Whatever happened to nice guys, nice girls?
 

Whatever happened to people who care?
 

Everybody's in the business of Major Hurt.
 

He splatters a bloody, betrayed razor in the toilet.
 

She combs her hair that a cockroach will later sip
 

between its mandibles. He's got a Master's Degree
 

in Suffering. She's got a Doctor's in Torture.
 

Don't mess with this guy, don't mess with her, don't mess,
 

period. He'll shove a hot needle in your eye, a boll-weevil
 

in your ear. She'll sponge the whipmarks with salt
 

and say Now, now, baby, I never ment to hurt you!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

But No, you say. No no it ain't that bad!
 

There's good times, too! Like when an ocean of drugged
 

happiness floods an orgasm down your legs and out
 

your shoes and you go splashing big puddles of joy
 

everywhere, with trees laughing like crazy, the hawk
 

chuckling, and the bill-collector sleeping
 

dreaming he's being tortured by a telephone.
 


 
 
 
 
 
 

Everywhere you go it's Horror Enterprises.
 

A doorknob gets slimy with fingerprints
 

from a passing funeral, and still they wipe their asses.
 

The Exit door to the Terminal Ward closes
 

and everybody is at home evaporating into a TV.
 
 
 


 
 
 
 

There're noises at night: a rumble of rubber over tracks.
 

There're black tears of soot dribbling over the ledge,
 

traffic signs switching people forward, scarring directions
 

into the night. There's a gang on the corner
 

with knifeblades of rumor about you flashing in their palms.
 

Everybody wants out still the city keeps
 

breathing through their pores.
 
 
 


 

Open the door and the smell ot rotten circuits buff against you,
 

You get plucked, suddenly, one day out of the toilet
 

by cops dressed as truckdrivers, a shred of shit still dangling
 

from your ass. No one turns around, no one says anything.
 

You know you're doomed
 

when the interrogators turn out to live next door.
 
 
 
 

But God Bless America! Isn't it great? People will defend
 

when the time comes. They love it here.
 

Just don't stare too long at your best friend's T.V.
 

Don't check out the little white girl with frilly panties
 

even though it's the taste of her popsickle
 

you have in your mouth. Stay back! Don't touch
 

whatever you do!
 

Because they'll burn every last molecule in your bloodcells.
 

They'll search out every living hair until they find you.
 

And when they do, you better take flying lessons, homeboy,
 

you better have wings.
 

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