Conversations Among the Ruins

Sometimes it's like
I'm not saying
a goddamn thing.

I'm not that ex porn star
that is going to med school.

I'm not that addict that
kicked in a dumpster
and is now

a lawyer with a
best seller.
I didn't save anybody's
life and I don't write

savvy, inspirational shit
for fortune five hundred
companies about how great

we have it here at life.

I'm not hip in New York City
with an apartment I never
go to because I'm on

a book tour, and I'm not
art chic enough to be
anybody you would watch

on a street. I don't live
on the beach and I
dye my own hair, and

sometimes, when I see
these women writers
that write it all - that

write careers out of their work
I want to just cry

like the gumball machine
ate my quarter, and I am
five.

I really
should quit

the internet.

And actually the dots
are fuzzy where they
get loud like thunder
snow in a

bleak gray winter
of sitting on a couch
placed on a curb

five feet down
from the bus nobody
placed a call for

to cancel. It was a
high rise of sorts,
over a used appliance

warehouse. I was either
drunk or lighting candles
or digging out my car or

getting kicked out of
the corner store down the
street because

the owners Russian
wife thought I was
trying to fuck him.

Come to think of it,
there aren't winters I
even like to think about
at all.

Except maybe this one,
where I walk around in shorts,
bringing my boyfriend and
my dog out to pizza and to the

giant park. I love Penelope
because she doesn't
have to ever know

how good she really
has it. I'll never leave her

in a cage for a week and
I don't hang out with people
that would shoot her or

hit her. I am simply
the enemy

because I will not
share my pizza.

I hope my life seems
quite, as that is what
I have learned

to work for.

Everything I look back at
seems the exact same in
so many mirrored regards -

so may pixels and lights
just where

the thunder has all
faded and the snow

that falls on kids
in love just doesn't

show up
in either skies

any way
any how, or any

more. No matter what
the temperature or

time zone. Places

are always the same
and so are most

people.

I am the divided. The
one that learned the
trick of dying while still

staying alive
in order to be

re born.

I wrote that
on a piece of paper

for my friend
today. Winked and
walked away

as I heard him
unfold the note.