—YESTERDAY WAS A LOT LIKE LEAVING LAS VEGAS                             

 

                                            Boardwalk Lives

       Lester has faster hands.  His fingers are thin, too, as long as carrots, and he can lift a wallet from the back pocket of any man, no matter how fat they are, no matter how tight their trousers be.  That’s why Momma likes Lester best.  Daddy stopped providing after Trina took the city under, and last we heard he’s shacking up with some rich lady who lives east of here in a pretty-sounding town called Violet.  

       Lester and me, we know the Quarter better than anybody, even the old codgers.  Sometimes it feels like we was born in the middle of the Square, pushed through a crack in the white-washed cement without consent, like those wicked weeds that look plain until you touch them and invisible needles sink into your skin

       At night, if Momma’s smoking the rock, I’ll come down to the boardwalk by myself.  There’s a man who plays banjo and harmonica, both at once, while he taps a cymbal with his foot.  There’s a lady inside a cloth booth who’ll read your palm for a certain amount, depending on what you want to know.  When she read Lester’s, I watched her eyes get jittery in the lamplight, devil-spooked.  She wouldn’t share what she learned, just made up something we all knew was a lie.

       Lester and me don’t think we’ll make it to twenty years old.  We only talked about it once.  “Lives while you can,” he said, jutting his jaw all cocky like.  “Lives.”

       Tonight I see the lady whose purse I stole earlier in the day.  She’s wearing the same floral-print dress and floppy hat, but she’s with a different man than she was before.  This one’s got quite a gut on him.  His outfit is a boxy t-shirt, cutoffs and white socks inside of sandals.  Man do he look stupid.

       They stop at a restaurant, taking seats outside on the patio.  I already gave most of the lady’s money and credit cards to Momma, but I memorized her driver’s license.  She’s Amy Jo Homes from Seattle.

       Amy don’t touch this man at all, don’t snuggle him or place kisses on his neck like the other guy.  She eats without talking and I can tell she’s thinking about the handsome man from this morning.

       I have a trick I play where I make myself someone else, and I do that right now.

       I sit across from Amy Jo.  I tell her she’s the most beautiful thing on the planet, not just people, but more beautiful than anything the Lord cooked up.  I watch her eat ice cream.  I hold her hand, nod toward the stars.  I say, “Aren’t they something?” and she agrees.

 

 —I DON’T KNOW, MY FRIEND. THIS IS NOT NOTHING.

 

…Yay. It’s just an essential tremor. Could have been a lot worse, that’s for sure. 

 

…You can make it mean whatever you what it to, so make sure you make yourself look good, because you should.

 

…We’ve always had an understanding. I’m not sure what we understand exactly.

 

…Whether you know it or not, I pretty much killed these shoes.

 

…We’re moving backward because time doesn’t matter when you have none left together.

 

…Looks empty over here.

 

…But really, what does it matter?

 

…“It’s a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.” Lily King 

 

…I guess we don’t really know what we are right now.

 

…All right, we’ll just do it that way then.

 

…No one wants to hear your worn out war stories, so it’s best just to keep your trap shut.

 

…I’m not sure how anyone could even describe it anyway.

 

…I didn’t know I had expected anything until it wasn’t there.

 

…Well, can’t shoot you for trying.

 

…Maybe I’m just jealous. Wouldn’t be the first time.

 

…One of us has changed, or maybe we just stopped trying.

 

…Just look at the sun going down and down and down.

 

…I sure hope Jack Antonoff is not a dick, or I won’t believe in anything.

 

…Don’t have to laugh so hard. Don’t have to wear a tie…

 

…Oh boy.

 

…So, you’re not even listening to the music?

 

…It doesn’t work that way.

 

…People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one.

 

…This is going to take some time.

 

…I’m not sure what I mean either.

 

…“Art does not come from ideas. Art does not come from the mind. Art comes from the place where you dream. Art comes from your unconscious. It comes from the white-hot center of you.” Robert Olen Butler.

 

…Pirate costumes only work when they’re real.

 

…Someday I’ll have to show you all of these things that fucked me up.

 

…Yeah, you can’t save me when I’m like this. And the thing is, you don’t even know who I am anymore.

 

…I really don’t think you’d have been able to handle it. Nope.

 

…Well, you don’t have to show off.

 

…It takes a lot more effort to be stern than to just say Yes.

 

…There are answers out there—all you have to do is ask.

 

…Maybe it wasn’t all my fault.

 

…I’m pretty good at shooting myself in the foot.

 

…I guess I have to get used to the idea that I’ll ever figure out why you did what you did.

 

…If you’re feeling small, I’ll love your shadow.

 

…I don’t need to understand it all to know I felt what I felt. 

 

…There are answers out there—all you have to do is ask.

