The Woman I Married

You are not the woman I fell in love with.

You are not the woman I married.

You are not.

The woman I fell in love with had perfect tits

and an ass most fly,

but she concealed these gifts in

plain sight so well

that even she no longer believed

that they were real.

The woman I fell in love with offered

apologies to everyone for everything

as though it were an essential phase

of a peculiar brand of cellular respiration

for organisms such as her

that have a biological need to constantly express regret

for taking up any space at all.

You are

not that woman.

Not

anymore.

The woman I married

was a master of disguise.

She snuck from milestone to milestone,

creeping between each grand accomplishment and dignified honor

as though at any moment the sirens might blare

and a SWAT team might descend

to take her away

and the worldwide news outlets would all report

how this little girl of negligible talent

and marginal intellect had ever

managed to defraud so many people

so many times.

The woman I married held her opinions

tight to her chest

vetting each of her words carefully

running background checks and

compiling a thorough dossier

before granting

them access to her tongue

for fear

that the air might fill with imaginary insults

the second after she left the room

and all the smiling faces that

she called friends would agree,

Oh my Gawd. What a bitch!

You are not the woman

I fell in love with

and married.

You are a shape-shifter.

Every morning it seems

the passage of night transforms you into

Someone stronger

Someone braver

Someone more self-assured

with more confidence

who commands more respect.

Listening to you calling out hippies

for all the ridiculous shit they believe

or extolling to your prudish friends in completely

unapologetic detail the many virtues of S&M and anal sex

without the slightest bit of fear or shame

is like music to my ears.

You are a song whose sweet melody

takes years

to begin to hum along to

And while you are not 
the woman I married

I love you and

I admire you

now more than ever

And judging by the trajectory of all 
the things I can measure

I will love you more tomorrow than I do today

And next year.

And next decade.

And next century.

And if I had a billion lifetimes

I wouldn’t waste one of them

without you.

A Small Dark Place

You are a fifteen-year-old girl.

You are standing in a closet

with a sixteen-year-old boy

who is beautiful and perfect in every way

Unlike you.

It’s dark

and you’re glad it’s dark

because you won’t have to see

how handsome he is and he won’t

have to look at how ugly you are.

And he’s only in here with you on a dare anyway.

And it’s now minute four of your fabled

Seven Minutes in Heaven

and so far Heaven seems like a pretty big misnomer

because neither of you have done anything
yet
except share each other's oxygen.

But you are so close and the heat

from his body is so warm

it makes your knees tremble beneath

the shortest skirt that you’re

allowed to wear outside.

Then, as if cued by some silent alarm

some tiny explosion of hormones
a billion years in the making

the most perfect beautiful boy in God’s sweet earth

reaches out and touches you ever so gently

on your stomach

And without a thought

you instinctively reach out

and touch

his chest

and you’re almost surprised to find

that he is just as real as you.

And he leans forward.

And you kiss.

But this isn’t just your first kiss

--this is The Kiss--

The kiss by which you will measure all other kisses,

for as his lips meet yours and your tongue

slips heroically into his mouth

synapses all across your brain are firing off artillery

blazing a new path through the backcountry of your brain

Like an elusive flawless game of Oregon Trail where

Everybody lives

and John didn’t break his leg at all

and Becky doesn’t have dysentery at all

and the ford across the river always holds true.

And the plethora of sensory data gets compiled and

categorized and filed under a folder in your memory labeled 

THIS IS WHAT A FUCKING KISS IS, GIRLFRIEND!

And from now until the day you die

Every kiss that lands on your lips

from lovers both

GREAT and forgettable

will stroll down the same path 

that was carved out by this moment

with this perfect boy

in this small dark place

and all of your friends

murmuring

on the other side of this closet door.

You feel his hand slip

from your stomach to your

left thigh

then up up up up up up up

He does it slowly

to give you ample time to stop him

to say No.

But

You

Don’t

Want him

To stop.

And "Yes"

floats out of your mouth

almost 

on its own.

And you feel his fingers caressing

your sex before he

actually gets there and

the burning in your tummy

verges on torture

And it swells

And it aches.

And you hate it.

Then he slides his hand under your skirt and

over your sopping cotton underwear

and for the first time in your whole stupid life

you completely forget to be embarrassed by your body.

And you forget to be scared.

And time and fear and shame

have become as irrelevant to you as

The Naval War of 1812.

He has barely touched you

when you start to come.

You are coming and now and

you know why they call it coming,

Because you have arrived, Young Lady.

For the very first time your

body and your mind have aligned
to occupy the same space at the same time

without you riding on a flux capacitor to

next week’s chemistry midterm or 

last month’s birthday party.

And a rush of reward chemicals that have

evolved perfectly

over millions of years to

promote procreation

flood your brain.

And you submit

to the same biological obligation that

tethers you to the earth along

with every other living thing from

cheetahs to cockroaches.

And it’s so dazzling and repulsive,

so gorgeous and obscene,

that you start crying immediately,

drunk on the discovery of your own potent sexual power

The Girl

who can make it rain just by wetting her lips.

The Girl

whose expanding iris can summon a tidal wave.

The Girl

whose blushing cheeks could melt the polar ice caps.

And just as the last ribbon of your childhood

Snaps

Slips

And twirls to the floor

The closet door flings open

And your tiny, most private of moments

Is flooded with light and

the shrieking catcalls of everyone

you’ve known

since grade-school.

And they saw everything.

And they know nothing.

