midwestern kids (offensive)

midwestern kids and their midwestern drugs

(i.)

if i'm underneath the weather, i'm not only feeling down.
i don't think i can quantify the emptiness i've found.
now the interstate is freezing through an avalanche of spin,
i can only stop and shiver as the cold pollutes my skin...

ii.

come friday, i’m
cryogenically inclined
or maybe i’m in and not of
the in-and-not-of-crowd
something’s wrong with my social id
like i'm simply simple in this so-complex, or
i want truth and love in this money and sex...

iii.

i smoke cigarettes now,
always have and always will.
when
you don’t have memories,
each moment is the only eternity.
a-blazingly curious after each fad,
(i want you, i want you, i want you so bad)
it's driving me mad, it’s driving me
sane.

&&sober

iv.

but, i protest, i am more 

than just a conflated state of mind:

i am all of the people i've loved in the the past,

voices in the back of my consciousness:

'support the sys-tem.'

'fuck the man.'

'and life begins.'


please:
believe
the hype.

i am all of the resonance
of a dissonant shade
who saw sultry suburban settlements
entrusting god with their monies
and their monies with their god
and flew into a rage,
midwestern boys and their midwestern girls;
midwestern girls and their midwestern
girls.

so
people try to calm us down;
and, speaking of my generation,
i saw the sharpest of the sharp cutting doses,
the brightest of the bright lighting j's.
why should i,
and why should we,
behave any differently?

(i am swiftly losing traction on this question.)

v.

so this is our lot, then?

staring at skies and

sleeping in shifts around the sun.

so it's always six a.m. somewhere.

but you, brother,

you go back to sleep:

this is my watch.

vi.

but
my unanchored wishful thinking
(grace an ocean, we're all sinking),
my textbook appeals to sentiment
approach my own thrown with confidence..
again, faith is fungible...
life is literal...
can't we all just get along?

no we can't, and;
if we can't afford to love each other,
we'll collapse into material binge,
we'll believe things for the peace of mind they bring
(you know what it is)

(vii.)

[the shivering god
is screaming at the bus stop
weary,
heavy,

loaded.

'come unto me
all you who are lowly,
and if you're barely getting by,
throw down your guns,
dump out your rum,
and i will get you high.
let the little children,
if they're down and out of luck...'
but midwestern kids and their midwestern christ

still don't give a fuck]