Advanced Problems

1) If A = B, and B = C, then A = C

I think of you, 

and you don't think of me at all, 

it's getting creepy on my end. 

2) Sharon has exactly 6 quarters, 5 dimes, and 10 nickels in her pocket. She pulls out a coin at random and puts it aside since the coin is not a quarter. If she pulls out a second coin at random from her pocket, what is the probability that her childhood dreams are worth less than ten cents?

3) If Jim's penis is four inches long, and he leaves the train station at exactly 4:30 p.m., how many marbles does it take?

Every Time You Lick A Stamp, You Consume 1/10 Of A Calorie

And this was her excuse 

for never writing me. 

And to think, 

I drink beer

so I can write 

poems

and put them into bottles 

and throw them into the Pacific.

That's how many calories I'd consume

on the off chance

of reaching her.

Around Your 30th Birthday

Around your 30th birthday

you will discover that your body 

is not a temple.

 

It's a den

full of predators.  

And you'll be trying 

to make friends with them

the rest of your life.

 

Or, at least, trying to keep

them in a deep sleep

by sneaking quietly around

yourself

With Xanax and alcohol.

Maybe This Is Something

A young girl is systematically tearing the fur off her plastic pony leaving it a cheap looking black plastic mold of a pony.  She is at the DMV, seated a row in front of me and four chairs to the left. The horse was chestnut roan with a black mane and tail. Her father keeps getting up from his chair and pacing around and her mother is reading something. The girl only has the head left to do, but it looks like it's going to be hard because there are too many small contours to really get a good tear going. 

Totals

Whenever anyone I love dies

I stop and stare at the ground

and try to figure out a pattern.

How long I do this

depends on how much I love them. 

Once, someone I really really loved died,

--That's it. I said my goodbyes. I said my hellos. That's it.--

and I was trying to figure out 

how many total squares some triangles could make

when a woman wearing a tracksuit and big shiny hoop earrings

pushed her grocery cart into my my ass and said, 

Honey, either move forward or back.

California Dreamin'

We were holding hands walking right down the middle of Hollywood Boulevard.

The holding of our hands started to have it's own heart.

We looked down at where our wrists met, and there it was, beating, red and growing warm. 

Then you stopped to tie your shoe, and I had to hold the heart all by myself. 

It slid out of my hand like a fish, then turned into a kickball and started bouncing down the Boulevard. 

I ran after it, but each bounce got higher and higher. 

Pretty soon, I was at the rim of the Grand Canyon, and my father was being chased by a mountain lion.

I started to run after him, but a band of wild horses circled my mother. 

She was sitting on a foldable camping chair, shaking.

The horses were kicking and biting and closing in on her.

I had now had a rope.

I  tried to lasso them, but my teeth began falling out. 

I kept lassoing them, and collected my bloody teeth with the other hand,which turned into a sieve. 

Every time I yelled to her, I threw up bloody gravel,which used to be my teeth, and my sieve hand could only catch one or two pieces.

I worried that by the time I got to the dentist, I'd have nothing to give him.

One Definition Of Loneliness

 

One definition of loneliness

is learning that your favorite author,

the one you really understand,

the one you’re sure would’ve really gotten you,

the one that took your stupid happiness and your boring depression

and made you underline it -- even put a star or exclamation point next to it --

killed himself because he decided it wasn’t worth it.

 

His death turned a great writer into just a dead body in an instant

but was recorded as approximately

between the middle of September and October

 

because no one called or came over.

He rotted in front of a window for weeks

until a police man found him.