stupid shit/real shit

This is a project about people, places, and things

[topics-sans-topic]

Pretending to be asleep in the backseat until I got my sleepy breaths timed right and convincing and listening to you talk about Aunts and Uncles and money and money and money

[topics-sans-topic]

You’ll never have to!

[topics-sans-topic]

“They sound really cool.” “They are pretty cool. Probably could’ve been the coolest band ever, but you know, like, they totally knew that they were cool, and that ruined them a little bit.”

[topics-sans-topic]

Retrograde: V

You never tell me things remind you of me anymore. I'm in Kew Gardens and you're crossing my mind; will I cross yours the next time you're visiting your parents, sitting at the light at Nicoll's and 25? I can accept being shoved off pedestals and I believe in Out of Sight, Out of Mind, but please.

[topics-sans-topic]

Retrograde: IV & 1/2

A daisy for every thicket, a tiny mum for every gray.

[topics-sans-topic]

Retrograde: IV

It happened as soon as I pictured you with flowers stuck in every part of your hair.

[topics-sans-topic]

Retrograde: III

Copious amounts of prime time television, punctuated by shoddy attempts at creativity and math problems, head full of dissonance, pass the time and keep your fingers busy, eat vegetables for lunch and bread for dinner, I’m really trying to figure it out, buy a blazer and a graphic tee, always post-something and pre-something else, always floating, act like an idiot for the laughs and burn up about what isn’t funny, blah blah blah, still talking about cosmonauts, blah blah blah, always saying “it’s a metaphor,” punk rock and seventies bangers, I hate metal, but I know all the words to every other song, aren’t you at least impressed? I’m really trying to figure it out.

Anyway, I bet it’s nice to feel young again, til you get to the part where your parents fought all the time, the part when you moved to that town you hated, the part when you lost everything, then you stay Stop the earth, I want to get off.

[topics-sans-topic]

Retrograde: II

I try not to be drippy nor messy. I try to evenly pour. You spill yourself while I scramble to slap napkins on the mess, paying no mind to your insides continuing to splash on the kitchen floor.

[topics-sans-topic]

Retrograde: I

You looked at me and you said “I am seeing you tomorrow, I am very happy about that,” and what does it say about the people I know if I am that caught off guard by a person who is earnest?

[topics-sans-topic]

After we finish a movie at two in the morning

After being snowed in for two days (and a two-mile walk)

After every school function

After you get tired of driving along 27 in summer afternoon traffic

After I gave up on getting to Brooklyn and found myself in Sayville

After work, on a Friday

After receiving some bad news

After receiving some great news

After the decision had been made that there was nothing better to do

After class, on a Wednesday

After everything was over, and now we can finally discuss over coffee.

[topics-sans-topic]

Always in last place

Always trying a little too hard

You will not find happiness in the same place where you left it.

[topics-sans-topic]

But it was my turn to win?

[topics-sans-topic]

On the Q69

Then taking the F into the city

Last college classes

Pizza and The Park

Texting boys from Southern Florida

Thousands of strangers

Terrified

[topics-sans-topic]

On the LIRR

Then driving back home from the train station

Tours of colleges

Pizza and The Park

Texting boys from Nassau County

My brother & his best friends

Stoked on it

[topics-sans-topic]

Because girls like me will find any reason to have shitty self esteem again.

[topics-sans-topic]

On a star

Fevered, but poetically

Conscienceless, but healthily

Long-legged, long-haired, long-jacketed

Lethal (on the inside)

[topics-sans-topic]

WELL I GUESS IF YOU NEVER ASK THEN YOU NEVER KNOW THE ANSWER IS YES

THEN AGAIN, EVEN IF YOU DO ASK, YOU MAY STILL NOT KNOW.