Acceptance

Skidding down the tracks
at fifty miles per hour,
bile crawling up my
throat vexing the interstate
hexing the interstitial highway.

The blue sky is a
far cry from the black cloud
hung above my head,
and me without my umbrella.

Maybe metaphors are useless.
I just want to break something.
Too bad my bookbag is weighed down
with tissue and used toilet paper.
There's a time where I want to say
I'm sorry, or
I forgive you, or
I wish this could have turned out differently.
There's a time where all the words
built up around our little brittle
brick walls could have poured in
from a cement truck,
but those fucking union workers were on break
drinking lattes from the trendy joint on the corner.

Besides, you just handed me the keys.
Said "Have a nice life."

That was weeks ago.

I careen down the 42nd Street river,
the downpour harder than my cock during a
spectacular blowjob, and I slide past the vendors
offering soup for the soul, past the tourists
gobbling the city for the last time, past the map givers,
past the guy selling bus rides, past the fliers
advertising commerce or shame (or both), past the comedy shows
where nothing is funny and everyone laughs.

My eyes scream in monochrome.
The devil has half its job done,
just waits for me to place
my other hand to the stove.

But I still forgive you.



Acceptance by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Name Calling

You fat, ugly cunt.

You waste of skin, you
harried and unrepentant bitch. You filthy
piece of humanity, you poor,
snobbed misguided
form, you sincerely large pile of saggy tits
and loose pussy, you callous-handed harbinger of pain
and suffering.

You immature half of a person,
you child, you
indescribably bad liar, you cavorting slut, you
sad excuse for a woman, you undesirable piece
of female genitalia, you reason men turn gay.

You paunch of disgust and reverb, you mannish hen, you
sorry grub of musical talent, you infinitesimally
intelligent sow, you beady-eyed con artist,
you slow-witted wonder of molecules, you attention-
seeking thrill rat, you drug-addled
veil of sycophantic maina.

You hypocritical mass of hysterics.



I used to love you.


Name Calling by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Channel Surfer

She snaps her fingers at me
thrice in rapid succession

that's code for a cup of coffee and
a raisin bagel

(I forgot to tell you my new name is fido)

it's a twisted reality show and i'm
the unwitting star of channel WTF

the remote is two strides from her claw
but her whistle whine
is all the askance i get

... and
All she asks for is the moon and stars
Offered to her freely, with open arms.

(she says they would match her shoes)

(I say would bully for her,
but fear the possibility of a
tornado warning)


Finger and thumb crack another gunshot across my nose

... I can only ask how high.

Channel Surfer by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Shuteye

This all started when I noticed she wouldn't open her eyes.

I thought it was innocuous at first, figured she had a
big imagination. Maybe she envisioned a hot-air balloon ride
with a twist; maybe a dingy pool hall with a pristine
King-size in a secluded back-room.

I told myself that she was afraid to look, like I
would disappear if she opened up. Poof, vanished, Houdini'd
away with Hot Pants.

Then I thought it must be the pleasure.
maybe she felt so good that if she opened her eyes she'd
burst with starshine and moondust.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm the one with problems. Got plenty
of 'em to go around. Maybe I should shut my eyes and not watch the
fold/unfold of skin. maybe if I squint hard enough, the little
boy will keep from escaping.

Maybe that's it.

Maybe there's a little girl trapped between eyelids;
and she wants out. Maybe she couldn't see anything
when the girl wasn't in the way. Maybe the
light only refracted when her eyes are closed and her
prisoner's pounding at her corneas to escape.

Maybe I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. It's true
I rarely do; especially when it's just the
pen and me talking. Maybe all of this is a farce.
Maybe I'm fucked in the head. not like it hasn't happened before.
I'm a little lost now, explaining myself.

Maybe it's a quarantine. Maybe her eyes stood as the only organ
able to cleanse everything she processed before moving on to the brain.
Maybe by shutting up tight she purified the pictures she just
captured before committing them to memory.

Maybe she needed me. It's a hard feeling to assign. It's one
thing to claim responsibility, but another to give it away without
asking. Maybe I wasn't ready to prop her up.

Everyone does silly things for people important to them. I once
gave up cigarettes for a girl. And once I kept my hair at a ridiculous length
on the off-chance I'd be with this other girl again. Once I bleached
a shock of hair in the front; when I pulled it back into a
ponytail it looked like a skunk stripe. Once I got a tatoo of
a cartoon man holding a thumbs-up; it looked more like a chicken
when it was finished. Once I started smoking because all the other
kids were doing it. Once I began writing poetry.

Once this girl kept her eyes shut because she was afraid of the moment escaping.
To look at the veins and wrinkles of skin and little
curly hairs instead of her eyeballs
was just a little disconcerting.

I mean, what's she got in there that's not out here?

Shuteye by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.