it’s weird that you can
grab these tools
in any hardware
store
whenever you want

hose and a
duct tape

and sleeping meds
from the drug store

It’s all available
these days
and so it should be

Society shouldn’t try so
hard to keep all of its
members alive

she could preach for hours
on the subject
and would do such a good
job about it
that even you’d start
believing

On that night when she
confessed
her madness to me
I told her, “You can have
fun with your insanity. Chance
the world even.
Hadn’t all the people who
changed the world been
insane?
Don’t be too quick to
throw it away or seek to ‘heal’ it.
There is another way out.
And it’s through.”

She said she knew I’d say
that. Because her insanity
was the ability to
see into the future

She then left
because she knew I would
not lend her
my car to
suicide in it by connecting
the hose to the exhaust pipe

“You can’t drive a car,” I
said. “Ain’t got
no license.”

and she said, “I don’t wanna
drive it. Just
do the thing with the
hose.”

“Yeah, but to do that
you’d have to take the car
away somewhere. Can’t do it
anywhere here in the city, you
know?”

“How about you drive us
somewhere–?”

“And then what? Come back
with your body on
the passenger’s seat?”

She didn’t say much after
that

She could see the
future in 144 branches,
as she put it.
144 possibilities for
it to unfold in every next
144 seconds.

Meanwhile I was
so short sighted that I
couldn’t even see
what she really wanted when
she suggested that I drive us
both somewhere

She wanted me to go
with her
all the way
to the other side

I’m not sure I would’ve
said no
back then

It would’ve been part of
my insanity

But, what do you know,
even that changes

If you stick around for long
enough you
discover that it can
be toyed with - the insanity

The form it has today
is the form that
allows me to write about her
all those years later

She was mad enough to
see the future

I was mad enough
to see her 

Many thanks to LatinosUSA —English edition for featuring my poem, "insanity can be toyed with"!

Check it out HERE!

Thank you!

I DON’T CARE
stood
so boldly written
in dark letters on the back
of her white T-shirt

but
she was crying

she definitely
did care

Lit another cigarette
right after putting out
the first one

She was alone
next to the entryway of
the casino
leaning on a tall table

Her man was
inside
at the slot machines

I’ve seen this
scenario before

so
many times

I don’t know how they
do it.
All the pretty ladies fall
for the gambling addicts

perhaps it’s the sense
of danger
the thrill

it’s the feeling of, ‘yeah, he’s
gambling with our entire
life savings, but… like, what
if he wins?’

even though the answer to
‘what if he wins?’ is
a bit too well known

it is, ‘he’ll just gamble
more.’ of course

But… what if he wins
again? And
again…

Well, at some point you just
gotta say, ‘I don’t care.’

or even better
write it on your
T-shirt
and make it a few sizes larger
to hide your pregnancy

everything’s
a gamble after all

Many thanks to Gobblers by Masticadores for featuring my poem, "Lady with the I DON’T CARE t-shirt"! 

Check it out HERE!

Thank you!

not a religious boy
but that evening he felt like praying
though didn’t precisely know
what for

Forgiveness maybe?

Anyway, like the good boy he was
he waited for her
with dinner ready and even
a bottle of cold white wine
he took from
the fridge
and buried in a pot of ice cubes

He waited in silence
swimming in his own thoughts

drowning a little

She opened the door at 11 PM
and entered carrying
two large bags and asked if she had
been missed or not

He was too good
to say anything other than “Absolutely.”
and that made her smile

She embraced him
gave him a kiss and put her lips
next to his ear
and whispered, “I can’t wait to show
you what I’ve got.”

But of course he already
knew damn well what she got

So after dinner they went straight into
the bedroom
taking their clothes off along
the stairs
and once inside she stretched him
on the bed
and told him to wait for her just a bit

He was a good boy
and so he did

In front of the bed there was no TV set
Instead there was a giant tank
that held an ant farm
Pretty big ants. He could sometimes hear
them knocking against the glass, waking him
from sleep

He watched the tank in horror until
she returned to the bedroom
with what she brought today from the
pet shop

Surprise, yet another hamster
whose only meaning in life was to be
thrown into the tank with the killer
ants while she watched its
desperate struggle and eventual dismemberment
as she got pounded from behind on the bed
and shouted obscenities

But after this one
her lover finally knew what to pray for 

Many thanks to LatinosUSA —English edition for featuring my poem, "big ant farm"!

Check it out HERE!

Thank you!