(no subject)
said maybe you’d call so maybe i’ll answer and dance with you
through recent events we haven’t shared and our past selves
take them out from the drawers we lock them in and try remembering
what rain smelled like in new jersey when i was seven years old
and the world was a lot smaller, because the houses on our block
were numbered one through twelve and we were only number eight.
i thought how nice it would be to take you on a cliche evening
and remove all those frustrating details of self, walk the fine line of
a movie script lifted from a romance novel lifted from one week
non-stop typing because the rent was late and deadlines deadlines.
but right now eating is the last and the first thing on my mind as the
action sounds wonderful yet the feeling of a full stomach keeps me
sufficiently repulsed, so instead maybe alcohol, and sleeping, and
more books, those big and dusty ones, because when you hold a
book like that you know you’re not just visiting you’re in it for the
long haul baby, dust jacket placed aside and ashtrays steadily filling up.
you can sit down on a chair in front of a microphone in front of a room
full of people too sparse and quiet to require a microphone but you need
those blips of feedback to check you whenever you forget where you are;
holding a piece of paper with worn creased folds thumbed over with too many
words crossed out and blank spaces stared at waiting for their revelation.
and i’ll spread out my attention across the table, kick back, and nod
whenever i hear those notes that come out and spark up my dull monochrome
eyes, maybe not hearing the song, maybe not reading your story, but going
“there, right there,” hand-picked raspberries at summer camp freshly washed
and carrying them back to use for dessert that night, and only you and the other
kids who picked them really appreciated their sweetness, both from the day’s
labor and also from the intensive sampling covering your hands in red poetry.
a nod to acknowledge the lake and its depth of cold hiding in the adirondacks but
not hiding from anyone it’s just that nobody was really looking besides you;
another nod and a grin for holding hands behind supermarkets with a girl who
tasted like bazooka joe gum but you would rather have had the miniature comic.
a final scratch on the neck and a smile when you step down and i realize i was just
listening to my song to my story writing autobiography and pretending that it’s
fiction, the whole time running around mental racetracks replacing your words with
movie quotes and still frames from previous incarnations of self, but tell me were
you even listening to yourself there, or just humming along to your father’s tune.
through recent events we haven’t shared and our past selves
take them out from the drawers we lock them in and try remembering
what rain smelled like in new jersey when i was seven years old
and the world was a lot smaller, because the houses on our block
were numbered one through twelve and we were only number eight.
i thought how nice it would be to take you on a cliche evening
and remove all those frustrating details of self, walk the fine line of
a movie script lifted from a romance novel lifted from one week
non-stop typing because the rent was late and deadlines deadlines.
but right now eating is the last and the first thing on my mind as the
action sounds wonderful yet the feeling of a full stomach keeps me
sufficiently repulsed, so instead maybe alcohol, and sleeping, and
more books, those big and dusty ones, because when you hold a
book like that you know you’re not just visiting you’re in it for the
long haul baby, dust jacket placed aside and ashtrays steadily filling up.
you can sit down on a chair in front of a microphone in front of a room
full of people too sparse and quiet to require a microphone but you need
those blips of feedback to check you whenever you forget where you are;
holding a piece of paper with worn creased folds thumbed over with too many
words crossed out and blank spaces stared at waiting for their revelation.
and i’ll spread out my attention across the table, kick back, and nod
whenever i hear those notes that come out and spark up my dull monochrome
eyes, maybe not hearing the song, maybe not reading your story, but going
“there, right there,” hand-picked raspberries at summer camp freshly washed
and carrying them back to use for dessert that night, and only you and the other
kids who picked them really appreciated their sweetness, both from the day’s
labor and also from the intensive sampling covering your hands in red poetry.
a nod to acknowledge the lake and its depth of cold hiding in the adirondacks but
not hiding from anyone it’s just that nobody was really looking besides you;
another nod and a grin for holding hands behind supermarkets with a girl who
tasted like bazooka joe gum but you would rather have had the miniature comic.
a final scratch on the neck and a smile when you step down and i realize i was just
listening to my song to my story writing autobiography and pretending that it’s
fiction, the whole time running around mental racetracks replacing your words with
movie quotes and still frames from previous incarnations of self, but tell me were
you even listening to yourself there, or just humming along to your father’s tune.