"She's Not What She Appears to Be" because I had a request and also I just read "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

She’s Not What She Appears to Be


Jasmine knew that evil lurked in every pore of her being. She knew that everyone would be truly horrified if they knew how she felt, what she thought. The way she’d fantasize about torturing and killing the most helpless creatures—little white kittens and small children. She would do it slowly, savoring each and every moment, every cut of the knife and the patterns on their flesh that she would trace in blood. But Jasmine couldn’t help what she was. After all, one enjoys what one enjoys. One feels the way one feels, and there’s no way to change it. Reason told Jasmine that her deepest and truest desires were impervious to reason. But she knew that she would have to keep herself hidden, always. Some people were shy and introverted, but then they would gradually show themselves, let little parts of their personalities show, let themselves be seen, even, eventually known by someone. For Jasmine, this was not an option. She could never be known or seen. For if she was, she would be destroyed, just like a vampire in an old-fashioned horror movie hunted down by frenzied villagers. She knew she would never be loved for who she was.

So, in order to survive, Jasmine would have to keep herself hidden all the time, even from herself. At first she seemed introverted, not revealing very much of herself. But soon people would become suspicious. They would suspect that she had another life that she hid. They were suspicious of someone that would not reveal themselves even a little. So Jasmine had to reveal little bits of a personality, share little facts about her likes and dislikes, her habits and hobbies. But she had to be very careful that what she revealed in no way indicated what she truly was. She realized that she would have to construct an entirely new persona for herself, somebody totally unlike herself, somebody that she would always have to appear to be.

Jasmine was selfish and cruel, so she would have to act as if she was the exact opposite. She practiced showing consideration for others, putting their needs and preferences before hers. She took up volunteer work: serving at soup kitchens, tutoring underprivileged children, visiting burn victims in hospitals. But of course, though she pretended to be motivated by sympathy and altruism, she secretly enjoyed witnessing the poverty, witless stupidity, and deformity of others—though she never let on to others or herself. She gave money to charities, but of course not all that she could have, because she had her secret selfish desires to feed, and that took money.

She dated, because she had insatiable sexual desires and a need to dominate and hurt people. But she didn’t let her dates know that. She pretended that she wanted marriage and a family and to be taken care of by a big, strong, capable man who would keep her in her place. In truth she had only contempt for all of that, but she went through the motions, asking to be fixed up by friends and placing wholesome, conventional personal ads in the local paper. The trick was to get rid of the hapless dupes whom she ruthlessly used for sex and the pleasure of humiliating them without letting them know what had really happened. She managed to do this in various ways: by giving elaborate versions of the “It’s not you, it’s me speech,” being busy with altruistic pursuits, causes, charities, pretend friends and invented family responsibilities, or seeming fucked-up in an irredeemable but adorable way, such as being emotionally wounded, or ambitious and driven, but for a noble goal.

Eventually she married. She manipulated her husband in order to have free reign with the credit cards for her extravagant shopping sprees, while keeping him convinced that she was the most wonderful, virtuous person in the world so that he would continue to worship her and she could continue to keep him at an emotional distance. She did this by continuing with her charities and being a generous gift giver, and also spending an inordinate amount of time on her appearance so he would always be in awe of her pulchritude. Eventually they had children, and she was a perfect mother and a model citizen. In actuality she hated her children and imagined torturing them in various ways including tearing them limb from limb while they screamed in pain and suffocating them under piles of writhing and venomous snakes. Her children knew nothing of this and adored her and believed that she adored them. They grew up into successful adults with a healthy amount of self-esteem and a sense of ethical responsibility. When she was on her death bed she was surrounded by her loving family. And as they held her hand and wept over her, she hated them as she always had. She died without anyone ever knowing who she truly was. In a way, she had succeeded in the use of her life strategy. In another way, maybe not.

"Looking for a New Way to Break It" because I feel like it

Looking for a New Way to Break It

Rifling through old emotions,
thinking, this same old shit again,
isn’t there any way
to get out to get over to get away
come up with a new play
in this old game dressed up
like it’s something new.

You’ve been through this before.
It’s an old song and you know
the song is as sick of you
as you are of it. How many ways
can you say: I’m tired, I’m hurt,
I’m lonely, and I’m sad. I’m angry,
foaming at the mouth, looking for
a place for my fist to hit. And
I would wish for love but I know
I couldn’t take it, my heart
always looking for that someone
to come up with a new way to break it.

