I have dreamt of the coo of your voice
assuring me that it’s, like,
going to be totally alright,
or something,
and yes Heidi,
like,
it makes me believe it might;
that my rogueish Spencer-esque knight,
shining in a helmet of blonde upright hair,
and wide demanding eyes
might also take me away,
away from my ambitions and friends
and into a world of glistening veneers,
flashing bulbs,
and manufactured fame.

Oh Heidi,
don your satin shorts proudly,
the full inch of your inseam
masterfully designed by your own hands,
and dance Heidi, dance.
Don’t listen to their accusations
or boredom.
Jiggle, smile, sell
sell
sell
and my heart and I
will buy your love.

********

louisiana!
thanks for our national
cautionary tale.

********
you and jaime lynn
have lots more in common now
that she’s all preggo

****************
wigs are for the weak
let your bald head shine like a
bright beacon from space
***************
k.fed: seriously?
you were the hottest young thing
and that’s what you pick?
**************
so many rehabs
to try, so little time to
try out all of them.
********************
if robert downy
jr. can fix his career,
so can you, brittney.

Let me gaze into the shallow blue rivers of your eyes
unpolluted by years of French philosophers
sitting on its banks
pondering the jump in.
Well, Paris,
I am not afraid to leap
leap into the empty blue echo
of your eyes
as you sing to me
like a joyful buzzard
discovering a days old carcass
sitting warm upon the tarmac.

Sing to me in your gently grating voice
of the perils and torments
of twenty seven years
of unrivalled privilege
of that day as a child
you cried because your diamond encrusted rattle
was sharp
and cold
and rang as hollowly
as the voice of your mother saying
“I love you”.

mais moi Paris je t’aime comme la saleté sous mes ongles.
là.
là.
o là!
toujours.

We have loved you
through it all.
We, unlike,
your hatched faced
mother,
have loved you

and watched you
with gimlet eyes.

We have loved you
despite:

your music.
your horror movies.
your leggings.

You were to be
a carrot topped
copper haired
fire crotch
of our dreams. You were to be
Anne Margaret;

yet, you giveth.
You taketh
away.

Listen, you cannot bloom
so tightly constricted –

your legs, decaying stamens,
encased in spandex,
holding you
not so upright.

You have wilted,
a tulip to the dust.

Leave the bones,
the shots,
the DUIs
to the celebutantes
who welter and wither
in the flashing gales
the spinning cars

the mugshots.

Come home! Your parents,
a trap? They will never love you

like we love you.

You are a puddle in the gutter –
shining like so much leaked oil atop the cement.

We will smile into your surface,
and forgive. Just let

your hair

be red again.

O Muses! O Music! O R.!

Sing, oh Aphrodite, of miteration!
Of urine! Of lust!
Raise your divine arms and let yourself loose!
Your child you have given to us,
his eyes shadowed, shuttered like windows
beneath the darkness of lenses, the shadow of fame
the shower of piss!

Real talk, O Aphrodite, he promises;
his passion, his premise, his prostitute
underaged?

O goddess of love, of beauty,
what age can she know, this vessel,
this girl, this flesh bound sanitary napkin he uses
to soak in his fame
his lust
his expelled liquid waste?

How, O Aphrodite!, how can any of us
pretend to track her worthiness with time?

He is your servant, your gift. We thank you for him.

As she thanked him for his money. And his golden shower!

2.

R.!

You believe! O divine understanding! You believe!
Helm-headed Hermes flies at your feet
to lift you, to raise your body like your song

to the air! O, lucky air!

You believe you can fly, and we –
oh child of the gods –

We believe as well, as you have made us believe

We, too, see you, R.
We see you running toward that open door!
Followed by men with shields –

they believe, too, but in a written god
A law? How can this hope to
compare with your odes, your flight?

They see you running toward that open door
and see not a child of Aphrodite, a compatriot of Hermes,
one gifted with a stream of urine so powerful
as to make long-bearded Poseidon
gnash his teeth with envy –

No! They see only you fleeing the scene
of statutory rape!

What use statutes in the face of sublimity?

3.

Real talk, R. This you have, this you use,
like silver-tongued Athena!
O! Goddes of Truth! Of Wisdom!

Of Real Talk!

R., you can only be her servant! Or,
perhaps she is yours!

So, we, we ask you this,
in the name of your

REAL TALK:

What color, your urine?

Light, flaxen, like the hair of
the loving mother? Like the wheat
of Demeter? Thin with water?

O! Poseidon: was he hydrated?

Or darker, was it? Golden and heavy,
colored like the mane of Helios’
horses? Had you forgotten water, the life-bringer,
that day?

Or did it smell of pineapple, strange fruit of Demeter, of Gaia?

Perhaps asparagus?

R, supplicant to your wisdom, we ask you this.