D. B. DEVILLIERS

Poetry

Tag: depression

October 22, 2023

On The Interior Lives of Insects


I don’t know but I do know that when I
know I’ll know it

the world spins faster and faster, flattens
to a disc, a symbol applied like a grinding wheel to
rustspots in the larger frame of things
but the wheel won’t beat the rate of rot
and we are drifting much too far apart
where light cannot cross
and the wheel fragments in a shatter of shooting
stars.

descriptors of set and scene.
the sun goes up and down and up and
down the world wobbles like a child’s
toy at the end of its tether and now it is
fall and now it is spring and now it is
summer and now it is all wrong—
the deer have dropped their
horns and the leaves have leapt and
everything of course is the same in its
perpetual flux
send me won’t you please
the sun cuts a pale ribbon bisecting blue
days from nights flickering manic like a strobe light.

hands of clocks like fanblades
like the whirring workpiece on a lathe
into which one finds oneself drawn screaming by
hair or shirtsleeve, pulled headlong through the
vast unhesitating machinery of time
whose drive passes unacknowledged
this howl to endless tandem suns in one
great streak, issued already flat
from a form yet young but
already dust
send me to heaven

some words you write just to shout
and until then they lay there dead on the page
and who knows what happens to them after that.
the ghosts in my knotted soul will quiet
for a while.
dawn comes, I guess, and you
carry on.
that’s what you do.

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March 5, 2023

isn’t life cheerful

the song says: isn’t life small
isn’t life so small
isn’t life long
isn’t life simple

this is where the song plays:
the song plays in a room burrowed
into the
moon

this is who lives there:
a paperskinned man lives there
he sweats in the yellow bulbshine he’s
coming apart and the song says
isn’t life small
isn’t life simple

this is what the world thinks:
doesn’t it look small down there
doesn’t it, down there, doesn’t it
look so
small, the song says
isn’t life long
isn’t life cheerful

this is what the man thinks:
to be the dust in the moonrise moondust to
freeze in the not-sun in the bulb of the
not-world above the world where do they
go and the man peels the glove from his
frostbit hand the dust of it falls to the floor-
dust of the moonroom under the not-
world around the world and he thinks:
isn’t life long
isn’t life simple

there’s a box of dust in the center of the
room burrowed into the side of the
moon and the brass hardware of the
box of dust can’t tarnish in the not-
air and the child in the box does not
age in the not-time in the room in the
moon that the paperman dug as his
skin sweats and breaks apart and the
song says:

isn’t life small
isn’t life cheerful

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December 11, 2022

Who Dares Wins

I’m terribly afraid
so very afraid all the time, see
I can throw a punch and I can
fire a pistol and I can drink
more than anyone I’ve ever known
and those are some things I’m afraid of.
I guess it takes a lot to not.

Here are some of the things I can’t do:
I unfortunately cannot catch a bullet
and if someone punched me in the gut with conviction right now I’d probably go down
and if I stop drinking right now
I might potentially seize on the ground
Dustin, maybe fifth time is the
charm, maybe, they’ll teach me a little
hope

I think I used to know
I was young once
I was eleven years old
I stepped up to the plate and I
swung as hard as I could
and the ball sailed by, a foot above the
bat, and a second after I
swung it

out
the coach said, they don’t have
umps in little league usually
I had no arm, and I had no swing
and I wasn’t going to argue

and I got the ball! this now was basketball
and I ran like hell, I’m not sure anyone
ever felt like they ran so fast
and I shot it
but I was on the wrong side of the court
and anyways I missed the layup

then I was a swimmer
and that, I could actually do
the simple repetitive motions
no team, no coordination, just
move through the water

when I finally got good I was a sprinter
I swam in high school, got my jacket and
all that
I swam the fifty and one hundred freestyle
and also the b-team relays but
the fifty was my best
junior year I meditated on a
23 point for months
and at districts I dove in
(my dive was awful, as was my streamline, and my
flipturn, but I am strong, and I am stubborn, and
I always fucking fight

