some dec. words

i never knew how easy it would be
to become an affectation,
tit for tat

do you notice how carefully
i am half an expert and half a fool

i worry my truest self might be in
the moments when my rage escapes.
i realize now that the toe was broken
and that you should not brutally kick
moving vehicles,
even if they are driven by total bitches.

i walked on it for blocks
with a poker face, ashamed
like i always am of anger,
though not of being angry
which is just comedy
like everything

i get too angry at strangers
when they are inconsiderate,
or cruel, i think that is the thing
i get most angry about.

___

i did not eat lamb as a child,
but i do now.
it feels more honest to eat pigs,
they are more like us, with sturdy
recognizable bones. how familiar,
and appropriate

when i was a child i ate beef
and spaghetti. the dogs ate
hollow bird bones. one day
i wore a lime-green gold glitter tiger sweatshirt
and ran accidentally into the electric fence,
it made a black line on the tiger
and a red line on me
__

i can't seem to write without swerving embarrassingly down tributaries of mental anguish. i want my writing to be more like a joke but it spills out of me all flowery and sensory and earnest, and it only wants to re-hash every heart-break and deep slips into abysses from which i emerged scarred and sharp-eyed.

i never could separate the poeming from my selfness, and this is where i have struggled most in the academic/professional/social poetry world. i am not claiming to be unique, this sounds pretty normal now that i type it. i do the writing like this because it's how i come out, it's the frequency i vibrate to. i'm not so great. i want to try and i want to want to try.

i need to keep increasing my vocabulary. these wet december days make my existence dementedly crepuscular. i actually think i am pretty strong/nice/good to be around. i have always liked feeling strong. i have always had very strong legs for kicking soccer balls but i am just now learning how to punch. i am doing push-ups. i want to be stronger. i want to be faster. i want to be smaller. a modern machine.

i want to be embettered. most of my inner monologue is literally self-abuse and i am trying to say nicer things to myself. i should probably stop trying to explain myself. i think maybe i have a fetish where i like to assume other people are interested in me explaining myself. i want to get on planes that take me across the world and back. i want to be friends. i want to know how to make friends when i can't seem to act unless invited. i want to write poems that make you love me, and make you feel loved. i want to maintain enough flaws to never feel paved-over. i want to think/feel like an animal.