The Holidays

To the artist coming home for the holidays:
Be strong on your way to your execution,
Like a bathing cub in the wild having a solid day
On its way to a bear trap, a claw of humiliation.
At first, hometowns are what they are: for home—
And mom’s lasagna is as cheesy as you remember
,And your room is still the way it was: a picture of Rome
Hanging on the wall and a polaroid of your family members.
Then it’s dinnertime and the lasagna tastes delicious,
Everything is delicious until the conversation is served.
“How’s your thing going?” they ask. And you’re suspicious
That they think you’re a failure since “trying” isn’t 1st.
It can feel pathetic to endeavor with ambition,
To risk living a life of fulfilling, dream-like favor,
While Uncle Jo and Auntie Susie deem it a superstition
That you could ever make money with your desired labor.
But don’t listen because you cannot play in the dark,
You cannot skateboard on their grass fields
Or sculpt the Hercules with sand at their park,
Or write about sunrise with windows sealed.
Yet: the light awaits, the wheels will be rolled
And no one has seen your Hercules or your sunrise.
Home is comfort, but there’s a reason we get old,
Choosing to leave all we know to increase in size.
Nothing ever happens here: upgrades without reroutes.
In town, the clothes get nicer, cars get faster, wallets thicken.
The bored chase the mediocre hunger of object. If south
They feel, they’ll go to the cycle of trends to no longer sicken.
Besides children, what gets created in this city?
Of course they make fun of you for your dreams
Because they haven’t had the courage to follow any—
They mean well, but they haven’t seen what gleams.
They will regard the pursuit of art as a last resort—
“Don’t waste your smarts, you could do law at Penn!”
And the lawyers during breaktime are the ones who sort
Through their phones: music, movies, literature to save them.
The craft of art requires passing the threshold of what man can afford.
So knows the ballerina of discipline unparalleled and joints pained.
So knows the pianist of the layered complexities of a single chord.
So knows the painter of anguishing subtlety and patience,
The cinematographer of torturous observation,
The actor of the impossibility of recreating sensation,
Or the writer’s page of soul translation.
And so we must dream there is a different table for us to sit,
Alongside the princes, the clowns, the legends who left town
Knowing it is beyond family, friends, even teachers to admit:
Our true voice is beyond us, beyond them, and beyond now.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Catherine Star

25,000 hot videos loaded on the screen
And I grinned wondering what I want today.
I felt spontaneous, so I clicked on page seventeen
To watch Catherine Star nailed for display.
And the first minute always turns me on: the story.
Here, this thick amateur was playing a student—
And the bald dude was the professor, which was kind of corny,
But her tits were so big anything suited.
Five minutes in, she starts screaming “harder”
And he calls her a slut and slaps her across the face.
She was just supposed to be my starter,
But she took it so good, I nearly finished the race—
Until her leg slipped off the table and she let out a laugh.
A laugh? I stopped—and something broke inside me.
Then she put her leg back up and he slapped her ass,
And the cameraman kept going while she was still silly.
Did no one see that? Did no one hear her chuckle?
I watched her face a little closer as she took it from behind,
Meat pounded by meat, and for a moment, I saw her struggle.
Her eyes went down, expressionless, as if she went offline.
When she caught herself, she returned to loud moans
And I replayed the clip asking who is Catherine Star?
Is she a mother? A sister? Does she come from a sad home?
Does she like coffee first thing in the morning or to play guitar?
Is she dead by now? I wouldn’t know.
I saw the baby hairs on her neck and her carefully done mascara,
And the birthmark on her leg, she sort of looked like a Sarah.
I replayed her cute gestures that went by unnoticed
And her seconds of sadness, too, of a lonesome hypnosis.
There are spirals of nebula on Sarah’s fingertips.
She may have been a chubby munchkin.
She might have loved reading as a kid.
Or had a favorite stuffed animal named Pumpkin.
I kept watching Sarah, alone in my bedroom,
The two of us naked, me crying to shit, almost in love.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Would You Like Sprinkles?

When I arrived at the venue, they knew I was coming—
After all, I am born this time of life to everyone’s party,
But for some reason, for this one, instead of running,
I decided to stay a little longer and bring my army.
We’ve made this lovely brown face our home—
And get so drunk at night we forget who we fuck!
But our kids turn out so pretty and pink, with yellow foam,
That we just toast to the next and make more muck.
It is so entertaining to watch our host try to evict us
With their charcoal creams, pathetic pokes, and egg whites,
Searching the world for an antidote to conflict us,
Like a desperate alchemist searching for immortal life.
They think maybe we’re getting smaller, but in actuality,
We’ve been here so long they’ve adjusted.
When one of us dies, we’ve got to memorialize mortality,
So we dig deep, scarring tan tissue with wounds crusted.
We barely go outside anymore, only indoored disconnection.
They don’t leave the house so we guessed our host is sick.
They never talk to anyone and just stare at their reflection
So it could be illness or maybe they’re just a narcissist.
They do the same thing every day, softening during each:
Letting pillbugs crawl on their body until sundown,
Looking at old pictures while weeping on bedsheets,
Keeping a scoreboard on the wall labelled, “One down—”
And beneath bulleted:

• Do I deserve battle scars without a battle?

