Coin-worn pockets
Stapled to the wall
For posterity.

Lemon lip balm crust
And bits of the label
Balled up on the mantle.

Soft echo of a well wish
Rolling around
In a dried up bottle.

Flecks of spilt paint
Preserved between panels
Remember their color.

Thinking stool, turned table,
Half-turned kindling,
And last used for an idle gnaw;

Notes scratched on it
With the broken handle
Of a soft-bristled toothbrush:

“Initials hearts initials”
“I remember better”
“Think I’ll leave”

What looks the print
Of a half-dragged boot
Over the softly rotting threshold.

Naff Douglas listens candidly
As the ache of paralysis wanes.

Naff’s fate is to listen well
To grateful unsaved souls.

Vagaries gently muddle his truth
And he comes to revel in indistinction—

Taking the yoke gratefully,
Like a spindly ox whose duties lighten with its self—

Who would give to sustain Naff
When his service is so singularly replaceable?

Yet even ease can be burdensome
To one made to be used,

And Naff slumps beneath
Noticing candidly—

Too late for joy or terror—
Nothing cannot be undone.

Damn! Shouldn’t have signed onto my blog.  Moments later, the bobbies were all over me like mud on a pig – only this pig had tusks, like a boar, a bristling razorback, like the swine, and a near total immunity to small arms fire, like the Hogzilla boss in Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2.  Let me clarify that I am the pig in this analogy – kind of a superpig.  The cops are the mud.  Now, I know that the cop: pig analogy is the typical aspersion, but if you’d spent two hours trying to beat Hogzilla on your PS2, you would understand my heightened admiration for the genus.

Still, somehow those damn coppers knew what my next move would be. They’ve been on my (curly) tail nonstop ever since I busted out of the joint… I just can’t figure out how….

It’s exhausting, all the running – constant adrenaline, frequent danger, occasional naps – your only companions the sound of gunfire and the touch of bloody gauze… oh, and of course my friend Stooly, the guy I escaped from prison with. I don’t know where I’d be without Stooly. He’s such a nice guy, always right there whenever the law catches up with me, always making phone calls to his mom after we escape to let her know we’re okay and where we’ll be staying, always calling his mom “Sir” and asking “will there be anything else?” Such a respectful young man.

Oh, Stooly says hi. Yeah, plus he wants me to list a few of my most exploitable weaknesses along with a recent photo or sketch of myself. Oh Stooly! He’s just got some of the worst ideas. Aw, but he knows I can’t bear to see him pout. Fine, here’s a pretty accurate image:

I could use a haircut.

You might accuse Stooly of being a burden to a fugitive, the way he uses traceable credit cards at stores and leaps around in front of security cameras, how he runs towards the cops yelling stuff like “this wasn’t part of the deal” and “I can’t stand another minute with this psycho,” that time he accidentally stabbed me when he clearly meant to stab the guy behind me. I used to think that, too. But now I understand he’s just another product of this mixed-up world, incapable of surviving without a hero like me looking out for him. Sure, sometimes I have to track him down when he tries to escape, but it’s for his own good. The poor guy’s got a neck so frail my kid sister could kick it in.

Anyway, we’ve been on the lamb together for over a year now. Stooly says it’s been the most hellish year of his life, but he’ll say anything to get a laugh. It’s been bliss. Manly, totally hetero bliss. I have the whole Rambo series on my iTouch, it’s first gen, so we have to share earbuds, but I believe it’s vital to Stooly’s survival that we watch them together every night. Someday he’ll thank me.

It’s nice to finally have a minute to update my blog without constant—

Sonuvabitch! Here they come again. Look, it’s been too long since I last blogged so I’m going to finish this post while fighting these guys off. Deal? Hopefully my wi-fi doesn’t cut out.

So I (punch clean through two dudes) really think that if I can (catch a bullet with my eyelids) make Stooly into a (boss guy with a really big gun in one hand and a sword in the other) more capable person, then the whole world will (dodge Hogzilla sized ammo while blogging and blocking with my titanium-backed laptop) be a little less hopeless. In fact, I’ll personally (take a sword stroke to my massively muscled neck) invest a lot more of myself into (getting a hail of bullets to the chest) reforming these billions of (gallons of blood spilling out) wussies if I find out (he thinks I’m done for, which makes him sloppy) that they could all be completely (unaware of the scything kick aimed squarely at his you-know-what) awesome like my best friend (Stooly tries to get away but I trip him).

Here’s (me, nodding over the fallen approvingly) hoping.

A second arrived,
Fastidiously fit,
Impossibly long,
And timely.

A third alights
Upon this second
And I’m past—
Their past—

A first serving
A need
Until
This second.

Last wishes sway
With promise as they leave,

Dancing languid through moments
Scraped thin,

Passing each other nightly
With nescient intent.

Let it end
And watch for their flourish—

For all their courting,
They dower naught

But a vulgar clump
Of formalwear.

“Hope the cat didn’t bother you.”

(An avalanche of expectations
Hushed by stark disregard,
Swept out of sight
Like the mess of a rude child.

The world should have tilted
Under the sudden weight of the silence—
Spun in retreat back to when silence
Was companionable.

Flesh should have served
As the final decrier,
But there was no flesh in this,
Only the proxy of distance—

Who remits an apogee of suffering
As a wink of light,
Who transforms a thread of truth
Into a web of invention.)

The cat proved the closest comfort.

A dull ache,
Like a film
That doesn’t rub away.

Old,
Like it’s grown tired
Of itself.

Whitish,
Like a blind eye
That still moves with its mate.

Metallic–
A sour rust
That slowly poisons.

Unsung,
Like its ancestors–
Why sing of them?

Wet–
Under so long,
Dryness is a dream.

Sighing
As it settles
Into its forever.

A light – craven,
Brightly dwindles.

A boy like honey
Once loved a girl like lava.
Now they’re both sweet stone.

Look at the window,
Your reflection, then the world.
One of them is real.