bros

boys sobering up
boys being jealous of other boys' ability to sober up
boys getting stoned in the car, listening to pop music
boys inviting girls they sort of like to the bar
boys sharing a chair with girls at the bar
boys looking like part of a couple
boys seeing their exgirlfriends at the bar & avoiding eyecontact
boys seeing other boys' exgirlfriends at the bar & trying to avoid talking to them
boys not using condoms ever, woops
boys drinking out of the jars they brought from home
boys going home to try to fuck the girls they sort of like
boys getting naked for girls
boys being annoyed at girls when they change their minds
boys insisting on having an orgasm
boys sitting up in bed at 4:34 am, crying
boys saying, I think I'm going to go
boys saying, I don't care about this
boys sobbing while girls comfort them
boys sobbing that they need to get their shit together
boys saying, I need a smoke
boys weeping and smoking with girls on the porch while they smoke
boys saying, I want to meet someone who is as passionfilled as I
boys apologizing for being so crazy
boys making girls come, surprised
boys saying Thank you for being so kind to me
boys sleeping in
boys late for work
boys with bad news
boys really needing other boys
boys finding how their own problems are nothing compared to those of other boys
boys acting like everything will be all right
  because it will be, for them
     eventually

bros

boys sitting around drawing portraits of flowers
boys laying in platonic bed together
with candlelights
boys telling each other that this song reminds them of their exgirlfriends
and then telling the story why
boys weeping when they drive
or when that phosphorescent song plays
boys in sleepingbags that smell like sweaty girls
boys apologizing to one another for being dicks
boys explaining why they're being dicks
boys talking on the phone for hours
boys buying boyznberry pie
boys crying when they pass the bookstore
or a tall road
or a tunnel
boys understanding other crying boys

basted

I woke up later than usual but I am in here,

and the first thing to notice me was a tiny little tear,

the backwards kind

been waiting for the sun to rise

so it could greet me

back through the nose tunnel

into the canals

so I'm breathing underwater

drowning in sleep

like waking up to your weeping

like I woke up with this soft dog

in yesterday's dress

I've trained John Shinn to not refer to a plaid shirt as a flannel if it isn't flannel

he calls it a plaid, then

I don't even notice that I do this

but maybe I'm incredulous

or maybe I'm just correct

maybe I'm a boss

it's just a shirt.

do you want your shirt back?

the ironic one

it smells bad

it looks bad,

it's a sad, terrible t

I wish I didn't know where it was

within the handful of those I love

there are some who are more difficult than others,

some do worse, some cause upset,

some I can't barely get along with

some I trust less

some are easier to hurt,

some are wound up, like me

some are delicate. 

But we all remain 

even when one of us loses

or loses it

& we don't give up for anything.

I expect everyone to hang 

because to hang is to be worth it is to want to be worth it.

To say I love you in a silence,

I'll love you whatever,

even though you've lost your mind,

or are selfish,

or are too tender for conversation,

or have overabundant expectations.

I'll be here when you get back 

from whatever terrifying trip

you're on

aloneless

I woke up with a lot of you, and was most thrilled for Maggie Nelson and this copy of Bluets I had in my backpack, Kyle's, signed by the author, because what she'd read gives me the runs in my mind, and I was sitting there sweating in the corner of this strange room while she stood in the brights behind the orange & blue podium framed by the tall gold pipes of an organ. I sweated & didn't look anywhere, she faced me. But seeing her wasn't anything. She had a slight lisp which carried me through more maybe. She mentioned the root of the word etched- to be eaten. Etched in my heart. & I was thinking of all the things we've said, I've said & written over & over, and the songs, what they say,

  you own me

   you have all of me

    you can have all of me

   you have my heart

  you have a hold around my heart

                    so do you have two hearts in your chest? is that what makes you so loveable? (delicious)

After she read friends addressed me and I averted eye contact and said I don't know. Are you coming to have drinks? I don't know. They looked surprised, offended. I walked through the back of the gallery. Collages of matchbooks. Giant plastic windmills. A cyanotype of a bike, I yawned. And I calmed to chill outside in the sunset, where everyone smokes, and it's a smokefree campus but everyone's a poet or an adult so I smoke too & start hugging the women I love, and can't talk about what I'm thinking how I'd like to crawl inside of her mind & live there & have her pet me and this just from a brief forty-five minute rainy brain hug. We went to the river, same place I was with you when we missed Alice Notley & Jeff Mangum but didn't miss each other, and I sat on your flat rock, and I had a beer and watched the light on the water & thought about how I could write anything or read anything and that I wanted to be a knowledge tampon and a thought sponge and I wanted to vomit up beauty & honesty. & I did become very honest. Don't touch me, I can't be touched right now, okay please touch me I am ready for you. It got dark & we rode to the same bougie bar where I'd have the same sazerac at a different table, & you wouldn't be there, but the weather would be nearly same as when you were. Someone offered to buy you a drink but didn't. Someone asked what I was drinking, Jim with a Greek surname, & when I asked him for his surname he looked at me like I was too classy a broad no maybe he looked at me like I was old fashioned (which is at this time, what I was drinking) or British or old or young or beautiful or wasted. I didn't get a free drink, because he only wanted to buy me a pbr

                    
                 he asked me what I did in school & I laughed, and he said, why does that make you laugh and then I felt like crying.

Outside on the cement fence in front of the hotel. He said Maggie Nelson, if she'd wanted to, could have turned everyone in the room to weeping. Can you imagine having that power? he cried. I told him if he ever got the power to make us weep everyday to let me know & I'd move in & stay by his side forever.

He told me he schemes for love. And I said you fall in love for six-six-hours-at-a-time. That you told me once no one can ever break your heart. He doesn't remember saying that... two people have crossed his threshold. Physical pain at their nearness. And I said, I know you love me, I know I'm important to you, but why is it that I'm always checking up after you & you rarely ask after me? & that you're so easily distracted? He said that he & you, most of you, are better at communicating through the written word... which is an of course, so why even ask

                      

       It was a full moon & I was honest. I would have told you anything, if there was anything you'd want to know, and some did, and some didn't. I like what is conversational, the meaningful ease of listening to a lisped voice in a muted microphone, she being available through her writing & words & explanations & interrupting herself and the moment her voice failed at her last sentence. I still like what I do & how I do it, the true it, and I do take a compliment that I am such a fucking beautiful person because to me it means my heart still pumps gorgeous in my chest, that I am a whole. But I must also forget the lovesong cliches & the notion of being inside of someone else, or losing my organs to another, of being eaten. I have doors & they're open so many of them in my house that the crossbreeze sometimes makes my hair stand on end.