• Cycle: Chocolate to relieve stress→more blemished complexion

• Feeling ugly, feeling Argus, feeling cattle

• I can see when they stare at my sprinkled ruin

• Mini volcanoes were experiments reserved for kids

  And for some they explode, but mine never rid.

• Perhaps if I go outside, and take them with me,

  I can live a life that they will hate eventually.

It looks like they found a way to end our festivity:
We only come to those who’ll shut life’s door.
Open true; for those on trial, we will go eventually.
They might not be alive to see, but they’d have lived more.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Peppered

From the bite, tender muscle splits on my tongue,
Excreting the flavor of fats and familiarity.
This particular flesh must have been an athletic one
For my mouth swirls their juices with utmost clarity.
The foundation of a round ceramic, hot sauce, and flour,
And TV commercial, protein supply, and low price
Make it hard to see that my Monday meal I will devour
Was an active, responsive form of skeletal life.
The merchant’s voice is louder than yesterday’s whimpering lungs.
We call it free range as if a hen man raised is not a hen.
And our instincts hide in the anemones of our tongue
Because pleasure soon beats pleasure then.
Ergo, dead carcass now settles in my stomach—
Chewed remains of a once hairy, bloody corpse,
And yet, with death inside me, for a satisfaction summit,
I expect to live and for the everflow to run its course.
Though if I remove the sundress of my lady’s body upper,
And peel the hair and skin off her gentle brawn,
And cook with olive oil her chopped flesh for supper,
I wouldn’t tell the difference between salted beef and a wife gone.
Tell me a drumstick looks not like your thumb.
Tell me the cow does not prefer slaughter.
They speak a different language that my world numbs
But if anyone will understand, it will be our daughter’s daughters.
With a rope, we watched the backs of men get whipped as slaves
And it was too ancient to question any wrong.
With a fork, we masticate substance best suited for a grave
And it is too modern to question any wrong.


From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Blueprint

They won’t remember your car that switches,
Or that on your face you had a large protruding dot
Or that you were five foot wishing for more inches
Or that you did anal on a billionaire’s yacht.
I mean, they can see it now—and oh boy, do they see it!
Your body may be disgusting or just the opposite.
Still, those of now fill your mind with their current norm
And meanwhile, Jupiter’s got a 12,000-mile storm.
It’s weird how we behave how we look like (a sign they stole you).
It’s persuasive to appeal to the herd in front of you,
But your lyrics, formulas, blueprints—your light—
Goes beyond the 5’ earth package you did not choose.
And even if you try, the angel may not come for you
And admittedly, this life of hurt may never stop hurting,
But make your blueprint, the one you can otherwise choose,
Because it may have wings to fly to those searching.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

I'm in My Room

Today I will save the world, but who should I pick?
Should I be a demi-god who can control the wind?
A famous dragon slayer with a fatal roundhouse kick?
Or a soldier taking out an army with a pistol and a grin?
I am an invincible warrior and no one can hurt me here,
Not even my family downstairs who never talks to me. Play.

I’m in my room, beside a few white dusty plastic fans.
I am safe in this swamp, with my video games and console.
I will eat my meat lover’s pizza with my stubby hands
With occasional moments where I dream of potential,
But when the pizza is over, I return to a world where I belong,
That I can control, where I can win, and never be rejected. Play.

I take a few breaks and open up my private tabs
To naked women of wide variety. Again, I take my pick.
Blonde, brunette, MILF, slapped, tied, or grabbed,
And I stroke lonely until my blanket is wet with sick.
Once I finish, I breathe harsh and stare at the ceiling,
Frozen, disgusted, and no longer attracted to anything. Play.

Before I go to sleep, sometimes I philosophize.
I have these questions, but I usually sleep them off, like:
If ghosts watch us, do they see us masturbate?
I always feel like the walls are staring so I was just wondering.
Do they give us privacy like civil specters and wait,
Or do we just select when our loved ones are hovering? Sleep.