I pulled a 25.5, which isn’t even too bad
I took third in the second heat or
second in the third or some shit

the guy who won swam a 20 point
which is spectacular
so I introduced myself and congratulated
“Fast Eddy,” it said on his warm-
up jacket
a freshman
skinny little lanky kid, best kinda swimmer

if I remember right, he won states
seemed like a nice guy
he was proud
as he well shoulda been

the next year, I didn’t swim

do we ever get over ourselves? Does
childhood ever really end? And I’m not
talking about decorating Christmas trees and
bike rides with friends, I mean
do we ever stop thinking about the races we lost
the swings we missed
and some things we kinda remember
kinda forget
the root of it all
things too awful to
remember, to forget, to write about,
to tell your parents, they said
not to, right
and they’re the grownup
but that’s a poem for another day
and in any case
I don’t even know if it was real

I had a sales job once, some half a
pyramid scheme sort of thing when I was
eighteen
and my close rate was damn near ninety percent and
I remember every sale I missed
but only a couple that I made

I worked at a resort too, super cool job
and I remember every single awkward inter-
action I ever had
and very few of the ones where I really helped
the guests have the wonderful
vacation they were paying
through the nose for.
But it was a cool job, that
I remember.

there were some things I was good at
as a kid:
I could take tests
I could write essays
and for whatever reason for the most part
people seemed to want to like me
but nobody really cheers for all that

my big awkward uncoordinated ass was
trying to drive some golf balls today off my
parents’ front lawn
They’re letting me crash here for a couple
days and
it’s kinda therapeutic

one I smacked really good, like I nailed it
couple hundred yard drive prolly, if the
trees weren’t in the way
but the next one
my dad had come out just to see what the
hell I was up to
he stood for a minute watching
I put the ball on the tee and I swung four times
missed completely, each one

then I went inside and we watched a
Christmas movie
and I wrote this poem.

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December 10, 2022

Drowned Runners

I was thinking earlier today, when I put on
a sad song to listen to
while smoking the cheapest cigarette sold
and it felt cinematic and I thought about
what my funeral might look like
and what song I would ask them to play
and then the thought occurred to me
of fifteen people or so standing around a
box of me, awkwardly, and a
hole while something I
thought would be nice plays on a
Bluetooth speaker and everyone
avoids eye contact, waiting for the
three or four minutes to end,
and I thought about this and I finished
my cigarette
and I vomited something that looked like
coffee rinds.

this is not pretty, this is not beautiful,
this is exactly what it has to be
and I’ll write until I can’t move my
fingers anymore
I have to
I’ll wake up at like two o
clock in the morning and I’ll look at the
boxes of everything I still own and I’ll
wonder about a few things, beer
in hand

will they sell these socks? They were good
socks and someone will appreciate

them, and
no
no one will appreciate them except for me
they’ll end up in whatever landfill services
my corner of this black flammable rock
and they’re pretty good socks
because who has the time

people die, people live, people make
do

my guitar, I just bought it! It’s in my car
in an impound lot
my best friend got drunk and stole my
car and I guess my guitar too ha
ha
and he got it impounded and I guess
managed not to get a dui
he’s a lucky guy
like that

and I’m not even mad
(I’m only white-hot homicidally furious)
and I can’t make it right myself because
as my one or two regular readers know
I am simply and profoundly
alcoholic
and probably would’ve wrecked my fancy
fucking car anyway on a
long enough
timeline
so fuck it
right

but I would’ve liked to have had my guitar

I want to take the keys to my car and
hold them upright against the surface of my
childhood desk and sit there for a second
work up the will
and then bring my head down, swiftly, so
the key pierces my eye far enough to hit
grey matter

probably wouldn’t kill me
nevermind then
why bother
who cares
the binary thinking of the critically ill
mentally at least, and sometimes physically
so then how the fuck do I end this poem
I have to deal with things and don’t have
time to stay up all damn night writing it,
though I would, in better circumstances
but these are the circumstances I have

this is not a cry for help
this is a screaming atomic banshee shreik
help me
please if you can
help me

a person (this poet)
cannot and has never been
able to outrun
himself and so finally I’m overtook
my race ends
they fire the starting gun again and again and they pull the runners up out of the pool
they set their bodies up for the rifle
portion of the event
the bodies don’t fire, of course, they’ve
drowned because they’re
runners you put
in a pool

you never even taught them to swim
let alone to
fire rifles

yeah god, that last one is directed at you.

