Two Exaggerated Self-Portraits after Ulrich Berkes and Daniel Nester
1.
I can be a poet
I order coffee just to hold the heat in my hands until it gets cold
I saved up for a scar removal and bought a bicycle instead
I keep journals in the margins of books
I romanticize about hitchhiking but know I never will
I highlight all the lines in books that I find loved ones in
I listen to music by Liszt, Sigur Ros, and Modest Mouse
I am busy saving the world
I do not know if my book collecting is an addiction or an occupation
I wanted to be a pajama pants tester, and before that an heiress to a fortune
I walk from classroom to classroom to classroom
I’m afraid of deadlines and phones ringing too late at night
I know too many people who yell too much and too many who never do
I ditch homework to read Billy Collins
I’m still learning what responsible means
I am interested in how sunlight purples glass over time
I write at the desk where I sit with my morning bowl of cereal
I was born on the same day of the year as Miles Davis, Lenny Kravitz, and Lauryn Hill
I write shopping lists in the margins of books
I am 5’4” ¾ and the ¾ makes all the difference
I read Wallace Stevens, Phillip Roth, Faulkner, and Kundera
I still like to hang out in my underwear when it’s thundering outside
I shave with a purple Venus Breeze Gillette razor
I twice made money off a poem
I don’t go to movies, bakeries, or the Children’s Museum of Science enough
I last dreamt I went to an auto repair shop and ended up with a full body massage that went to far
I wonder if I can write a damn thing worthwhile
I am hopeful
I make a game out of beating the early morning traffic
I am terrified that Yeats wasn’t joking when he wrote, “We only begin to live life when we conceive life as Tragedy...”
I am genetically prone to heart attacks
I believe a work of art is good when it has sprung from necessity
I am sensitive like the machines that measure earthquakes, but not like a china swan perched on a mantelpiece
I appreciate when pharmacies hands out medicine in brown paper bags
I promise not to laugh, but I am laughing all the time
2.
I would rather be a poet
I eat cold pizza leftovers, wear my roommate’s shoes, and say I love you through chat windows and texts
I live in a room with white walls, covered in cracks and peeling plaster
I live off of unpredictability
I will get storm-drunk and spill out a night that passed a winter or two ago
I sit in the Jacuzzi in the rain and race my pulse against kamikaze drops of water
I am afraid of endings
I appreciate being a small fraction of the whole
I take apart music boxes and calculators looking for clues
I like putting snow in my mouth and swallowing it all before it has the chance to melt
I will never be able to write haiku without counting syllables on my fingers
I hate myself for believing in the idea of “wasting time”
I quote other writers, but when it comes down to it I really want someone to quote me
I envy those who go down in history
I am unpoemed, undone, knobby kneed at the seams
I slow my car down by motels like they are accident scenes
I would like to see Bizet’s Carmen again
I take pictures of good people laughing
I have collected every ounce of my patience from my efforts to write
I remain loyal to my secrets
I am an Amazonian legend
I am a writer of fiction, but a terrible liar
I babble
I like two spoons of humor with my irony
I am intimidated by the commitment required to write a novel
I second-guess myself
I want to ask the kid with black-eyes who did it and hear it was his girlfriend
I am bored when everyone agrees
I wish I owned the moon, but that’s about it
I use Burberry Brit on the first date, or Armani Code when I don’t plan to limit myself to a quick kiss on the lips
I do not know what the author’s directory is
I keep going until I spontaneously combust, and it hasn’t happened yet
I work in a rare-books library with Whitman’s marginalia
I let others fill in the blanks
I yam what I yam
I can’t ask that you would love me
I can be a poet
I order coffee just to hold the heat in my hands until it gets cold
I saved up for a scar removal and bought a bicycle instead
I keep journals in the margins of books
I romanticize about hitchhiking but know I never will
I highlight all the lines in books that I find loved ones in
I listen to music by Liszt, Sigur Ros, and Modest Mouse
I am busy saving the world
I do not know if my book collecting is an addiction or an occupation
I wanted to be a pajama pants tester, and before that an heiress to a fortune
I walk from classroom to classroom to classroom
I’m afraid of deadlines and phones ringing too late at night
I know too many people who yell too much and too many who never do
I ditch homework to read Billy Collins
I’m still learning what responsible means
I am interested in how sunlight purples glass over time
I write at the desk where I sit with my morning bowl of cereal
I was born on the same day of the year as Miles Davis, Lenny Kravitz, and Lauryn Hill
I write shopping lists in the margins of books
I am 5’4” ¾ and the ¾ makes all the difference
I read Wallace Stevens, Phillip Roth, Faulkner, and Kundera
I still like to hang out in my underwear when it’s thundering outside
I shave with a purple Venus Breeze Gillette razor
I twice made money off a poem
I don’t go to movies, bakeries, or the Children’s Museum of Science enough
I last dreamt I went to an auto repair shop and ended up with a full body massage that went to far
I wonder if I can write a damn thing worthwhile
I am hopeful
I make a game out of beating the early morning traffic
I am terrified that Yeats wasn’t joking when he wrote, “We only begin to live life when we conceive life as Tragedy...”
I am genetically prone to heart attacks
I believe a work of art is good when it has sprung from necessity
I am sensitive like the machines that measure earthquakes, but not like a china swan perched on a mantelpiece
I appreciate when pharmacies hands out medicine in brown paper bags
I promise not to laugh, but I am laughing all the time
2.
I would rather be a poet
I eat cold pizza leftovers, wear my roommate’s shoes, and say I love you through chat windows and texts
I live in a room with white walls, covered in cracks and peeling plaster
I live off of unpredictability
I will get storm-drunk and spill out a night that passed a winter or two ago
I sit in the Jacuzzi in the rain and race my pulse against kamikaze drops of water
I am afraid of endings
I appreciate being a small fraction of the whole
I take apart music boxes and calculators looking for clues
I like putting snow in my mouth and swallowing it all before it has the chance to melt
I will never be able to write haiku without counting syllables on my fingers
I hate myself for believing in the idea of “wasting time”
I quote other writers, but when it comes down to it I really want someone to quote me
I envy those who go down in history
I am unpoemed, undone, knobby kneed at the seams
I slow my car down by motels like they are accident scenes
I would like to see Bizet’s Carmen again
I take pictures of good people laughing
I have collected every ounce of my patience from my efforts to write
I remain loyal to my secrets
I am an Amazonian legend
I am a writer of fiction, but a terrible liar
I babble
I like two spoons of humor with my irony
I am intimidated by the commitment required to write a novel
I second-guess myself
I want to ask the kid with black-eyes who did it and hear it was his girlfriend
I am bored when everyone agrees
I wish I owned the moon, but that’s about it
I use Burberry Brit on the first date, or Armani Code when I don’t plan to limit myself to a quick kiss on the lips
I do not know what the author’s directory is
I keep going until I spontaneously combust, and it hasn’t happened yet
I work in a rare-books library with Whitman’s marginalia
I let others fill in the blanks
I yam what I yam
I can’t ask that you would love me