By the By...

Just so you know, not all of my poems are autobiographic, so don't you go sympathizing with me just because I produce depressing poems. I can write sad little lines while on a sugar high, which I think is a pretty clear indication of the relationship between my mood and the mood of my writings. Garrison Keillor wrote a book from the perspective of a teenage girl- don't mix me up with my insane subjects, okey doke? Especially if you're reading my angsty books.

Well, now that that's settled, I post a poem. No, I did not do the things the narrator has. Knock that off, you!

Untitled

The poisoned apple, you would knowingly eat
Wrap it in a layer of caramel, stab it onto a stick
And shake ten or twenty sprinkles over it like confetti
Treating the occasion like a grand celebration

You, who would have made of Jack the Ripper a great friend
And the Boston Strangler, your closest ally
Who would throw party after party, to allow John Wayne Gacy Jr.
To enter into your home bedecked as a clown

If you could, you would find seclusion, lock yourself away
In the most haunted house in a city with the most violent of histories

You sleep in graveyards as though you belong there
And claw at the ground and scream to be let in

Every day, you smoke a pack of cigarettes atop the roof
Of a building condemned these past ten years
At risk of collapsing and chock full of asbestos

And you stare straight at the sun for hours and hours on end

On the coldest night of the year, you stand naked
Beneath a sky that weeps large shards of ice
And a moon that promises to bring out vampires and werewolves

You walk slowly to the middle of the road
Then run down its length until you reach the highway
But the road is icy and everyone has stayed at home
So you stand there, shivering, for as long as it takes

And in the silence and the moonlight
And all those flickering stars of eyes
With no one else around for miles
Save those who are asleep
You wait

And what am I left to do?
Is it enough to allow you to encase yourself in a tomb of ice?

Would it be better if I sold my car and used the money to buy a handgun
And a box of 8 millimeter bullets
Aim my new possession carefully and let you fall beautifully red to the pavement?

Should I take you to a place of refuge and help you
Exorcise your sorrow like an evil spirit
As great as the devil himself
A Satan who took the form of a beautiful woman
And acted more like a succubus than a Prince of Darkness

That creature, who so fervently avoids the light

Take you to a rehabilitation center because you have become addicted
To the idea of escape
And the memory of a love long gone

Should I try to repair all of the damage done to everyone
Try to win myself a Nobel Peace Prize
Attempt to raise you from your tomb like Lazarus
And call you forth again to live a zombie

Or part the Red Sea to help you understand
That in this world, there are still miracles
Seek out the next solar eclipse and promise you
That the moon blocks out the sun so that the world
Can altogether dwell in darkness with you
And wish nostalgically for warmth

Find the smallest monkey in the world or the largest crab
Take you to ride on the back of an elephant or a camel
Listen to the greatest soprano sing the sweetest aria
And watch the most sure-footed ballerina defy gravity
In a manner both graceful and profound

Read to you from my favorite book, when the small boy
Questions again and again and again, why?
“Why was my father shot?” And “why am I alone?”
Because it is so much more tragic when associated
With one who is too small to even ride the Ferris Wheel

Go on a visit to the cancer ward at the local children’s hospital
So that we can witness someone too young to have learned to speak
Go gentle into that good night
Because no one had taught him yet how to fight the reaper of souls

Perhaps if you had visited the Holocaust Memorial
Looked at that pile of shoes that went up to the ceiling, a very tall ceiling,
And continued onward and upward like the Tower of Babel
Poking God in the eye and asking, “How the hell could you?”

Or looked at the gate of Auschwitz and read
Arbeit Macht Frei
Work makes one free?
How many were ever freed, I wonder

Or, perhaps, if you experienced this moment just passed
when I had no trouble, me, the most untalented of spellers
in depicting the name of Auschwitz with my clumsy fingers
And when my spell check,
Quickly riled to attack me by so many words and names,
Let the word Auschwitz pass by unmarked by that red, squiggly underline

What am I trying to say?

There are monsters in this world and they are always human
And they are always pretty in some way because we all are
They tell you jokes that make you laugh for years
Or wear provocative outfits that you cannot expel from your fantasies
Or write books that sit for months on end atop the New York Time’s bestseller list

And are damned good at pretending to love
Or maybe they do love, I don’t know

But all I know is that you are in such pain as I have only experienced once
When I stripped off every piece of clothing on the coldest night of the year
And sat atop a mound of snow while everyone for miles slept

And cried myself to sleep

See how we survive.