feeding the lion

it’s like feeding the lion the ferocity of bone/ there are no other beds for him to sleep in/ his brother’s cock is a hardening of the weight he carries in the gravitas of the secret whips he knows he cannot speak to or for or of/ thin-framed and the…

The Family Ate the Family Dog

the family ate the family dog appalachia is unconditional surrender replacement parts and arguments poverty and the truck shop passing through the bedroom window swallowed by the cardboard that has replaced what glass is left school bus in the morning frost of growling smoke pickled meats and vomit, dark corridors,…

Your Bride’s White Dress

white people do not think about hunger because they are rarely hungry and there you on the corner and the twisting it’s always worse in the rain and then you ache with sucking old white cock my summary of what is wrong with this picture the lips and teeth of…

How Do We Reach the Hard-to-Reach

I call them Boys-At-Risk. The label is inaccurate. It puts human beings in a box we don’t want to look at, and it’s language as racism personified. I loathe the terminology. But I am at a loss, not in terms of examining the many challenges, but how do I reach…

GoBack2FuckingHellIAmAlreadyThere

Stick it in my mouth and cum. Then, pay me. My next door neighbor’s house lets winter seep into it like the grey February rain drains through the roof. Go back to where you came from. Hate itself is telling us about hatred in Trump’s America. I hate America. I…

QUID PRO QUO: INTERVIEWS: BOYS WHO DO SEX WORK

I was twelve. He was a teacher. My parents had explained to me that they could no longer afford me. They had no money. I was on my own. I was terrified. All I had to do was be naked, and then it got a little bit more complicated. He…

Tim Barrus: New York Times

There are times when I do not write about the Smash Street Boys. It is not always appropriate. There are other takes on life. There is life with kids. A huge part of who I am and what I do. There is life in Art. There is inner life. The…

We Need Assisted Suicide

We need assisted suicide. So you don’t fuck it up, and awaken to find yourself strapped down to a hospital bed having barely survived a coma you’ve been in the past three years. It happens every day. Don’t be stupid and think it doesn’t because it does. Killing yourself is…

duh

he will not appear to be obviously at-risk 2u

but he appears to be at HIGH-RISK 2me i am tired of seeing it i said rock i am tired of no one else wants to look at it oh Ucare oh Ucare Oh Ucare LOOK at it LOOK at it it is not that subtle signs red flags timers…

Appalachian Savages and the Stigma

Stigma has its thick-skinned tongue licking out their fastidious shit holes it is a crisis it is a nonchalant devoutness it is inflamed, of consequence, provoked, quivering. Just stick me, God. I am usually far more interested in their reactions to stigma than I am in stigma itself. Run, as…

Except For This

except for this, i am always hanging on to stones/ i should have known better than to take a dancer home/ at least i called it a home/ someone had to/ i do have rules/ rule#1/ never ever ever ever take a dancer home unless you are completely mad/ a…

Tim Barrus: New York Times

David Brooks’ recent piece on poverty piece is hopeful. Easy for him to say. There is no hope for it. Let us go to the fundamental souls of Americans. Let us not dwell on why we are who we are. We simply are. Americans are mean and mean-spirited. They like…

Tim Barrus: The New York Times: Appalachia

http://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/appalachia-trump-coal.html?comments#permid=31085665 Appalachia. The nearest doctor who will treat us is a hundred miles away. Everyone I know is sick with something. Because we get such little and inferior medical care. The power company has released so much vile poison into the river, all the fish that we used to rely…

Tim Barrus: New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/opinion/christopher-hasson-extremism.html?comments#permid=30758363 I live in a small town in Appalachia. Hate is ordinary. It has a silence, too. A silence that says everything. A silence of indifference. The silence of ordinary people. My neighbors have always felt threatened. They listen intently to the hate in the media. The corporations – all…

Tim Barrus: The New York Times: Growing Old in America

Poverty is a cycle. It comes. It goes. It eats its young. It decimates its old. It is not unlike the people who inhabit it. Tara Parker-Pope’s statement in the New York Times: Getting older is inevitable (and certainly better than the alternative) stuns me. We are afraid of death.…

Forest Fires and Hurricanes

No one believes we were in a forest fire. How can it matter if you believe me or don’t believe me. In all these years, no one has answered this question. No one. This is POETRY. Because I say it is/// We were going to hit the road anyway. It…

sleeping on the floor

there is a cement brick embedded in my back we often sleep in empty rooms where we have slept before the sunlight slipping in like dust is an old story to the likes of us no furniture no computers just our phones no future no dreams no relief from sleeping…