by Ryan Adams
he would not feel it best
for my heart
it is his
as he held me back
when my mother’s hand broke the glass
through the door
to grab my shirt
and try and kill me some more
when I moan about things I cannot change
and all that money
that I could have saved
but spent
killing her pain
THAT is my mother’s wish
I tuck myself into bed
but
I will never rest
she turned me into a shark
maybe from the poison
and roaches
that crawled over my brother’s face
in housing
unfit for children
where someone got raped
raped
and beaten
black and so blue
no love even now at 33 will ever get through
with the words as a shield
and a metal vest
this is the place where I feel best
paranoid
and hopeless
I take my pills for days
I take my pills for days
I was a nightmare dreams could never save
poor girls who tried
become saints
in a book I bind with my veins
one sunday
this will pass
but not go away
screaming my way out from the ass-end of bars
I was back then nothing but scars
but for my father,
the drunk,
who married a stripper when I was five
I hope you close your eyes peacefully
and die
I shot the lights out too
i shot the lights out
on a million girls
when i should have stayed
balancing things
i could not save
born coward, taught slave
to be a fool
nourished on fears
and afraid
no if and or all these things
no arms
will ever be big enough to hold me
afraid of beds
and sex
and what it might mean
people
they are the strangest things
BUT
i am sort of saying thank you right now
saying,
ok, i surrender these things
i give in
mouth watering—thirsty but not swallowing
curves with incentive
and never coming through
all because of me
and my ways
there are a million-plus-sixteen guys out there
better
than me, kid
and all of them for you
i am lying alone
in a castle of bones
under a blanket
time to go
close the door
and leave because i have only the one shot left
and i shot the lights out
already
and this last one
it is not for me
and not for you
but for
a silence
and
none of god’s business
Million-Year Fuck-Face Convention
How old you have become
how old
how frail
how made of things you used to hate
and wished you didn’t feel
turns on the water
stands in front of mirror
the day (or what’s left of it)
impatiently waiting outside the door
one more swallow of beach-water
something to remind me of mother
drowning me or my brother
in dirty bathwater
like that
I am holding my breath
in a sigh
of a sweet long goodbye
black-and-white movie style
burning all the leaves in the yard
in piles
in a thanksgiving card
signed
in paper-cut blood
and
it smells like cheap roses
and says,
“I thought you might like to see a picture of a home”
and not signed
because it was written
by a hag
who pushed me out
in a hospital
people drive a county away to
when they are missing a leg
gin-drunk and xanaxed to a couch
in a hole
cheap rose perfume
spitting in my face, on my soul
fuck you
red to green
red to green
I run so fast I run so fast
I run so fast I run so fast
I run so hard
you won
I am unfit to love
your revenge on your ex-husband my dad is complete
I resign
in defeat
stop stabbing me
and
stop staring
I will not be signing anything
at the million-year fuck-face convention
SOS Searchlights
it’s too late to beg
she is not coming back again
and she was everything
everything
i ever saw, too perfect for words
i prepare a knife
and barricade the door
but she will not miss me when i am gone
and she is not coming back again
so what for
it is more painful
to sit here in silence
and suffer
the searchlights are off
the search has been called
i am drifting now
into dark
things nibbling at my toes
while the ocean
rolls my bones
like dice
on a wall of jokes
i wish i could say, “meet me at home”
it used to be mine or ours
how strong is a love?
not that strong
i tell my insides
as they churn for food or something awful and loud
oh god
no sleeping dogs lie
if it breaks
like a violin bowed to death
numbers
to protect the innocent you change the names
so i will change my address
and leave the rest the same
and how time does pass
when you slowly go insane from pissing up your rope
in your head
pretending
you are still lying on her stomach
listening to her laugh
as the radio goes BLRGHHH
both windows shut
and the door to the bedroom closed
in a touch
i dream we race each other home
progress documented by cell phone
but i don’t live there anymore
your heart
hours hover over me as the glacier collapses
into the sea
home—safe
but now you
are the medication i repeat
my medication repeats
and
my mind retreats
but
it’s over
and
my money goes to old fucking men in chairs uptown
married for twenty years
who lie to me
and say,
“one day you will laugh”
and
I sit and smile back like I am supposed to
and
plan another death
i dr
ift
into a night
and
just wade
like food
not even
dark things under me would eat
for
the curses inside
and
god
with his timing
and rods
of lightning
tuned
to
my hopeless desires
it’s too late
Night of Bones
Once there was a boy lonely as a night of bones. Bones in a box. Box in the ground. Once there was a world so full of light and so full of darkness, it seemed impossible to know what was what, and in the shade of the light he rested. This was his way. His flow.
Flow was and is everything.
Night shattered the glass. He wasn’t sure if his hand just seized or the muscles froze because he had made them and did not know, but the glass, it shattered across the floor till it was smaller than a handful of earrings. These evenings had begun and did not seem to stop. They had crept up on him like a progression of bad dreams, like a series of drones. And it was important to keep people around now that he was so alone.
The calmest and scariest place was in the bath, covered in suds, listening to his radio. In his thoughts the past would dwell like hanging ghosts. Plants talked. Unicorns existed in the history museum. Ancient texts were all hidden truths of the world unexposed. He was sick. Like a blue dog. Like an ice trunk on a private yacht.