  

…I’m pretty good at shooting myself in the foot.

…I don’t need to understand it all to know I felt what I felt. 

 

…I guess there’s no need to say anything after all.

 

—DON’T TAKE THE MONEY

 

Say Goodbye Like You Mean It

 

It’s the shock 

of light, not 

knowing who 

to trust anymore, 

as if I’ve been 

taxidermied and 

propped upright

beneath a sconce by 

the other exoskeletons

whose names you knew, 

or like, is that tree 

leaning or is it about 

to crush me for good? 

You said I love you

like you meant it, 

but then that mosquito 

looked full before it 

sank its stem into my arm 

and stayed there.

 

—THERE MUST BE SOMEWAY OUT OF HERE

 

 

Number 17A

 

This morning the cat 

is speaking in tongues 

and the stereo’s playing 

with matches 

while I keep trying 

to juggle each empty carcass. 

It’s a visceral occasion, 

a Jackson Pollock contusion,

though the days fold themselves

into the panty drawer

neat as crimson blintzes.

If you left a note,

it must have got 

snatched by crypt-keeper.

He’s been known to filch

whatever he finds 

most authentic and offensive.

 

—THIS IS ABOUT AS HARD AS I CAN TRY

 

…There you go and go and go. 

 

… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmpyfDF_pes&start_radio=1

 

…. Tiniest moves you make, the whole damn world shakes… Tiniest twist of fate.

 

…Look who’s on the edge again.

 

…I wish it could just be us for a little while.

 

...“We only bother to argue with people we love, you know that right?” Araminta Hall

 

…Well, in the moment you weren’t all that kind.

 

…You know what? That’s a great question. Let me ask my friend for an anaswer.

 

…I don’t think you know what scared is like.

 

…You can’t really believe you’re going to be anonymous forever, can you?

 

…I could have been better,

 

…All right, I’ll stop having fun. You’re right—it’s over-rated.

 

…I can definitely be petty. It’s not something I’m proud of.

 

…As far as abrupt endings go, that was a doozy.

 

…Just keep writing. It’ll come to you eventually.

 

…The problem with timing is you can’t take back what’s been already seen, or felt.

 

…I hope you’re right this time.

 

…But did you ever hear, “I Wanna Get Better”?

 

…One thing I’m certain of is--there’s no Tacoma in our future.

 

--Len, it would be amazing if you could examine your life like you do everyone else you meet.

--Yeah, I know,

--Yeah, you know what? What do you know? 

--I know.

--What do you fucking know?

--I don’t know.

--You’re impossible. You’re a fucking idiot.

 

…Everything must die for anything to matter.

 

…That kid at dinner who I’ll never see again, she wasn’t even three, but she thought I was funny.

 

…Hey, hey?

 

…Hey, I’ve got more. Why can’t you just look?

 

…Come a little closer. There is something I can tell, yeah.

 

…This is gonna be good. I just need to change a hundred things before I write about them.

 

…Who knew?

 

…Guess I should have. What an idiot.

 

…Because the love, the love, the love, the love I gave, wasted on a nice face.

 

…Smoke and mirrors are really a thing.

 

…If everything happens for a reason, I’ve got a lot of questions.

 

…You know what’s not getting us anywhere? Bullshit cliches.

 

…I guess I just got lucky again. But you’re lucky, too. Oh, yeah you are.

 

…We can say anything now because all the words sound different.

 

…Every time I close my eyes, I see you written in big lights.

 

…Oh, God, we barely survived.

 

…If we can’t be friends, we can’t be anything.

 

…Fuck off are the words that come to mind.

 

…I’m going to waste it all on someone else.

 

…Okay. I’m done now.

 

…Is this Up or is this Down? You tell me.

 

…Did you really do that?

 

…Okay, this is good enough. This is fine leaning into good.

 

…Sticky fingers are no one’s friend.

 

…I know what you’re supposed to do. But how do I do it?

 

… But when it’s a bad day, we know a good day is coming, eventually. 

 

…I don’t know how to survive this, other than to wait.

 

…“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” Rilke

 

…I’ve seen this movie before and I didn’t like it the last nineteen times either. 

 

…It’s nice to be missed.

               “Oh, wow! A bottle of gasoline!”

 

…Before you throw the brick, at least let me close the windows.

 

…That’s what they call a cold surrender.

 

…Saying it right isn’t always the same as thinking it right.

 

…You remember things differently. Of course you do. It’s to be expected.

 

…Time is the last thing I want to kill.

 

…“Everything that I’ve been rewarded for takes a lot of people.” Harry Styles 

 

…On the one hand, it’s a sad, sad world. On the other hand, it’s not.

 

…For the record, I’m not a fan of public restrooms.

