself until I am well
again. Enough of the
hell you say!  It was
inevitably your choice
that I chose incorrectly.
I love you so much that
you broke a record I set
picking an ultimatum. In
other shadows moping a-
round inside your skull,
distance is directly pro-
portional to engagement.
I look down feeling less
heathen and negatively
affianced. “We both knew
this would happen,” says
the finances to the ugly pile
of material conquest. Ever
the victim, I text via SMS
knowing full well that to
square off with reality is
to disavow it. Like knock-
ing on the door to a place
you single-handedly just
emptied only to find the
table set like a midwinter
holiday. (It probably goes
without saying that you
have arrived, as always my
fairest delusion, for no other
reason than offer the only
tradition at which you’ve
always been best: con-
cocting the signature
coctail, of course.  And
this elixir?  Well it is so
good it takes me out to the
ballgame and shoots you
all the way to the moon
where that fat ball of cheese
is still having its way with
you. Because, you see, it has
stolen your playbook by
playing the victim and
pointing its fingerless
blame right at me. And
the stars? Well, they each
have their turn with you,
too. But they’re only extras
scattered about in this rousing
conspiracy. And while I sit but
twiddling alone in a cavernous
ballpark, the moon turns its
cheese-riddled cheek to a
new favorite culprit as you
perform your final erasure,
dissolving traceless into the
Andromeda, a wasted and
infinite expansion of space.)

mmdccxlv

Tiny Goals for Larger Days

These people
are not morn-
ing people. These
people are getting
in the way. What
is the opposite of
two roads diverging?
A bridge over troubled
waters? Would you like
to hang out today? I’m
not certain I can do that.
For one thing, I have to
charge my cellphone (the
days are endless like this).
In my mind I’m thinking
I owe him a dollar. In his
mind he’s thinking he
owes me an apology.