and it burns like a bad relationship
i need a cigarette i need a cigarette
the whiskey cabinet’s empty and some voodoo
horror ghost has replaced my water of life
with tequila
and the tequila tastes like sand and dead dry cacti
and the truth tastes as synthetic as sugar-free bubble gum
when i said goodbye to you, i seemingly forgot to open my mouth
and since then, my mind won’t shut the hell up
and it’s taking moves back in a chess game it lost a long time ago
and you are a dent on my driver’s side door that i keep for character
and i carry on the way cancer does
and i carry the weight of the featherwords i’ve wasted on my skeletal back and bare a demon child on my hips
and lust is just love that is more fun to rhyme

these people on the television are trapped and none of us can get them out
al bundy watching us watching television with our hands down our pants
and the television is just the middle man
forced to talk; never knew it could plead the fifth
and the fifth of whiskey is gone
and i’m forgetting what i’ve already mentioned
and it’s 11:14 and it’s the witching hour
and somewhere in the world it’s 3 pm and christ has just died
and somewhere in the world someone someone loved
and somewhere in the world someone someone loved
had some form of something happen to them
yes – i am – affirmative – positive reinforcement backed up only by centuries of black plague barn burning flames of fires ashes to ashes dust to dust
beginning to end and in the beginning someone had to be there to tell the story
who wrote down the story of adam and eve?
who heard god firsthand?
the world’s longest game of telephone
who heard god firsthand?
i hear him firsthand everyday
dead white male
seeks
living black female
seeks
salvation from this sideshow circus that was created by the people who brought you
absolutely everything
baby-back ribs made from bunson burners
and love made from sound filtered through the tiny holes of a car radio
and the bass bumps
and the bass bumps
and everyone has a headache
and people don’t know what a migraine is
and we are all the 1%
yes
we are all the 1%
and through the eye of the needle, america is too obese to fit itself
and i am typing this; thank you, google, thank you, dell, thank you hp and mac and electricity and edison and/or tesla and panasonic and whoever it fucking was
who wrote about adam and eve
we need to set up tents in the caverns of our robot hearts
and reteach them to beat involuntarily
we need to reteach our bodies to climax without two-dimensional naked fairy tales
and we need to remember that the greatest search engine is communication
and social networks are talking mouths
sleeping narcolepsy
haunted coffins
turn your cell phone off
(the show is about to begin)
walk naked to your neighbor’s house
shovel their sidewalk
and don’t stop when you get to the concrete
i couldn’t decide what to wear to bed, and i can’t decide if these little orange pills in my stomach are god or the devil
but i do know the color of blood when i see it
and i know human beings produce tears because they are sad, or sometimes cold
and i know that these thousands of towers that we built were built of hopes and dreams
and men turned to dirt so steel could stand
and i know that lobbyists just want to be cowboys like the rest of us
and i know that the seats in the senate house have cupholders
i know this, because we know this
and you can occupy route 66 from one end to the other
and you can occupy every store front and back alley of new york city
but when the twin towers fell, no one worried about the printers and the copy machines
no one worried about the papers and no one should have
these towers are lifting us towards god
and we can keep continuing being groundlings babbling about these suits with ken-doll haircuts
their briefcases filled with secrets and repressed orgasms but this fight is as faceless as the fire we all threw our cigarette but’s into
and whined about the high price of gasoline to feed it
you can occupy any place on earth
but i ask you, orange pills or no orange pills
please, occupy yourself
occupy you wife’s bed, and your husband’s tombstone
occupy your daughter’s baseball game and your son’s ballet recital
occupy each and every one of your fibers of skin as they are touched
we can expand outward to the universe but we will never conquer every frontier
it’s time we implode, two-at-a-time, and occupy ourselves

these little orange pills are to help me focus
these little orange pills take away the deficit attention
these little orange pills help me build cross streets and crucifixes
over weeks and weeks
and they are little and they are not perfect but they occupy within me
and one by one allow my fingers to type individual characters on this alphabet piano
let your enemies be faceless
we are all good men
and we need to rebuild these skyscrapers
not crash into them

COPYRIGHT BRICE MAIURRO 2012