I’m in my room, consuming, cyber, and confused.
I don’t remember the last time I made something
Besides blunts, cum, minimum wage, bad grades, a noose.
Sometimes I know I’m just twiddling my thumbs in front of a screen,
That the songs about the money make me fake feel rich too.
That the porn gets weirder, life gets shorter, and I eat shit stew.
That these unrealistic characters I play make me feel strong,
That I’m screaming at plastic that did nothing wrong.
That I’m hurting and escaping and yearning and breaking,
That underneath this hole, I may actually have some flair.
Sometimes I’d like to leave my room and go see what’s out there.
Would you like to go with me? Send.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Dopamine

Welcome to our Utopia, we’re glad you found it!
As you can see, it fits right in our hand!
Some people sleep with it or take it to the shower
And in case we feel erased, we check it every hour.

Everyone is happy here and we can all be celebrities!
We share our breakfasts, birthdays, boyfriends and planner!
No one sees the moment before or after our “Cheeeeese!”
And if our ugly ever creeps in, we’re one filter away from glamor.

Our utopia is free too, while filling a void as fast as it came!
If we’re short of love, we’ve got comments and likes!
It’s the quickest way to feel important about what isn’t important.
Yes? No, a photo of our latte won’t make it taste any better.

No one really cares about you for more than a second,
No matter how cool the post was, however funny the story.
The internet is an infinite scroll, too vast to compete with—
The next post will replace you, so you must post more, sorry.

Some say vanity is in our nature, that it’s not technology’s fault,
But the creators up there have designed an outbreak so pretty and fun.
The damaging effects are known, like cocaine, like sex, like salt,
But we need a double life still since we didn’t like our first ones.

A piece of plastic stole an entire species—
In lobbies, in the bathroom, in an elevator,
Ideas, reactions, and silent contemplations,
During lunchtime, during mass, during his funeral,
On the street, on break, on duty,
Before the waiter brings the food and after the check,
While the flight attendant bothers to request airplane mode,
While a trafficked victim speaks to you in code,
While the potential love of our life just walked past,
While mother cooks with a recipe we forgot to ask.

Let’s pretend there isn’t an entire generation
That’s obsessed with nothing for no sense.
Let’s pretend our bodies have perfect proportion
And that lonely nature doesn’t miss us
And that a photo of our work will advance it.
And that we aren’t taking sand out of our hourglass
To show others what our hourglass looks like.

Welcome to our Utopia!
Why are you staring at me like that?
Hey! Where are you going? To your imperfect planet?
That’s absolutely pathetic. What a fucking loser.
Ha...but... Can I... um... can I please see?

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Underwhelming

In this writing thing, I wonder where the children went—
The ones who play with their tongue and spin in their run.
Now, we have thumbs who call themselves writers,
paying rent In this writing thing without dancing any spunk.

These thumbs poke at the screen and type their heart away,
Writing what everyone agrees with angst and uncapitalized letters.
But I have read more imagery in a license plate,
I have walked crosswalks with more lines than their poems and better.

The writing hand moves to make the reading eyes move
To make their hearts move, so to make their legs move.
And if the thumbs write only what others can relate to,
The world may feel a tear, but won’t learn anything new.

We may write when in pain, it comes natural to write—
To express a sorrow and clear one’s mind,
But sad words don’t make poetry, it might
If buried within was a story, some rhythm, a fight!

“I love you, but you hurt me,” the thumbs will post.
And poetry became synonymous with a diary,
But where is the tension, the imagination, the soul—
Our own lives we write of don’t actually have much electricity.

Play with me the way our child-like elders could.
They always talk of their 3 a.m. sadness, but what about 3 p.m. madness!
There’s pain worse than love, like dropping bar soap on your foot.
Instead, they say blank pretties like “heal like cinnamon in the undergrowth.”

I miss the way they used to play.
They never used to leave us out.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Happy Father's Day

One time, by the bus stop, after school,
A kid named Bobby, tall and cruel,
Smacked my face and gave me a push
Where I blushed and bled, scabbed in a bush.

I couldn’t hear at first, except for this ringing—
Then came the other kids, in laughter, singing.
I wish you’d taught me how to deal with a punk,
But that’s not the only life course I flunked.

I wish I knew how a gentleman must dress,
But I wore what mom bought and tried my best.
Some other kid’s father taught me how to shake
A hand at first meet – a grip tight like a snake.

I liked a girl, but never knew what to say.
I won awards, longing for your “hooray.”
I was in a play doing whatever wildness suited.
I did the same drugs mom said you did.

It was always momma, Kookee, and me.
You loved the racetrack for decades, but left me at three.
All my friends were fatted with a love to claim,
And the only thing you ever gave me, Karl, was your name.

