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by Josh Kleinberg

I am Arturo Bandini's
wet, limp dick
And also Henry Chinaski's
dead Xmas tree
I take no pictures
nor listen to music
nor do much of anything
but bitch and bitch and bitch, anymore
about the government, mostly
but also about girls
and about the parts of society
which are inconvenient to me
like the necessity for skincare
and the fact that we have all
developed an intolerance
to natural human smells.
I'm so far
from everyone's
everything,
or more probably
just from everyone.
My dad is in town,
but has not really seen me.
My mom still lives nearby,
but has not said a word to me
except to bitch about my dad,
and to offer me a few bucks.
My brother still hangs out
with many of my friends
but he does not get sad,
he says.
And I believe him.
So we don't really
have much to talk about.
I don't know a thing about my sisters,
except that Samantha's
skin is always warm
and that Hannah
makes me feel very sad.
More so than usual, even.
I used to think of lives as webs
of little buggy people
connected by things like
love, and honesty, and ideals, and morality
and all that sort of bullshit
but I think, maybe,
it's just pasts
that connect anyone,
anymore.