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Waiting room
somewhere a neon sign must’ve been screaming
good morning it was just so loud outside our bodies, a football field a lot of misplaced blades of grass all wet mostly everywhere all over our shoes even all over our towels grains of sand too deep under our feet and in-between cracks alongside the sidewalk that’s where they found us the sun still rising fresh in the dew just like a couple of stupid babies not even sure what the score was looking around for a sign in the right direction I slept so many days before this moment now I’m too awake in the morning light I greet the sun and then the sun blinds me have you heard of tears they have been in the news lately they’re on the tip of everyone’s tongue people can’t stop talking about them what they’re doing what they mean when they say what they say how they fall and in what degree with how much frequency with how much ferocity everyone is curious everyone wants to know it’s hard sometimes to know what it is you really need to know why it is that you want what you want I wanted a mountain cut into a hillside I wanted a cabin in the woods just waiting to burn down chock-full of Christmas stockings with our names written all over ‘em I didn’t want to know how it was how exactly we would get there we’ve collectively decided that we’re over origin stories they had a nice run but it doesn’t matter anymore we’re no longer interested in how we got here or where exactly it is that we are headed all we have left now is the present it’s us, here on the side of this road I am strong enough to tell myself that I would rather be somewhere else pouring gallons of bottled water all over your naked torso somewhere other than here something a little warmer than just this hot dawn sometimes total displacement can be what it takes late in the night with the windows all open and I’m rife with imagining one hundred people all entering my room at exactly the same time all of them from different moments in my life and all of them eager to catch up how have you been what are you doing what have we missed what’s coming up next should we stick around or is it just another repeat when I finally build up the courage to turn off the television and give the screen a hard stare all I can see is everyone else looking back Hot nerd heaven
obsessed with butts and killing time, I drink my sixth cup of coffee before falling into hot nerd heaven where the hours waste away into come-stained sweatpants where glasses slide down dripping faces and onto hardwood bedroom floors littered as they are with shattered Pez dispensers with fingernail clippings and flashdrives filled with fetish porn and hanging from the rafters on the cable of an N64 controller: it’s my total lightbulb moment it illuminates a room devoid of mirrors but forever lousy with casual snacks I let the dogs out
I love you so much that I’m going to train wild and vicious dogs to pronounce one syllable each of a love poem that I’m gonna write for you, and it’s gonna be the first poem you ever read. You’re gonna hear it when they bark it at you, one syllable at a time, right after they tear up your favorite couch with their teeth and with their paws. Their paws are sharp because they’re wild, vicious dogs. They don’t know no better. What you do with the dogs is up to you, I’m not gonna want them anymore after they profess my love for you. I’ll be too embarrassed to feed them or to wash them or play with them or take them outside to shit. They’re all yours. But if you need a new couch, you can come over to my house and use mine if you want, I guess, if you feel like it. Just don’t bring those dogs. I don’t want to see them ever again. Permanent staycation
Baby, let’s take a permanent staycation in each other’s arms. Pronto. You know the deal, you know it when you hear the microwave door close. I’m making popcorn. Butter Lovers. I’m gonna finger every kernel into your trap while you’re sitting in my lap because power dynamics are really sexy. We’re gonna be a couple of slavery tourists, baby, and we don’t even have to go to a resort. We can stay here, on this couch. We can die together on this couch. But before we die, you know what would be really sexy? If while I’m fingering buttery hot popcorn into your mouth, you talked on the phone with your best friends like I wasn’t even there. I would have to wait for the times in conversation when you weren’t speaking to masterfully drop the popcorn, one kernel at a time, in-between your sweet-ass lips. I love your lips, baby. And I love them on you, especially when you’re flapping your jaw because you’re hungry and pretending like I’m not even there. And then, when you’re done talking? We’re gonna take it to the bedroom. But we ain’t even gotta get naked. That’s what’s so beautiful about us, baby. You’ll try on all the outfits I ask you to. Like try this outfit on, baby. See if you like it. God, you look so hot in that. Now try this one. You like that? Now how about this one. Now try this one. Now this one. Now this one. Now this one. Damn, baby, I’m getting tired. You ready to die yet? Hot dog meet me at the measles party I’ll be the one wearing kid gloves carrying a poster in homage to the hot dog joint that’s closed down since when we ate there I imagined mustard caked in your carefully curated mustache and ended up underwhelmed by your zealous use of napkins in the dead of night fires are blazing somewhere on some distant beach and in the light of day text messages are being sent from the waiting rooms of clinics and when I picture us, I picture us we’re shooting music videos in those clinics and we’re driving to those beaches and the canyons are behind us and the wind is in our hair and in the light of day our sunglasses are smudged with mustard when I picture us, we’re eating hot dogs in my beat-down elementary school fires blazing in the dead of night |