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November 22, 2022

Yellow-tooth unsmile

Did you guys know I used to write poetry
a hundred thousand years ago I wrote
a poem
only one I ever wrote
I thought it was beautiful
I thought a lot of things were beautiful
once upon a time a million years
ago I thought words meant
anything, and then I drank a
lot and a lot of people had to
die and I don’t fucking know
why I wasn’t
one of them
but I wasn’t, and so what now

a long long time ago I wished to
know the unhappiness I know
quite well now
and if I had to guess I’d guess that in
ten years I’ll write another poem
talking about the fresh miseries
I couldn’t even conceive now but sure
will
ten years from now
that’s if I’m lucky

the feelings are never new, nothing is new
just the intensity
maybe if I’m lucky, sometimes I think
I won’t have hands to write with ten
years from now through the dirt
I was so many things I am so many things
what the fuck happened
what have I done
I look in the mirror and I say affirmations
that’s my shame
I look in the mirror and smile yellow and
that’s my shame

I don’t smile anymore
that’s my shame
I can’t look at the consequences
I listen to my favorite song and I want to
tell the frontman he
ruined my life
and then ask him for a cigarette
while we smoke I’ll ask him:
when you started in music was it your
intention to kill your fans and he’ll say

no
I don’t know
I never really thought about it

or one of them walked off stage
when a fan told him that her
sister killed herself to the song he
had begun to play
he left the venue and drank himself into
oblivion, is what I heard
and he still is, is what I hear

there is a burden to making art
no it ain’t digging canals or mining coal
but there is a toll
and I think about this and do I even want it
considering my usual subject matter
if I ever get a fan
will I kill them
but then I consider, it isn’t the making art
in itself that’s the problem
it’s the psychological deficiencies which
lend themselves to art-making

oh well Dustin that’s a little much isn’t it
well I don’t know if it is
life imitates art, sort of thing
ha
ha

I am too much, always been
should I change?

yeah

and when I’m happy
if anyone is
I will throw my typewriter

(I still use one; there is a satisfaction
in relatively simple mechanical objects
typewriters, pens, guns)

from the top of the highest cliff I can find
I already have one picked out
just waiting on the first part

but the more likely outcome, of course
when I’m gone someone else will
let it collect rust and stardust in their
basement or garage because no one
wants to write but
some people
seem to
have to

someone said that they’ll love him when
he’s dead
but I’m loved right now
not for my art, of which there is
none
these are the ravings of a fucked up mind
which is already
readily apparent

I wear my shame like a mirror

and I see myself in it
always

my brother hasn’t spoken to me since
July of this year
and my sister hadn’t spoken to me since
July of this year
I imagine myself writing about
how I’ve not spoken to my siblings
in fifteen years and I’m
stubborn enough to do that
if I’m lucky enough to live that long
and he was married to a nice girl
and my sister dates one too

I’m drunk enough to write a poem
my roommate is drunk enough to
burn the house down
he’s making bacon
the quotidian bullshit of life
it’s 2:40am
I am
the sum total
of very little
I’m 6’1 and I’m
cooking breakfast
my mercedes
benz sits in the driveway
and I listen for the
repo truck like my
Dad did a hundred
thousand years
ago

I sit and lately I watch the TV
and I watch the shows I’ve seen maybe
ten or fifteen times
and I talk to them
the characters
I advise them
who are often about to die
how not to
and now that I write about it I think
I never advise the killers how to kill
maybe maybe maybe
please let it be true
I’m not that bad

