When inexplicable bouts of masochism
pull you within inches
of a traumatizing strobe light
(the human face)
as it flashes
beggar/king, beggar/queen,
beggar/king, beggar/queen,
and your crisply defined
categories of caring
start hemorrhaging
monoga-poly-renunciate oil slicks
into the lagoon of your eyes—
Yes, yes, it’s me.
Just having a little fun,
nudging you to die
laughing.
When an evil snake
slithers into your lips,
forcing you to smile
(even as the rest of your face cringes)
at my twisted taste in music:
the endless grunting sound
of knowers
struggling against a riptide of silence—
Oh c’mon…
it’s your cue:
die
laughing.
When wrist-cutting futility
and “yes we can!”
look indistinguishable—
like two styles of stumbling
through conceptual fog—
and those muffled Halleluiahs
in the chapel of your chest
get whipped into a frenzy
by crows, car bombs, cancer,
and other black things that fly,
Oh hell,
You might as well die
laughing.
When Catholic grandmothers
are forced to drive around
like adolescent hoodlums
spray painting invisible, toxic profanities
on the wall-less cathedral
St. Francis prayed in—
Well, well, well,
not a lot of wiggle room, now is there?
Yes, of course, it’s me
prodding you one more time
to die
laughing.
When you finally catch me
cramming long, sweaty sermons
on how to pray
into one toothless grin
from a homeless person
whose devastating luminosity
reveals
the poverty of looking
for reasons to be grateful,
Uh, yea…
I’d say your number’s up, kiddo.
Was there ever really any option
but to die
laughing?
