Screenshot
She said in a very real sense
letting go and holding on
can’t be distinguished in the dark.
The fact that certain words
were chosen with all due diligence
doesn’t mean others couldn’t
have worked just as good.
You learn a lot at a dragstrip!
My last few wisps of faith
are history, and sorry not sorry
I knew it was coming when
grown-ass adults gathered at dusk
in the cul-de-sac to break down
cardboard boxes. I was late
to call bullshit, and over the next
few years, despite rising seas
and lowkey productive
peace talks, we mostly stayed
put, while others were just
getting started, bouncing around
every which way but up. No harm
no foul. She said to hold on
and loaned me most of her logins.
The peculiar tones and contours
of my loneliness failed to find
an audience, so we planned to return
the rental car and stick to the original
intention of settling down
with a conservative interpretation
of the fourth movement
to feature, you guessed it, clarinet.
That oughta fry some bacon.
She said take your trouble over there.
Then she went over there.
To keep my trouble company?
This was specifically in the TV room
which always looked so fancy to us.
A genuine popcorn machine!
Uncle Chip kept a stoic octopus
under a purple lamp
and puffed on Kools. At home
we may have lacked commodities
but we were dumb enough
to understand radical individualism
was a movement doomed
to be boring forever and ever.
Men came to repossess the sofas
not long after that. I for one
appreciated the clarity. Come back
in a week or so, once you’ve made
some friends. Suction offers a similar
pleasure, and it’s no wonder
so many pick it up in the course
of their studies. She said
can you take two steps to the left
to block my view
of the moon, I’ve seen more
than enough of her lately, I suppose
she’d say the same of me, stuff
like that. About a half dozen bats
wheeled above the streetlight
which seemed to track
given the context, but at the last
second I remembered
just because you can imagine something
that doesn’t make it true.
Like no matter how old a book gets
it’ll never be a good listener.
I was glad our former teachers
weren’t around to see us chewing
on that. She had tools you could
use, but only in a dream, when really
it’s a challenge we need to address
as a planet. Sucks to be you.
Let’s skip the full soup and fish
and see if we can get away
with feathers and a fake ID.
A few of the very least among us
might identify, or even
overcome adversity, and I want you
to meet Ariel’s group before they
get too tired to invent
more trouble for us. Yes, seriously.
Why would I butter you up
when this dump is literally hiring
randos off the street?
She said from now on she wanted
her nickname to be “Smiley”
and we had to explain it’s not
like the before times, you don’t choose
your own nickname, burglars
break in to give you things, nurses
saunter along the corridors, a few
eggs last a month. Most animals
will admit they don’t know
what they don’t know, and that’s how
you steer clear of the rocks. She said
OK sue me, but it boils down to
one bad decision in the river. So smug
we had evaded the curse
we had coming, when it would have been
better to lie down and take it
hot and dirty, after the malady’s aspects
had slowed to a stop. You’ll have
that dang baby, I know it in my bones.
I saw it following protocol
in the screenshot, and autumn
has admitted everything, and even if we turn
back on the tarmac as the mist
rolls in, it’s still dead easy to forget
how cringe the evening’s been.