Survival meant art, school teachers, and history,
Convincing myself they’d replace your mystery.
“I love you” is a phrase you never bother say,
But thank you for your sperm– Happy Father’s Day.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Give Me a Bad Grave

Give me a bad grave, I don’t want a nice one.
Grab a stop sign and plunge it as my tombstone,
Buy me a used coffin, or better yet, suffice none—
I want to earn the worst grave ever owned.
I want to live so far they won’t remember me.
I want to change so much I cannot be recognized.
I want to give away all I have and cash my chips without a penny.
I want to be so much engravements won’t fit the size.
If you could see my body, I probably went out lamely irrelevant.
Give me a half-eaten corpse after tussling with a hammerhead shark.
Give me goo in a Ziploc bag after trying to invent a new element
Or a splattered mess thinking I’d make the jump in the dark.
How about impaled on a rollercoaster the one time I wasn’t scared
Or shitted out from an eagle mid-flight, falling greater than Napoleon.
I don’t want anyone at my funeral because my Italians pals will be there,
And so will the Chinese mob and we can’t have another war rolling in.
I want to roam all around I can’t tell between life and a videogame.
I want to meet so many people I get them mixed up.
I want to taste every food that I can’t name.
I want to love so much my heart’s used up.
I’d like to say that I was here and left tired, sore, and splintered.
That I fell in love every New Years and cried before the winter.
If earth is mostly water, life isn’t about the rocks you save.
I have tears on my stop sign, my neighbor has diamonds on his grave.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Birdseye

Despite a dozen outstretched lawns and bronze open gates,
I am still confined in the tertiary prism of norm.
It felt wrong to be here ever since move-in day,
But they assigned me work the next before instinct can form.
Mom said to come here, Dad too, and so did the neighbors,
All explaining that this is where the youngling belongs.
Though the elders don’t actually look quite happy either,
Shouldn’t their advice have helped their wrong?

This is a perfect place, this sadhouse, for them to steal you:
You’re away from home and vulnerable, memorizing things new,
And thanks to your drunk peers, only ever hear English slurred.
By graduation, your individual is trapped in time to join the herd.
My dorm room lullaby is the patterned song of my neighbor’s thrusts.
And the student clubs are filled with weird people who say the obvious.
Some would kill to be here, rather than be imprisoned or displaced,
And my problems are first world, but they’re still world.

I eat at the dining hall alone, pretending to listen to music
As I lean in, desperate to hear what a conversation sounds like.
These nights hurt and I pick up a guitar to try and muse it,
But my professor just assigned 150 pgs. about the source of light.
Oh Mama, I’m dulled – they got me, but you want me here.
Every day’s the same, the only difference is it gets worse.
They give us everything: merit, resume fillers, sex, and beer,
But I just want to suffer again back on earth.

Is it “dropping out” or more like preparing for a dive?
If I stay any longer, am I murdering the prize?
They say the quitters who leave won’t keep up,
But those who have stayed don’t seem to leap up.
It kills me more and more—can the government ban it?
If I take it to court, would I be debating to granite?
They say you’re always at the place you need to be.
But perhaps it’s not so that we go to stay, but see to leave.

And then one day, I went to the rooftop and covered my ears.
I thought my own thoughts, for once, to see my life in birdseye.
Hi. Hello there.
This feels good. I know, right?
How is it that I have absolutely no one? I don’t know.
Afterwards, they won’t miss me. That’s a fact.
Why can’t I just be ten years old again? You have to grow.
Are these thoughts forever? They don’t subtract.
I’ll never be happy, I’ll only be lying. Bullshit or bullseye? Haha. Haha.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.

Pillbug

I’ll let you keep going, pillbug, dear,
And continue banding my finger here.
That’s it, pillbug, pass my pale wrist—
Your soft tickles turn my hand to fist.
Perambulate between my lumpy veins
That must be like mountainous terrain.
Step on my thick hairs—Ah! Fear not
My sudden bumps, they’re just nervous spots.
Proceed on this bridge, down my elbow rift
And I will slowly, to the left, my head shift
And spread open my neck to your promenade;
Your innocence gone— dwelling in my land of Nod.
Pace on, pillbug, and feel my loud pulse fret,
Hear my breath fail and taste my bead of sweat.
Gyrate my neck, I trust your excursion;
Then, when ready, stride down for immersion:
My clavicle carries moisture filled to the brim.
This pool is done by you, architect, go for a swim!
My eyes are curtained while over grass fair
I graze my hand and imagine a head of hair,
Gripping free enough to pull life from soil.
The wind blows away the dead as I, a killer, boil.
I smell a fragrance ahead and leave our space
To draw closer to the flower’s crimson face.
My lips perch on curled petals, loose and red,
That have softer lips than on any human head.
Okay, pillbug, it’s getting late now and dark.
I bleat while I place you atop this hazel bark,
Thanking you deeply for longing fulfilled,
For touching my body that no one else will.

From the book, Can I Tell You Something?
Copyright © 2020 by Karl Kristian Flores.