I didn't do it, but you, officer, don't care.

I didn't do it, please don't touch my butt when you cuff,

my hands.

Behind my back.

"Please, please don't do it."

I didn't do it.

Why won't that man in the next cell stop making

Those noises like he's pressing it into someone

Against her will

I think he is on drugs.

"There is nothing we can do."

They say.

But I didn't do it.

All I hear is, "There is no way we can care."

Suddenly, so suddenly,

As I am recounting my heroin tales,

I recall,

That I once sold myself,

My sex, more aptly,

For a cellphone.

And I shook and I cried.

Worst of all,

I was almost certain at the time,

That in no way did I deserve that cell phone.

They, I thought, were being overly generous with me.

"But he gave you a cell phone,"

Amanda's words still ring in my ears.

Her words,still break my heart.

My friend.

Sometimes.

And worst of all,

Or in my experience,

redemptively,

I am not a bad lay.

And worst of all,

The cell phone...

It was a loan.

I paid interest in Hep C and chlamydia.

I didn't even get to keep the cell phone.

Worst of all,

And I swear this is it,

It completely slipped my mind that I once had sex with a middle aged, married man because he "gifted" me a cellphone.

Thank you, man.

How could I ever

have forgotten

your generosity?

He'a a trickster.

He's nothing

But a dirty trickster.

My little brother

Used to use

That word a lot.

Trickster.

Slick as shit

That I stepped in

And slipped.

Dirty trickster.

It takes two

To tango.

Fool me once

Shame on you

Fool me twice...

Do you really think

That you're still fooling me?

How can I sleep when I know there's someone out there with who I'd like to be?

But do I even want to be with him?

Maybe, secretly, I'm unhappy with who I'm currently with

Maybe I'm unhappy with myself right now

And the only way I know of to change is to change partners.

The only way I know to get better is to take no prisoners.

It's a shame(I'm not saying so blithely)

The last thing I wanted was to hurt anyone

But somewhere I'm not fully or even hardly aware of there's still a little girl I once was seething with rage silently splintering and swearing she'll make them all pay. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. I'm nearly certain I'm not the one in control.

The verb, to be

Is forcing me to betray my baby.

My baby, who, as I write these words,

Is still I-n-g. Ing.

The verb, to be

Shows the condition or existence of a subject.

My baby is the subject that refuses to be sublimated by my refusal of it.

My baby's existence is subject to my condition.

The condition of my baby's existence is subject

To my conditional love.

Not simple past, because at that point/this point

Baby was/is an aspect of the future.

Whose is is hingeing on my decision

My decision which, sorry to say, is already made

So, Baby's is is no longer the verb to be in the traditional sense

My mutilated baby's to be has been or will be deformed by my will

It is my possessiveness that keeps me from the claims that otherwise would be lain (or laid) at my feet, corpses of sins, traded for freedom that is really just time borrowed from baby to be.

It can't unexist so it Will have to take on some irregular form.

If I can't not destroy baby

I destroy its innocence

Creating a monster in the void.

What will fill the vacuum

When life is sucked out of me

But my own personal specter.

Forever stuck

Imbued with the haunting power of never-realized love.

And if I'm not careful

Baby might take on a life of its own

And how could I deny it life

A second time around?

I couldn't blame baby for exchanging

Its sepulchral throne

For an ascension to the future.

Which was baby in the womb's if not baby in the flesh's would be, rightful home.

Maybe I can let myself off easy,

Because baby will never be wounded,

Baby will never know pain,

But how can I know for certain

That baby won't ache

In the pit of its non-existence

That I inflicted.

No one but baby will bear witness

To the symphonies of doubt that lift

The emptiness

To a cacophony of "how? How? How?"

Could you do it?

And can you still do it now?

This is the torment that baby must suffer

In the hollow of my stomach

With bile for a buffer.

It can not hear no evil when it's swamped in its heart.

I wanted to be a better mother or a mother at all.

But I don't want it now and I can't say when I ever did

I can't undo you and here you are.

I can't give you life

But still we won't part

I see your ghost seated at the right hand of your father

Who seeded the ill-fated hatchling.

He was or would be

The daddy of my baby to be

But would be changed to would have been

When the baby became what was no longer an infinitive

But passive, passing, gone.

Irregular.

And I wish I knew more about grammar

About verbs and imperatives

To talk about the baby that almost was.

This baby is linked to me.

Linking me to the we that once was.

A part of me will be

Now and always

Stuck in the past.

I wish I could carry it with me,

But I have made that choice

Already.

And there is no going back.

Baby will never be an imperative,

Because it was not imperative to me that it ever be.

In the present.

I refused to accept it as the gift

It was maybe meant

To be.

Still none of this has affected me,

I'm swimming in counterfeit emotions,

Careful hot to touch

Still nothing burns.

Reflections of sensations.

Mockeries of creation,

My sang-froid has left me trapped inside of the mirror

Abandoned to a soulless lack of reality.

I don't know who or what to pray to.

This world doesn't make sense to me.

All I can do is plead, "Please god. Please god."

Do I believe in education? Or is it just another distraction?

Do I believe in religion? What's my road to redemption?

I need help. I want to rest.

But there is no time and no way

Because to stop now means being trampled by the crowd,

The world waits for no man and I am no exception.

Time keeps marching on and so must I

Or risk being crushed by its inexorable weight.

The ants go marching one by one.

Hurrah.

Hurrah.

I have to get up and go to work

And let fall by the wayside

Everything

And anything

I once gave a damn about.

And all the while I wonder

If he's getting loved enough.

I never ask the question if he's deserving of it,

I don't have the time to ponder those kinds of thoughts.

And if anyone deserves a love like that, then everyone does.

Case closed.

I write, "Miss you." Even as I know I don't. I'm thinking, 'No, I don't'. What kind of sin is this? Capital, criminal, biblical, cardinal? All of the above. And when there's nothing left to keep 'em, then yes, the word is love. 

When there was no love, only words, words saved me on the page and now they save me in minor ways in moments when I want to keep someone at any cost. What wouldn't I say? But what kind of sin is this? What will I pay, because these words are too easy, too powerful to be just given away, so tell me what kind of sin is this? The sin of greed, the sin of lust? It's the sin of "love". I want, I want not to be alone, I want, I want you to feel at home, but your journey isn't over. I want you to feel at ease, but don't get too comfortable, don't rest your feet. On me. Because when I want you to go, I want you to go, don't ask me any questions or play like you're hurt, don't look at my actions, but live by my words. 

Church, I need to go to church, I need somewhere to wear this dress and not get drunk. "Love" as a tool, as a weapon, in these hallowed halls that did it the best. 

A psychotic mind is fine

Until such mind moves the line.

The line is who we are and why we tried.

The line is why we're born to die

-JAMES

Never do anything but with the strictest moderation. 

You have an addictive mind. You're an addict at heart. 

Junk food, cigarettes, drugs, people, sadness. 

You inhale it all. 

You can't stop yourself. 

The world is scary for an addict. 

The world is quick sand for an addict. 

Move slowly. It's too easy to panic. 

You sink. 

You can't stand it so stand aside or beside it, but never in it. 

It's lonely. 

It's survival. 

It's a threat if it's anything but vital. 

But it's all vital. 

And if you smile that's not restrictive enough. 

If you permit it, you've already sunk.