 

…You should give those flowers to someone else.

 

…Lucky me, to be alive and remember all the bad stuff.

 

…“Poetry is mostly this, pointing at what’s barely there, the way the finest lace is mostly holes.” Dobby Gibson

 

…I think I know that. I should know that, right?

 

…I love Reba McEntire because you have to love Reba McEntire. Not loving her would be like disavowing your grandmother. But even though I love her, I will say—never watch her TV show.

 

…Today’s word is tender.

 

…Apparently, I’m not the only one who has grumpy days. Yay.

 

…Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.

 

…No one can run a marathon for you.

 

…I bet he’s dying to know.

 

…My job here is just to remain a person who shared their feelings unabashedly, even if that turns out to be a humiliating experience.

 

…Good questions are almost always more interesting than answers.

 

…Someone’s going to tell you differently, and you should listen.

 

…If you looked at my desk and picked up the slices of paper I’ve written on, you’d be worried for me. You might even call the cops. 

 

…I guess it wasn’t what we expected.

 

…It’s probably not a good idea to mix in the word “tinkering” when you’re describing someone’s dream.

 

…All right, where are we keeping the really big ones?

 

…Can I just say, I’m sorry, and that’s it?  

 

…The easiest way to mess it up is to try too hard.

 

…I wonder if you might have any advice to pass onto me as a man, an introvert who can fake it as an extrovert, and someone who wonders if they’re seeing life all wrong. 

 

…I admit it—I don’t really know what I’m doing.

 

…And I think if someone confessed the same thing—that they didn’t know what they were doing—I’d probably become best friends with them.

 

…I can be a bastard all right.

 

…I guess I’m wondering—How is that possible?

 

…There are no words are still words.

 

…“That’s the hardest thing about becoming a poet, tomorrow you have to wake up and become one all over again.” Dobby Gibson

 

…I was reading an article in RUNNER’S WORLD about how humans keep getting faster, breaking every speed record, and I wondered if we can do that why can’t we speed up finding a cure for cancer? 

 

…There’s a thrill reading someone else’s diary. 

 

…People have a really hard time meeting deadlines.

 

…I think we’re all a bit pigheaded.

 

…It’s a little too late in the evening for picking new friends.

 

…“One of the important things for humans is to embrace the contradiction.” Haruki Murakami

 

…I’ve been working on you all week (if you didn’t notice) and I’ve been working on my all my life.

 

…Are you really still there? Oh, yeah. Forgot for a sec.

 

…To return to the main menu, please press pound.

 

…“You deserve somebody who knows how hard it is to find somebody like you.” M. Anthony

 

…There’s something wrong with this headline:

David Zaslav to Receive Estimated $887 Million in Compensation Related to Warner Bros.-Paramount Merger

Amount includes $335 million tax reimbursement for the exec

 

…This is the part where it’s best to say as little as possible.

 

…As mornings go, this one is going, going, gone.

 

…It’s anybody’s guess as to how this all ends.

 

—THAT GHOST’S A KID INSIDE A SHEET

 

Adolescence

 

To conserve energy 

Mother used to hang 

our shadows on 

the clothesline—

stained or otherwise. 

It gave the dragon flies 

a good laugh. 

On windy days, 

there was no telling 

a whistleblower 

from a priest, 

a neighbor from a 

sex offender. 

Even the mosquitos 

wore rubber gloves.

 

—READY AS I’LL EVER BE

 

Prompted

The writing prompt is sick of being stuck in ink, sick of being stared at and used like a sex worker who gets stiffed after the fact, so the writing prompt grows a pair (of legs) and walks through me like an apparition, only noticeable when it brushes one of my internal organs, but since I flunked science and biology, I don’t know the name for most of my gluey insides though I can feel the writing prompt setting up shop within my ribs, building a campfire, about to perfectly toast a triplet of S’mores dangled by a snapped tree twig, and the writing prompt seems satiated enough, angst-free whistling a Bee Gees tune, You Should Be Dancing, and after a while I jump in with piping falsetto that would make Barry Gibb proud so that it feels like the writing prompt and I are now both boogying across my chest cavity, inside the bone ossuary, taking turns doing dancefloor splits and pointing our index fingers heavenward or toward a ceiling that’s not there, and after a few hours when I should be exhausted, the writing prompt and I slow dance to a Bruno Mars song about forgetting to buy flowers, and both of us are weeping like forlorn boy scouts who can’t figure out how to tie the right kind of knot, so I whisper, It's okay, everybody needs someone, because I saw some French actor say that in subtitles once, and the writing prompt whispers back, Write it down, and I say, What? That’s stupid, and the prompt says, It’s not stupid to everyone, and I say, But—, and the prompt says, I’m not going to tell you again.