"Waiting for Spring" read at Trace 3-24-09

Waiting for Spring


Jumbo-legged anarchists, kindly giants, bitchy and bovine in their ways, make their way past storefronts overfilled with stereos and knickknacks, gewgaws of late capitalism, incense and condoms in all different colors, assorted flavors. I am your whipping boy, but it's all just pretend. My heart has been broken so many times it doesn't bother to mend. And when will you show me the way to Prince Charming. Am I forever to be slipping on banana peels, falling in the snow, in the freezing rain, in the mud, humiliated by the eye-scorching sun. You humble me. The coins fall through the hole in my pocket one by one. I am not a record player. Play your own accordion. Master scrabble and monopoly and staggering in the dark.

And all my non sequiturs fall on deaf ears and unsoiled panties. My only friend is the piano player playing all alone in the dark, cigarettes lighting burning ash, Jack Daniel's on the rocks. Where my thoughts meet the sharp glass edge of a flat world reflecting mirrors, synthetic plant life. Just as you called my name, I saw a giraffe, her long tongue reaching for a leaf, her eyes partially closed in enjoyment? Memorize anecdotes, long-winded and peppered with caricatures unwillingly coerced into making you look larger than life or science fiction concoctions bubbling over with narcotic side effects and new hairstyles. Left behind are incoherent memories, days you wished you had soup but there wasn't any, and the walls were too plain. Where were the posters of rock stars dripping sweat onto ecstatic but disconcerted audience members?

Foggy-headed super heroes flying over skyscrapers tall and lean, gleaming and mean, forget their lunches, lose their hunches about what could have and should have and might have been. I'm just another rock and roll addict, crazy lady in the attic, in the palace you can no longer call home. When you call me, don't forget how vulnerable I am. How I fall apart like a jigsaw puzzle, and the dog chews some pieces and hides some others under the couch. Play my game your way. Leave me in the cold on the sidewalk in the dark. Sex toys, brightly colored dildoes adorned with flashing Christmas lights, seek me out, put me on display, make me feel at home like the spaceship of aliens from my home planet coming for me at last.

I know there is no home, not for very long anyway. Things change too fast and where are you and who am I? Little mice are talking. They're taking trips to new places and changing colors. He said, "I wish I had penises in different colors, shooting semen in different colors. I could paint as I came."

Wherever you are, I'm someplace else, and there's the rub. The crowded pub, the substandard grub, the back aching to be rubbed. I'd be someone if I wasn't so self-absorbed. I never get used to "I don't care," no matter how true it is. Rent me a spaceship; lend me a lipstick. I'm ready to roll with the punches; do abdominal crunches; steal the lunches of school children. Mesmerized victims of sudden and inexplicable pangs of paranoia huddle and grapple with difficult and self-defeating philosophical concepts amongst themselves.

And at the playground, there are used condoms and cigarette butts and empty beer bottles and fast food wrappers partially buried in the snow, awaiting a toddler treasure hunt. And the Easter Bunny can't help being an alcoholic.

Poem read at Weeds 3-9-09 "Messed Up on a Friday"

Messed Up on a Friday

Messed up. Took my night meds in the morning because I was tired and in a hurry and didn't know what the fuck I was doing and was trying to blend a protein shake into yesterday's cold coffee, but it wouldn't dissolve so I tried the electric hand mixer and then the Cuisinart. And then it worked but it took too long and then I was worried the night meds would make me sleepy or act high during the day and I had to stand up all day and be nice to people and act like I cared when I just wanted to be in bed masturbating and sleeping.

Messed up. Told him I liked him when I know I should play aloof, like I don't care and I'd be so much better off if I didn't care. How I hate being in love. It makes me crazy and sick, mesmerized by erotic daydreams. I have to pick and poke at it like I'm trying to pop a zit, like getting all the built up white pus out of there will make it better, but it just makes me feel wounded and ugly and then I have to wait for it to heal, washing it over and over again, covering it with makeup.

Messed up. Told my boss what I thought. How am I supposed to avoid expressing any opinion at all while at the same time appearing to have opinions and good ideas and insights to show that I'm a valuable team player, but not a real person with an actual point of view? Someone tell me, please. Maybe I'm just not a good actress. But it's just that saying things I don't believe makes me confused. I can hear people inside my head contradicting everything I say as I'm saying it. Sadistic stereo, demonic radio, rapist TV.

Messed up. Believed what I was told, because, really, constant skepticism and cynicism is exhausting, not to mention depressing and soul-destroying. On the other hand, being a sap, a dupe, a sucker isn't fun either, because when the sham is exposed or the gimmick doesn't work or you're worse off than before, you think somehow that you're responsible, that you should have know better, been smarter, shrewder, on the lookout for con artists. But you just wanted to believe that something good could happen.

