Lunch with Dead Presidents

When I get insomnia or anxiety. Both.
I try to sleep or I am sleeping, but I am awake.
something isn't right. I am not sure what it is. I have different ghosts that follow me
like shadows. I have 10,000 I am sorrys to say.
I have a shovel and dug a grave for my regret to heave into.
I stay clear of my enemy remorse and if I stay up for a certain amount of days, a certain amount of hours. They say time heals.
I seem to forgive myself.

I live the same way as you.
In the night I get up and with the same clothes I wore to bed
I head out to the Super Walmart because it is open all night.
Just driving over I start to feel a calm wash over me.
Like going to the Dr. when you are sick. All of a sudden you feel great right before you get there.
At the office you are sitting there. Thinking. I caused this. I should have slept. My back hurts.
It wasnt adverse side-effects from medications. It wasn't acute allergic reaction. It wasn't
that I couldnt breathe or my throat was really closing. It wasn't aids, or bird-flu, I don't have this mysterious cough anymore. How odd. Mind control. Are you losing it?

There are strange people here at this time of night. People like me. There is a comfort we now share. Never really sleeping, Never really awake. Images flicker before you like Fight Club. like bad porn. which used to work but now only makes me sad.

Would I have the strength to fight? Somebody other than myself. The courage to rub myself until I cum. Knowing that void. Knowing that if I called her. If at the right time she would ask me to come over. That she says she knows what I need. And isnt it strange that when I call she to is wide awake.

If I pretend to be sick. If I fake my way through it all. Could I finally get some sleep.
When I was with her. Did she think I was sleeping? Did she think she had fucked me to sleep?

I closed my eyes but I wasnt asleep. Dick still sticky with scent of cunt. sweat dried and heart racing.
I have pills for that now. The racing heart. For the start, the stop. The everything.

But what i need, what I really need is to be walking down aisles under flourescent lights. To get away from here. From you. From her. From me. What I need Is a song without her name attached. My 5 minutes of fame before the flame goes out. New energy. A muse to write for. heart-attacks. Notebooks written in and then stolen. The ability to breathe under water. Her. Under me. Her. over me. The grind. The work. The money. We had meaning. We all have this hope and dread that we aren't really going to die and we are not really going to live.
Notice me. I want to find you and slip away.

Will you fuck (fight) me, if I can't sleep ?

Where Else Can You Go

to get those wonderful T-shirts
with the pocket for your smokes
the pocket for your smokes?

In all colors all sizes
blue and dark blue and light blue
and black and brown green and red
light brown dark red all colors.

Where else can you go
for the blue light the blue light
the blue light specials?

You know what I'm talking about
that place that savings place
you've been there
wandering the aisles dazed.
You have to be in the right mood
to go in. you have to be slow
and happy and sad.

I am buying T-shirts and basketball shoes
I am buying a Hula Hoop and a can of oil
I am buying a travel alarm and an eraser
in the shape of Mr. T's head--oh,
Mr. T where are you now?

Good cheap stuff, don't you love it
cheeseballs and vitamins
a bag of cement a light-up fish

a lightbulb with three speeds
a lightbulb that lasts forever.
It's cotton candy on my tongue--it disappears yet is so sweet
yet is so sickening.

Why did I come here, what did I really need?
I am lonely and it is raining.
I am tired of flossing.
I want to wander these cluttered aisle
still what brought me here
slides off into shoe boxes and dish drainers
into stale bags of caramel corn

and circus peanuts, into disposable lighter,
and sugar free gum. I want to be emptied
emptied of it all, I want to pass through
the checkout counter past the security guard
having mumbled all my sins to the plastic dolls.
I want to be purified by the smells of ammonia
and Colorforms, the taste of junk America
the sweet sweet blues--I hope I can afford it

by: Jim Daniels