Trail Cam Poems
A handful of poems so loosely connected that they've only got one thing in common. Also, a content warning for some pictures of violence and animal viscera.
I had a dream about you last night. It was beautiful. You were a hemorrhage, a bleeding (of) golden light. I was a Stag of Diana of the Romans. We were the same thing. Sometimes. We bled into each other a lot, you know how dreams do and don’t. I couldn’t always tell where you began and I ended. And then I woke up, and I felt the same way.
The child awakes. His father is still asleep. He wonders if one day he’ll be the same as his father. The child goes back to sleep and wakes up (one day) a grown man. He wonders the same thing still. His father is on his deathbed and the son asks: “What am I supposed to do without you?” The father says the same thing back.
The lover’s card is yours. Crossroads in your future. Lucky numbers 4, 16, and 10. You will make a difficult choice, but you will make it correctly. Do not worry about a thing. The reaper’s card is yours. Death. Death does not mean death. I always have to explain to everyone that death means change. Death always means change, even outside the cards. And you know that. Death always means change. Always. Six of the pentacles is your card. The future is barren yet bright, like the sun shining off white hot sand. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, and I see you chomping at the bit already.
Let me tell you a story now boy. When I was a kid I was damn scared of your mother, so scared I could do nothing but stay close by your side. When we tied the knot I told her, “Mable I will kiss you every day you live for the rest of your life.” And one day she got the point. She was mad at me. Don’t remember why. And she said “No kiss today. No kiss today.” And it’s been a while but we eventually started to kiss again. I never stopped being scared of her because she’s above me. If she leaves I don’t know what I’ll do. Love and bein’ scared. It’s the same thing. Everything is the same thing.
*Dial Tone stops* “Uh… I’ve got it all written down on this here, uh, note here, Abby.” Dear Abby: I caught my two best friends having sex with one another yesterday. I was shocked I say I was s-h-o-c-k-e-d! I didn’t know what to say so I just slammed the door as hard as I could and I ran away. Next thing I knew I was crying. I’m only 17, They’re both 18, but we’re the same grade I’m just a bit young for my age. I don’t want to have sex it scares the hell outta me. I feel like only a few days ago that I was a child but now I guess I’m not a child because now I’m 17 I’m grown. I’m sorry if I’m not making a lotta sense. My friends Macy and Jude put their clothes back on and they tried to git me to stop crying but it just didn’t work. I’m terrified of it! I can’t tell you why, I just don’t want to go anywhere near anybody. I just don’t know what to do. It feels like one year’s difference is becoming a lifetime. I don’t want to grow up anymore I don’t like being grown.
I don’t like feeling like the predator. I’m sick of being the prey too. I love you. It’s too early to say that. I am the Manhattan project and I am the splitting of the atomic nuclei and I am the fallout all rolled into one. I have reached Valhalla I am become Olympus Mons. I am the giant I tower over all, I am become Olympus Mons. I am a system in which random words associate and coalesce and striate and then disappear never to be seen again. I am the pitch giant: I’m talking at least 25 solar masses of pure sucking black light.
I’ve been running on fumes. I haven’t slept. I haven’t been sleeping not one bit. I don’t even try to close my eyes anymore. I don’t want to die. I am a man made of flesh eating locusts. Mad cow disease eat vomit eat again. It’s all the exact same thing literally everything in the world is the same thing. Literally everything in the entire world is true. Even the contradictions. It’s all a whirl it doesn’t make a lot of sense when you think about it like that. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense before you started thinking like that too. My life is flashing before my eyes, but what’s new? It’s always just been one big blur. The hunter cocks his gun and aims for where the deer first held its head. It’s feeding. It will inevitably, scientifically proven, raise its head to the exact same place it originally held itself. We do the same thing except we’re not being shot at. What is your major fucking malfunction. You’re staring at yourself but not in a mirror. Picture that. Your whole life, in one great dream. It’s coming and going, but it never stops to say hello.
It won’t be easy to make you love me It won’t be easy to make you smile. But if the Great God Pan Is the love of a man. the man’ll live his life a lie. The satyr spits gold out of his toothless mouth He’s got something in his eyes! A majestic glow Oh I just don’t know But I’m mighty scared to die. ~ Sing A-long now! ~ Oh La di day di dee. (di dee) I’ve got money for my family And when the stag glows white With the inmost light There’ll be hell to pay for me Oh La di day dee di (dee dii) There’s no hope for you nor I (nor I) But if you break your bread With the Great God Pan That’s no way to live nor die. (or die) It won’t be easy to make you love me And there’s no bed for when you tire But Hay-Soos Christie was a sucker at listnin’ It’s not redemption we seek it’s fire. It’s fiiiiiiiiiiire. It’s not fergivness we seek it’s fire. Oh La di day dee dee (dee dee) He’s a soldier a’ God you see (you see) But it’s the truth o’ the matter is When your gut’s ‘r spattered You’re king of failure Christie! And at least the Gnostics have got their priiiiiide Oh it’s the truth o’ the matter When your gut’s ‘r splattered Hay-Soos Christie Goodbyeeeeeee.
There’s always these moments with you I can never read.
Sometimes when you say goodbye you look back walking away
Sometimes you march forward like some woman possessed.
And of course there’s always me looking right back.
Last time, and by last time I mean “the very last time”
You said “god-damn it!
I’m walking away this time for good and if I catch you looking back at me I’m gonna grab the sharpest object I can find and I’m gonna run it through those faux emeralds.
But then you didn’t look back!
Why say you’re gonna kill me for looking at you one more time and you hate me too much to even give yourself the satisfaction.
I guess it’s just not something I’ll ever understand.
I guess it’s just not something I’ll ever understand.
It’s pain. It’s always been pain. Crushing pressure and absolute darkness. I still look at our chat logs hoping maybe one day there will be a new one from you. I don’t know where you went I feel like I’ve written this a million times and it’s never gotten any better. It’s pain. It’s always been pain. It’s always been the feeling that if you just knew everything or at least you didn’t know nothing like you did back then and still do now then things would be different. It’s always been the feeling that things need to be different, that things could be different, that things should have been different or just. The world isn’t just, because you don’t deserve it to be just. You don’t deserve to feel pain because you don’t deserve to feel. What does it mean to deserve? What does anything mean without you? I think I’m insane. I’m manic. I love you I love you I pulled you into the water and everything was supposed to be fucking ok but it wasn’t because ok is not something you ever deserved. By the time this letter reaches you I will be in a city of a great endless sunset. By the time you reach me the light will pour out from through the windows and walls and floorboards and it will envelop me and maybe it’ll hurt less or maybe it’ll hurt more. By the time this letter reaches you, I will not have made it out. By the time this letter reaches you I will be gone.