Poem read at Weeds 3-9-09 "A Change of Life Comes Suddenly and Without Warning"

A Change of Life Comes Suddenly and Without Warning

hot flash news flash cold cash in the pocket of my jeans you don't know what I mean you don't know what I've seen come clean I wish I could

doe ray me fat sow la-di-dah language in the freezer far to cold to hold to measure ice-cream suitcases melting away postponing travel for another day

come up and see me sometime come please me sometime anytime day or night make me feel right there's something I'm trying to learn only you can teach me

she's hiding in the doorway she hears him singing I did it my way she's wondering what part she has to play in a solipsistic song of love

she's listening for her cues looking for clues trying to discern different hues of meaning but what she's gleaning isn't gleaming merely convoluted scheming

will you stand tall through it all pondering what you're seeing and is it worth keeping is it worth knowing or would it be better to keep throwing it all away

jesus christ saved my ass tonight saved my life tonight though I am never believing it's just convenience what to go on without any evidence or anything else to hold onto

tatterdemalion ragamuffin foresight penchant for dynamite ask not don't tell there is a well of silence only the guileless are fearing or hearing

come all ye merry gentlemen may nothing you see dismay our whore was born before time went still and she's here to steal your mind away

light up the night embrace your plight as on your way to hell you go it's never too late to repent but you might as well be proud you put on one hell of a show

Poem read at Weeds 3-9-09 "I'm Coming Over to Your House to Play"

I'm Coming Over to Your House to Play

I'm chopping off the heads,
chopping off the arms and legs.
I've got the china and glass knickknacks
set up like bowling pins and I'm using
the severed heads as bowling balls
to knock them down to hear them
crash and shatter into little sharp bits.
I'm going to use the limbs like hockey sticks
to push the family pets around the room
and then to beat their skulls in.
I'm going to do this in every house I visit
until I'm tired and go home to sleep.

Murder is freedom
Politeness is pain

If you hurt me, if you get in my way,
I'll take what I want from you,
and after I fuck you up,
I'll beat in your brain.

You think I'm angry.
You don't know.
I'm filled with rage.
I'm putting on a show.

Madness is brilliance
Conformity is shame

I'm not following
the rules anymore.
Now everyone is going
to remember my name.

What's this about you ask?
You haven't got a clue.
Fear and stupidity keep you stuck
as if you were slathered with glue.

Have I made you gag yet?
Come on, what's taking so long?
I'll shove my strap-on dick
down your throat until you throw-up.
Spewing chunks makes such a
comforting sound.

Where's your Mommy, you ask?
Oh don't you know?
She never really existed.
Sister and brother left
as soon as they could.
Daddy was just a clown.

Family is folly
Death is relief

Torture will make me jolly
Complacency is a thief

Any final wishes?
You don't know what to choose.
What you want is so far from what's possible
you might as well take a permanent snooze.

Poem I read for the slam at Green Mill 3-8-09

I’ve Got a Hard-On for Jesus


I’ve got a hard-on for Jesus.

Early, early on in my childhood
psychosexual development,
before Shaun Cassidy
and John Travolta,
even before Davy Jones and
wanting to be a live-in
housekeeper/ sex-slave
for all The Monkees,
there was Jesus.

He looked so cool in the pictures
with his long chestnut hair and beard.
And he was such a genuinely nice guy, too.
The first famous anarchist-feminist,
yet so misunderstood.
And who wouldn’t go for a guy
helpless and pinned on a cross.
S & M, here I come.
Hey Jesus, I’ll wash your feet,
and suck your cock, too!

Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell
are my porn. I could come watching
a 20-something Victor Garber
dancing around and singing
in a Superman t-shirt.

I would get up early
to go to Sunday school,
even in the coldest Chicago winters,
and my daddy would take me,
so I could learn about Jesus and
read the bible and write poems and
do projects in papier-mâché.

I’d fantasize about meeting Jesus
in real life on the street.
I’d invite him in to have hot chocolate and
John’s frozen cheese pizzas.
I really thought this could happen
since Jesus looked a lot like the guys on Clark street
my dad would point out to me as heroin addicts.
But this worried me, too.
What if my folks wouldn’t let Jesus come over
because they thought he was a long-haired, hippie,
freaked-out heroin addict?
I was really worried that I would come across Jesus
and that he would be turned away.
Especially since I knew that we were soul mates
and that I really understood Jesus and
we were destined to be together forever and
just the thought of him made me feel all tingly
in my special place in my underpants.

This was probably the beginning of my realization
that adults were hypocritical liars
with reputations and property to protect.
They didn’t really want me fucking Jesus,
even if, in a way, they said they did.

Jesus loves me!
The bible tells me so!
He loves all the little children!
I love Jesus!
The bible tells me to!
I want him inside me!
So I’ll never be alone!