Haldeman High

There is a small blue spittle of skin on the side of the pool.

On a Tuesday around the crack of closed doors
And breath
That curdles in spiderwebs of powdered glass
It reeks of drunk girl’s gum
And it squeals when they cackle against the banana trees
Because the air is crusted clean by the desert wind
And the flushed chests and cheeks of them
Their chapped fingers
And crescent eyelids heavy beneath the purple mountains above
Shriveled up like raisins in the frost

Jagged bitten fingernails
Crusted with the sheen of resin and Camel Blues
Hovering in guiltless obscene flicks of the tongue
Happy and shredded clean
By cracked textbooks and Microsoft sheets
It’s a cracked out ballroom of
Knotted muscle and bursting brains
Kids
Hold out till ya burn out
Brochure says the fishbowls kept moist and clean
They’ll feed you
And the pebbles are the color of birds of paradise

Steaming moon pools of spiced rum
And pizza crusts
And a Birkenstock choked up in the mud and coca cola spit
Shelter and
Curls of potato skins and milkshakes
Or yawning coves of blind heat
Its like
Get me drunk, give me food, fuck me now
I’m going to the pool pool pool
I’m gonna run the bruises off my feet
Crack the frozen bits off of my hair
I just gotta get there
In time to bleach the sexed out stench
From my graying hair
Before the dawn and deep fried daydreams
Of the next night to bleed into the dawn.

It’s the clotted nerves and bloated pink muscle in your throat
Don’t squeeze a breath till the pharynx swells
It’s popcorn and cum and chlorine water
It’s dogma and epistemic truth and formula
It’s the curled bit of skin you left on the side of the pool
To the left of mine but I’ll never see it

So as they gape and moan
Moths beneath the sharp bulb of the moon
Moving thickly across the gelatine cold cuts of skin
Getting it in
Or passing out
You wait until the water’s ripe
And run run
A toe’s length ahead of the shivering cast of your heavy meat
The goosebumps of the diving board
Crawling where your guts should be
And leave little bits of your knees on the concrete wall
Shivering cakes of blood to drown the fruit flies
And you wait until its all up inside you
Chewing you out
Blistering drought between your legs
And tip your hair with sweat
The catcall of a juiced Iphone
At the batted wing of shuttered eyes
You burst through that stomach of fluoride blue
Until you cant get out again

And the bananas ripen and rot
And the sex gets stale and the coffee cup cracks
You put on blistered boots to keep out the chill and the sand
And you sleep a lot more than you did before
Because that spittle of skin at the lip of the pool
Has dried you white
And you’re fucking thirsty
But pool water doesn’t come in 90 cent cans
So fuck and eat and sleep till you throw it all up
And learn to run ahead.