Blue Wars
Part I.
the cars up on the lake
I’m only joking
there is no lake
only a street
and on this street
we live alone
I have a room
I keep a picture
by my bed
of the war
I need to talk and not with my mouth
I need to feel and not with my felt
I need some security
fuck
my youth is over
the ending is coming
all the stars are burning out
not growing
but idiots with guitars are strumming
I am one of them
and I am awful
out of tune since yesterday
as if it was the 1800s
and
as much as I would like to be in love
I am not
punk is dead
and my best friend says,
“oh well, let’s fuck”
and
I just, you know, puke—throw up
what’s more important—
first kiss or last?
you have to know these things nowadays
because
it will not end well—
and that is how we are taught
latch-key mall rat from the ’80s or not
I wrote a melody once
in an elevator at 6 a.m. for booze
and prospects
i got scars and civil war artifacts
and clues
bar napkins stuffed into my pockets
scratched into them like they were arms
and I was a cutter with terrible blues
from blue wars
there is part two.
Oblivion
You know what they say,
If the show fits…
Well it fit you, it had to have
You bought the whole store
Playing games with the boys in the bar
Telling your version of the story
Saying it loud enough that anyone listening
can hear the new edition you revised
to attract them
Lies Lies Lies
with X’s on the eyes
You’re a company in trouble
miserable and downsized
Lies Lies Lies
busy-bodied slacker
who’s a slacker attracter
Starcrossed,
and only lucky with the lazy ones.
You know what they do,
get drunk on information
then they actually get drunk
and tell anyone who’ll listen
You’re getting good at this
Good work, keep up the practice
One day you’ll be above them all
and I’ll be fine, I got a cactus
Lies Lies Lies
Put X’s on their eyes
Your company’s in trouble
You’re miserable since you were downsized
Lies Lies Lies
Shoving boys into the bags
that you emptied out your shopping in
You’re starcrossed and lucky
with all the lazy ones What’s
another name for slacker, it’s a bum
idiot starfuckers
Sign your name in the space above
don’t call her
she’ll call you
You can audition for her love.
Just remember
she’s only lucky with the lazy ones
Go mess up your hair
lose the tie and stand right here
you’re on.
What Is the Password for Summer Again?
Birthday Gemini
stares back at the glasses through bright candle glow
stares through the plate
a pill went down
probably
it says it all
says, “for now, this night is too late”
with no waterfall
no father-and-son type dialogue
stupid like a flock of rackety glisteners
champagned and smiling
like geese
some asshole talks about poetry
and
you know,
she sleeps with him
so gross
not even cheap
just fucking gross, and wasted on the sheets
who am i to be the one to tell him who
or what
when i am just a thought
in a flying spitball
not even a contender
on a flight
of nobility
barely an example of either gender
inside soft like pound cake and sweet tea
a world of vessels
with me a dam
that would never let a single fucking boat come in
without firing on it
before a warning sound or shot
i am a war
—she sits and stares and watches
sits and stares and wastes her time
like I am not looking
red hair like bloody morning
cars begin
and interrupts the happening
and
if it was true, ever, anything inside
then
the weight of love should crush us both
like summer bugs
but
separated forever
without the password for summer
just outside
for my bones ache for you
like i was not here
yet
and a season to forget
i am only a word slut
Snow Lady, I Wished You
sweet dreams,
snow lady
cinderella shoes
and tap
tap
tap
on the walls
my eyeballs fall out
I cry
during funny parts
of ghostbusters
now
I am old
it’s so funny
you would even laugh
sociopath
and I guess I don’t belong to you
than I do the South anymore
dodo bird
wasted moment
crashed car
traffic accident
real
heartbre
aker
it was nice to meet you
i think
sweet dreams
for
every day that finishes you in bright light
and
honestly
may you sleep so sound
and
live eternal in my heart
as
an amulette
made of something stronger than hope
snow lady
Gay As Fuck
write a line
cross it out
nothing i say
is ever good enough
anyway
my stomach is turning
bloody gray
full of rust
riddled with cliché
and gay as fuck
dirt in my room
vacuumed to death
until the curtains
get sucked
until night’s only left
night is only left for me to piss off
riddled with envy
and gay as fuck
dreaming impossible girls
who spit and cuss
on car windshields
pulling out guns
and firing at famous cemetery headstones
in gingham dresses
and
with busted lips
the leaves go red
orange and brown
a tree gets chainsawed
tree falls down
falls on the fence
of the house that I bought
for us
my life is a comedy
i am a hack
and
this is just nothing
and
gay as fuck
sarcastically
with
a Southern accent
in the back of mind
Auden’s complete works
held up
to God
as light
of course
still,
gay as fuck
as if to say
so
what.
You Will Not Miss Me When I Am Gone
Car goes past
the window in the room
the lamp by the bed burned out last night
and it’s almost afternoon
seashore lined with bars
Broadway girls missing
into the mouth of the moon
mid-autumn
and you will not miss me when i am gone
Heaven and Earth
Body and Soul
last light of day
flowers in the cold
sand and sea
how happy we used to be
memory
oh you
two tickets for the movies