Bad Parts
 
the story is too complicated
too many people show up, they’re complex
the poem is simple. you can crown the queen
decimate whole nations and even
sneak that guy from the gym that you see every day:
 
poor bastard is stuck in the 1970’s, I swear it
he wears O.P. shorts too tight, has a half a mullet
he has a handlebar mustache that gives him a perpetual frown
and even if she shaved it off he’d have the frown
he smells bad, wiry but well muscled
in a white trashy surly creepy kind of way.
he wears bell bottoms and polyester,
and then changes into those shorts and
diesel truck company logo shirts.
he has this goofy swagger about him
worse than the rest of the doofus knuckledragger
Laker worshipping grunting date rapist
fucks that hang out there, primping
posturing, grunting and drooling
unto the next Laker game, party, club
or victim.  
 
Me, I’m no different
I cop a feel on the tight shorts across the way
I notice the jiggle and bounce
I ignore people who try to be nice
I feign ignorance in the face of polite banter
wear my opinion on my shirt, arms and voice
I’m loud as fuck but say little.
I listen to angry music think angry thoughts
and shoot angry glances
thinking all this shit wondering
why it’s such a lonely dirty
unforgiving predictable world.
 
but you come back to the poem, I swear
eventually you do
because you have no choice,
you have nothing else to do
your dreams are buried, your friends are married
your wishes go up in smoke, your prayers die in vain
you feel as a dandelion with two hairs after the futile wish
your mother blows out in front of you at the cemetery
you know she’s wishing for you and the beauty is lost
in the irony of knowing how it’s come to waiting for miracles
while things just happen
for everyone else
 
you feel as one of the last breaths
your brother blew on his birthday cake the night he drove
off the freeway into eternity. You feel cursed,
blessed, awry, amiss and out of place
you hurt in places you thought were made for love
you abuse places meant for procreation
you scream blasphemies before sleeping
you stain the pillow with saltwater and agony
as you did so many years ago in grade school
you wake up and do it all over again:
you rise and shine, take your place behind the unholy wheel
battle traffic, get to the job, dodge fist fights, hallucinations,
delusions of grandeur, fighting and backstabbing
and that’s even before you get on the ward
 
you arrive at the psych unit listening to Black Sabbath
and that’s cruel unusual, but it does happen.
you park your car and walk in the back way
you pass that laundry bin that says: BAD PARTS  
as if it were that simple, you could just take your horror
and put it there before going to work
then there’d be no need for state hospitals
funerals for unnecessary deaths, divorce rates for endless love
manipulation and agony or the slow steady stream of tears
that gave birth to this poem
in a parking lot
several hours before I sat
down to let it
write
itself.