PROOF THAT YOU ARE AGING ME PREMATURELY
Five years ago my beard was brown.
Now children chase me through the winter street, begging for their Christmas presents.
Five years ago I was carded at the liquor store.
Last week the clerk asked if I was aware of their senior discount.
Five years ago I prowled the streets all night.
Last night I asked you if four thirty was too early to eat dinner.
Five years ago I slept at night wishing to be somewhere else.
Now I fold my arms and lie in a field, praying some considerate soul would be kind enough to drop me in a hole and throw some dirt on me.
Five years ago my eyes were blue.
Now the blue is spreading.
RAPE MISERY ANGER REVENGE
She made me fuck her.
Her mouth was like
wet sand
on mine.
My mouth a flailing fish
with no purpose
but futile fantasies
of escape.
I almost vomited.
She said,
“Bite me.”
“Does that feel good?”
“Do you like my vagina?”
I had no choice
but to wanly affirm.
She will take
my children away,
tell the authorities I abused
them, I beat her,
tell my family I cheated
on her,
tell my job that I steal.
I have to fuck her,
and it takes
all my strength,
my fortitude,
it saps my life,
it eats my soul,
it rots me.
I bite her
like she wants,
I want it to hurt
but don’t dare.
I cry.
I smack my own face
like a shut-in
psychopath.
It has no effect on her,
save to
redouble her efforts
at coercion.
She comes.
She comes like
everything is fine.
I finally come
and it is
my penultimate defeat.
I didn’t want to.
There was no feeling.
Just semen
and time
and air
and dirt in my empty spaces,
bile in my blood.
I had to.
I lost.
To her misery,
to her anger,
her revenge.
Spiteful,
evil,
pitiful,
fantastic
and sad.
It’s my life
for my love.
I’m stuck.
I did it
because I had to.
I was raped.
REFUND
It was Monday morning.
I took the bus.
Two subway trains.
I came out of that stinking hole
and made my way
to the courthouse,
the sun beating down harder
than my heart ever did
(When I had one).
I got there.
Waited for them to open.
First in line.
When they opened,
the thin bald man in the collared shirt
who gives out marriage licenses
for $25
parted his little plastic window.
I handed him my marriage license.
Told him to keep the frame.
I showed him the scars
that raked my face.
I opened my shirt and showed him
the excavation
where my heart used to beat.
Then I calmly asked
for my money back.
Boxers should have rings.
Chopped down trees should have rings.
Merry-go-rounds should have rings (brass ones).
Super Bowl winners should have rings.
Bathtubs,
women and men
should not
have rings.
RIDING THE WASTELANDSCAPE
Riding the wastelandscape on a chestnut mare,
flies buzzing around the rotting meat,
the wind carrying a stench
like sour milk.
The metronome in my head click clicking.
This death and disease that branches out from behind my eyes
to everything I touch and see.
Today is tomorrow and
tomorrow extends to yesterday and forever.
I used to walk the green and yellow hills
with pen and paper in hand,
documenting my dreams,
searching for an answer.
And now the very question
is lost.
The mare stumbles over bloated bodies,
clods of upturned earth,
clouds that have disgracefully fallen
from the purple pain-swollen sky.
The only solace is in
the hope of finding a way
out of this
that doesn’t require the cessation
of the heartbeat
and the brainwave.
I’ve had it, boys,
enough’s enough.
The volume is down,
the coastline is bleached bones
and smoke-blackened sand,
humanity’s down for the count.
The sky devours the earth
in a frenzied hate-lust.
I sit motionless, emotionless,
eyes like two nothings.
My chestnut mare throws me
with a flick of her mane.
Effortlessly.
I fall silently into the weeds
and muck.
The mare‘s head downcast,
she doesn’t look back.
She walks away from me and
toward the sun
to enter a place
that has to be better than this one.
I lie under a dead charcoal tree,
among the bones and stones,
the deceit, the promises,
the sun-dried worms
and the rest.
Waiting for the weeds to grow over me.
Waiting for the earth to crumble under me.
Waiting for the sea to boil.
Waiting for the sun to melt.
Waiting
to not be.
THE RAIN
The rain makes me amorous.
The sun makes me lecherous.
The moon makes me contemplative and morose.
And the clouds don’t do anything.
I live for the sound
of the rain.
I shrink like a bedbug
in the sun.
I howl
at the moon.
I genuflect
at the clouds.
Bio: John Tustin hates to write 3rd person bios. His work is forthcoming in The
Camroc Press Review, Thirteen Myna Birds, Heavy Bear, and The Battered
Suitcase. His weak-ass link is fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry