dear allen:

i saw the minds of my generation destroyed by apathy, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed

wearing thumb pads down on video games, filled with diet pepsi,
khaki-clad identical brave new world clones
putting in time before business school.
until we broke out and became a new generation of madness:

who drove fourteen hours straight for the sole purpose of spitting in niagara falls;

who ate dinner in truck stops & bought cheap liquor
and decorated their walls with magazine ads;
and couldn't take it anymore; who had nervous breakdowns
lost their appetites and fell shaking to the floor;
who mixed their own absinthe and ate morning glories,
who dropped acid and ate mushrooms seeking visions,
who shot smack snorted coke smoked crack and cried on my shoulder
when they started twelve-step programs;
who were punk kids getting desks thrown at them by black kids in high school
(because we're still waiting to be one nation under anything);
who are still looking for a way out of this torturel who tried zen tao freud nihilism and jesus;
who carved arms and legs and shoulders
(every scar has a story even mine...);
who stabbed steak knives through thie ex-boyfriends'
who stole a shopping cart which they chained to the bike rack and never used;

and bought an old wheelchair at the salvation army to use as furniture

who spent long nights in diners coffeehouses basements chainsmoking and spewing

forth verses while no one else listened

who stayed out all night shooting pool in an illicit building,
high on ginseng powder and listening to night birds;
who had dreams about angels and went ghost hunting in abandoned houses
where they fell through the floor;
who got married had babies got divorced filed for custody lost faith,
who made films about sexual frustration,

who came out failed school followed dreams, made dreams & forgot
about them, went to art school and never came back;

who became straight queers and gay queers and risked isolation every day...

who don't seem to exist at least if you believe television,

but hey we all know that television must be right so i guess we don't exist

allen and i think i'm seriously going to have to take this up with god

if i can believe in her again, or maybe you could since you died

before i had the chance to talk with you, send you a letter

on your birthday which is my birthday too;

you were silly and genius and all those things that i think perhaps
we should be more of so maybe you could give us some kind of sign?

allen, my friend got a black eye for being the dyke she wasn't,

and a guy in wyoming was killed for being the fag he was,

and all the time i'm wondering who's next?

allen i don't want to die yet, i'm still a virgin and i'm finding my voice
and i like breathing too much to be dead.
allen i sang the pie jesu for you when you died...allen i'm a girl in a world that wants men,
i've never been in love, i still live with my parents, i have delusions of grandeur...
allen, i want to be the next great american poet; what do you think?

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