I don’t know what broke my heart
was it a girl in 2013
was it myself in 2012
did I die on that beach of my
own fucking volition
sometimes I think I’m already dead
I don’t know what broke my heart

are you really there
would anyone even read this
I wouldn’t
but are you there
am I going to die
I’m asking you
am I
do I have to
I don’t want to

do I have to

I don’t want to
do I
have to?
yes
well will I then and when
probably not yet
but when I’m gone maybe someone will
read this and think
damn
he was hung up on himself
and even thought he could
preempt this criticism by
mentioning it
but it doesn’t work that way
and I am what I I I I I
a common feature in my writing, the I
I I I I I am so
fucking important
aren’t I
aren’t I

and there is always an end to the poem
all things end
thank fuck
the circuit closes the liver
fails and a curtain falls and
my parents cry
no father should ever bury his son
someone once told me
is there second life, am I re-
incarnated as a toad in the middle
of a road
like someone else said
I hope so

I don’t have much hope anymore but
maybe I will again
I hope so.

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March 21, 2022

All We Ever Wanted (to know) Was Everything

that which does not kill me
might fuck me up irreparably
and maybe that’s real strength
after all a scar is stronger skin
a weld done well is stronger than
the initial casting
but it has to be done well
that’s important, that matters
it has to be done well

or maybe not, I don’t know
I’m not a welder.
I don’t know what I am.
I’m the carbide tooth at the tip of the bit at the
end of the shaft of a drill
spinning down through the ancient world
for purposes beyond me
and surmised only dimly even by the
driller
is he god? I don’t know
would god understand my hopes my
dreams my little anguishes any better than
I do those of the quarks that comprise
subatomic particles?
does a quark dream? I don’t know
I hope so.

I’m prehistoric peat moss buried by a
hundred million tons of time and
pressure burning at the nozzle cone of a
rocket
breaking the pull of the world whose
heat and gravity in the great and utter dark
where it all broke down
the devolution from biology into chemistry
the men came with carbide teeth spinning into the
spinning world and
through machinery and into the light
I was there
and this world
left, briefly
and from a great height maybe
put a picture on a TV screen on April 10 1997
maybe put a ton of TNT in a packed movie theater on December 16 1944
maybe put boots on alien rock on a
famous date
maybe blow apart seventy three
seconds after liftoff maybe
all the work
all the time all the love all the hate
maybe the sum of human sensory experience
could god even understand
could anyone
what is understanding
what does the carbide tooth think? I want to know
what does the crude oil think
where is the driller
where is the rocketeer
I want to know
I have questions

can you see me
can’t you see me
can’t you see how hard I’m trying
can’t you see the fire in my chest I hope to
burn forever
and will the weld hold?
and can a
quark dream?
I bet.
I hope so.

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March 12, 2022

Affirmations

at the jumping off point
that was a long time ago
quietly shivered in the back seat of a broke
down buick and that was
not so long
and my life is beautiful my life is
lovely and you are lovely and can’t we
look past the pockmark scars and the ruined smiles
and the mirror tells me I am
beautiful and I am
lovely
the slow motion implosion of small life is
compelling and tragic, the mirror
says, sneering, and you are beautiful and you are
lovely and my friend the worms in your
face aren’t real, the knife however
is
and that was years ago, years and years ago
I don’t forget
not things like that
only the good things, only the best things
cruel turn of the human mind isn’t it
I can’t forget
and the road we took took us to the place
we got
and I guess I got everything I ever wanted
and where was I
before the shouted promises we thought we
had capacity to mean, before
some things are too awful to even say
the words don’t hold them
but on the other hand, some things are
too wonderful
they explode the words like ships overladen
in a blow
and it all passes into the other
towering capital O
where what, we can at best just guess

where was I in the little spinning world
in its little rutted track around a light that
cannot care and will consume it without
even knowing when it dies
a long time a short cosmic blink away
five and a half light minutes from where
Dustin DeVilliers, 27, Fulfillment Specialist, Sober,
sits in a room and fights with himself
and spins circles
wishing for the right words
where was I in a wish upon a dream
fifteen or twenty years ago

I was here
I speak through the stone and I say,
I was here
and I hear:
it’s ok it’s ok.