And they will call you a slut

and a skank

and a whore

to punish you

for that moment

when you forgot 

to be afraid and ashamed

like them.

And the perfect

most beautiful boy on Earth

will prove himself

desperately flawed

and ugly
and common

and that will kill you.

And it will be decades

before you can put all this

in the right place.

When your breasts hang like boxing gloves.
When your thighs no longer quiver at a stranger’s touch.

When you can talk all night about his cock

and your cunt

without the slightest bit of blood redirecting to your cheeks.

And a kiss

Will be

Just a kiss.

And you will think back
to this moment

And your heart will
soar.

And your heart will
sink.

About Pussies

It is completely absurd that

people use the word “pussy”

As a symbol for weakness

and cowardice.

A woman’s pussy is tougher

And more gallant

Than any man who has ever lived.

Our entire species

depends

on pussies dilating

--often ripping--

in order to usher in the next generation

of human beings.

You could lay a path

from the Earth to the Moon

and back again

a hundred times over

using only the vaginal tears

of the unimaginably resilient

and courageous women

who have faced this horror,

but still,
we have the nerve

--the sheer fucking audacity--

to refer to pussies

as symbols for the
weak and cowardly.

Meanwhile,

we use “balls” as a symbol

of strength and courage

when they are actually the most

sensitive and

vulnerable real-estate in

the observable universe.

It’s just

unconscionable.

What We Do

I was at my dad’s apartment

when my sister called to tell us

that my mother was Stage 4

and the doctor’s only gave her

6 months left to live.

My father and I looked at each other

and without one word

we immediately,

and simultaneously,

began cleaning his apartment.

I took the coffee table.

It was littered with coins and

half-eaten packs of mint Rolaids.

He took the carpet next to the front door,

gathered up his dirty clothes,

wound an orange extension cord around his arm

which had been tangled against the wall

and plugged into nothing.

I picked a book up off the table.

Can’t remember what.

Probably Clancy.

The pages were warped by time and weather.

I tried to close it

But it wanted to stay open and contorted.

We didn’t cry then.

That’s not what we do.

We fix things.

And by God, we’d fix this.

We’d organize all those coins

into tightly pressed rolls

fit for a bank deposit.

We’d plug that extension cord into something useful

And iron out those unkempt Clancy pages.

Then we’d do the dishes

And the laundry

And paint the walls

And steam clean the carpet.

Then we’d get fucking serious.

We’d take it outside.

Sweep up all the deserts.

Towel off all the oceans.

Organize the stars into a nice sensible grid.

We’d take all the chaos

And give it structure,

Give it meaning,

Finally make some sense of this goddamn madness

Once and for all.

Because that’s what we do.

Period.

The period is

by far

my favorite

punctuation.

Commas are so neurotic,

so unsure of themselves,

always needing something extra to add,

something to rephrase,

so fucking afraid that they haven’t put it

quite right

Or said enough.

Noncommittal pussies.

Dashes are like children

constantly interrupting

while adults are trying to have

a real conversation.

No. You may not say just one more thing really quick.

You just interrupted someone

who knows about a billion times more than you.

Shut the fuck up and wait your turn.

Someday you might grow up

And be a real sentence someday

But until then

Stay outta my goddamn way.

You little shit.

Semi-colons are like that dude

at that party

who’s covered in cat hair

and totally up his own ass

And he’s like, “Oh, I know this thing,

Aren’t I sooooo fucking smart?”

And you’re like, “Whatever, dude.”

Pompous douchebag.

Then you’ve got the contemptible parenthesis,

A punctuation

designed specifically

to be ignored.

The exact fucking opposite of what writing

should aspire to be.

Be bold, parentheses.

Be vital.

Stand up for yourself.

Refuse to be ignored.

Own the sentence you’re standing in,

You limp dick fuck.

Then there’s a whole bunch

Of other punctuations

I’ll skip

‘cause fuck it.

Exclamation points and ellipses

Are better than the rest

But they do call attention

To themselves

And tend to overstay their welcome.

Question marks are the worst.

Anyone can ask a question.

Questions risk nothing.

Writing that doesn’t

risk anything

is worthless.

Dare to make statements.

Dare to be wrong.

Dare to be ridiculed.

Dare to give people
good reasons
to hate you.

Dare to look like a pretentious, egotistical, narcissistic, regressive, shallow, heartless, pathetic asshole.

Dare to be human

and put a period at the end
of your goddamn sentence.

Because I Must

Death is like basketball.

Put better,

Death is like a basketball 

hitting you 

in your big stupid face.

You’re playing the game

And someone passes you the ball

But you don’t
see it coming

And the second 

before the ball smacks you

in your big stupid face

you look up

You see it

but there’s not a
goddamn thing 

you can do about it.

And it’s unfair.

And it’s going to suck.

And some people will care.

And some people won't.

And that 

will be 

that.

No words can compare to
the movement of a
spiraling basketball
ripping through the air like a comet

headed straight for
your dome
to so perfectly articulate
one very specific message.

This is
fucking
happening.

And in that second 

you understand
perfectly

beyond words

beyond reason

beyond even
thought

the futility of every plan

you've ever made

or action

you've ever taken because

from day one

this was your 

immutable destiny


The ball
was always on its way
to you.

You understand
in an instant that
everything has led up to this

and it has all ready happened

and it will continue
happening

forever and ever

and it is equally
hilarious and tragic

but you will not feel like
laughing or crying

you will only

accept.