I love you.
it’s ok.

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January 18, 2022

Dustin Always Was And Still Remains Staunchly Anti-Death, Ideologically-Speaking

here’s what you have to do:
it’s ok, just here’s what you have to do:

you just have to do it perfectly
every single time
and you have to do it all day every day
and you have to do it perfectly every
single time
all you have to do is, and it’s easy, just
never fuck up, not even once, you just
can’t fuck up, not in the smallest way, not
once, and you have to do it
every single day
all of the time
forever
really, it’s easy, and the stakes aren’t that
high if you do end up fucking up
just one time in some tiny way
because then it’s not your problem anymore
because

it’s ok when the curtain rolls it’s ok baby it’s
ok you won’t be there to hurt anymore the
stakes aren’t that high and unfortunately
they’ll have to put you in the dirt but
that won’t really be you anymore you
won’t meaningfully meet the worms and
with your lengthening nails won’t leave
any sad little scratches and you’ll get to
wear the dress you wanted because they’ll
cover your arms with foundation and no
one will see and the
stakes aren’t that high they aren’t
that high it’s only everything my love we
only stand to lose everything it isn’t
anything at all when the light is gone the
problem is not your problem anymore
there is no you there is no me there is no
poetry no words no name no stakes to
wager on no game no love to lose no life
no hope no life no love no
pain no pain
no

you only have to do it
every single day
forever

it’s nothing at all

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January 4, 2022

Interrogative: what the fuck?

I have questions
one of them is how the fuck can I
feel so lonely surrounded by people who
love me
one of them is how the fuck can
anyone love me
I have questions
one of them is how the fuck does a 26-
year old woman die during childbirth in the
year of our lord 2021 and why
wasn’t I nice to her
why wasn’t I nice to a lot of people
why did I deliberately set out to hurt people
is it because I was good at it? and isn’t talent
its own miserable expectation
so be careful what you get good at huh

why is it that when I speak the words don’t
even come close
why at the tip of a hundred million years of
trial and error and strife and sex and death and war and peace and everything at the
vanguard of a five billion year march into
oblivion I have to sit here and try with
quite literally everything I have to not put a
pistol in my mouth, to not intravenously
narcotize myself into
into what
into what
I have questions
what the fuck is that kid gonna think
what will his grandma tell him that he
killed her
or maybe that god did
or she’ll just cry, I would
I have questions
why do I care

I have a question
how couldn’t I?

It is incumbent upon a human being to care
you just have to

I’m Dustin and I’m a lot of things.
I want to be kinder.
Thanks for letting me share.

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December 31, 2021

There’s Some Kinda Dream To Herald The Trailing Edge Of The Year Here, And There’s Beauty Somewhere Else

there are things I want
there are things I need
there are things that overlap
there are things I can’t do
there are things I can
there are things that overlap

I’m standing at the edge of something
there were conversations I thought I
would remember
there were dreams I had
here’s one:
I’m standing at the edge of something or
someone or somewhere
the air is electric with anticipation
I walk but I do not move, rather
the ground moves
there is a great white light, a great heat
then the sound and fury and my
biology becomes chemistry and my
chemistry becomes physics
that’s how carbon behaves in the presence of
vast quantities of energy it’s all
just math in the end, rules things follow
particles under pressure and heat
and I wake up
and it’s dark outside still
I take a piss and forget the dream
which will recur.

there is so much beauty in the world
it is astonishing and overwhelming to behold
there is so much worth staying alive for
I’m learning to really believe it
really believe it
the sharp earnest edge of my hope:
there is love in the world and it sounds like
text me when you get home
it sounds like merry christmas happy new
year
there is love in the world and it sounds like
I love you
it sounds like everything
and it doesn’t have to be so fucking awful
anymore
it doesn’t have to be like that

let me believe it christ please let me
believe in it let me please I want to
believe that I can do this thing and I
don’t have to go I don’t want to go please don’t
make me make myself go please
please
I am going to stay
I am going to stay

that’s the dream.

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