Or the Coyotes

It can be sweet
Tang Vermont

Like buttercream
Destination

They howl
They do
They make their noise

And you rock back and forth
On the porch
With your rocker

Ka-chush
Ka-chush

Making light saber noises

And two feet away
The cat's getting eaten
By what it thought was a shadow

Shadows don't have teeth
Didn't you teach the cat that?

The cat's soul rises up
And you go down, down, down

Pressured by the gravity
Of the situation

There's a Mexican word
For what you are
But you can't roll your tongue
So the word comes out wrong

Identify yourself
You can't

The rude roots leave your system
Four days later
Than you needed them to

The rent is sitting on the coffee table
White specks still clinging to it

That'll be your legacy
That you paid your rent on time

Ka-chush
Ka-chush

Light saber sounds
Scare the shadows away
Don't they?

Front porch stories
Keep the kids in line

DVR-ed bullshit
Makes life a little simpler

And when you fixate
You do it
On the poetry
Of your last five days

And if you don't
You could just simmer

You could just slowly
Come
To
A
Boil

Or the coyotes could get you

That's a possibility

That's a distinct
Possibility

One you'll entertain as you rock
And back
And forth

Ka-chush
Ka-chush
Ka-chush

Boy, 15, Surfer

You gotta go in to eat sometime
And to drink
Ironically

You get dehydrated
From being out too long
On the water

Got a nice stomach
Got a nice tan
Got a girl looking at you
Like she likes you
Because she does

Because girls
And boys
Most people
Are drawn
To lion tamers

And that's what you are

The waves are lions
And you beat them back
With your chair
Then ride them around the ring
Only falling when you want to fall

Only being bitten
When you feel your skin's too tight
And you need to let
Some of the air out

In school Friday they talked about futures
Various futures of various students
Because sophomore year will turn into junior year will turn into senior year
And then where the fuck are you gonna be?

Still out here?

Still riding lions?

Still spending every Saturday morning
At Vacco
Or Trade City
Or San Juego?

Still hanging out with guys three times your age
With skin like melted leather
Talking about how shitty the waves are now
How they were better twenty years ago
Before you were born

You wanna tell them to fuck off
That the waves are ten times better
And everybody knows it
And everybody knows the old men are just mad
Because they don't have the bodies
To tame the new waves

Not like you do, right?

Sometimes you get bitten too hard

You miscalculate
You misinterpret
You get too close
To shiny white teeth

That's when you wash up on shore
Like a broken board
Only to find that the watching girls
Stopped watching
Because they were too nervous

Your lack of fear
Makes them feel afraid

You laugh and notice
You can't hear out of your right ear

That's happened before
But this time it seems--

Fuck it

Who needs to hear?

Who needs to see?

Who needs to ride forever?

You don't ride and hope to stay up

You like to crash

You like the feeling of crashing

You like the break
And the slap
And the burn
And the blackness of it

You like knowing you may not wash up
This time around

That this time the lions may circle
And swallow you up

And then it'll be like you never existed
And in school there'll be an empty desk
With no note on top of it
To tell anyone where you are

'Cause you're nowhere

No more future talk

You'll be a part of the water
The waves
The crash

And in that way
You'll live forever

As long as the Earth doesn't dry up
And if it does
You'll go into the air

You'll be the new San Juego
And other fifteen-year-old's will take you on
Thinking they can unlock
Whatever it is you put away
The day you went under

But for now the lions are calm
They're not that hungry
Not today

So you ride
And you tame
And a little part of you
Feels let down

Feels like it's all getting
Way too easy

Bland

I am a secondary character

And so
It is crucial
That I remain
Bland

Even using the word 'bland'
Is dangerous
For someone like me

A good vocabulary draws too much attention
It makes you seem well-rounded
Fleshed-out
Circular
Round
Whatever

It makes you seem like a lead
And I'm not a lead
I'm not even a supporting character

I hide in the back
And contribute
With my...space

This self-awareness is tricky
Because
Again
It makes me seem interesting

The moment I'm interesting
My workload increases ten-fold
And my creators get angry
Because suddenly
They have another character
They have to write for

Suddenly I need a story-line
And a love interest
And deep emotion

Suddenly standing in the background
Is no longer an option

It might not sound like much of a life
But it's easy
It's comfortable

There's absolutely no chance
That anything interesting
Will ever happen to me
And that's...

Relaxing

I may live forever
Bland people have been known to actually
Provided they don't step out of their--

Would you call it a comfort zone?

...I did love someone once

Briefly

We, uh, we used to stand together
Next to trees and in the background
Of parade scenes
Stuff like that

And so we got to talking
And before we knew it
We were...

And I wanted to keep quiet
But she, uh...

She wanted to upgrade
To own what we...had
What we were
What we were in

She wanted to be in love
To just...do it

And they got rid of her

The, uh...

She got put in some movie
Where she died of a terminal illness

I was a doctor walking by
When she died

I was staring at a clipboard
I was emotionless

I felt...nothing

There are benefits to being bland
And there are...

Drawbacks

But if you focus on the benefits

If you just look at them
And never look away

You fail to see the drawbacks
You fail to worry
You fail to want more

You never know joy
You never know passion
You never feel or experience anything

Not really

You just stand in the back
And watch other people
Live their lives

And sometimes you think--

Well...

That looks nice

And then you just...

Think about something else

Something else
Entirely

My Breakable Heart

It's not a secret
That it's here

This breakable heart
This beautiful cross
This crutch
This cancer in me

It's not too much
When you carry it right

When you know how to hold it
When you're smart about it

You put a suit jacket on it
And suddenly you're a grown-up

With grown-up habits
And grown-down
Drag out
Lunacy

Stitch it back together
And they won't see the seams

Hold it in your hands
And you won't see the wrinkles

The nice shoes
The soft music
The tender trial period

Before the testing
Is done

This crack
This snap
This break break break

It's just a heart
It's just my heart

This believable
Blue
Rich
Kind
Vulnerable
Strong
Soft
Strong
Soft
Breakable
Heart

It doesn't get tougher
But the walls around it do

That's how it works
That's the trick to it, you see?

That's all you need
To know

Ava Does Things and Thinks About Them

Ava comes home

She always forgets
Which key lets her in

Maybe one day she'll have a brain tumor
Maybe that's what it means
When you can't remember which key is the house key
And which key lets you into the supply closet
At the office

Ava takes off her shoes near the door
She puts her coat in the hall closet
She takes off her earrings and puts them on the table
Next to the bowl full of spare change

She doesn't own a jewelry box
Because the earrings
And an old rusty band
Are the only two pieces she owns

Maybe she should invest in a jewelry box
But then she'd want to fill it with jewelry
And that wouldn't be practical
At this point in her life

She grabs a container from the fridge
And throws it in the microwave
At high for three minutes

That's just enough to make it hot
But not scalding

It's pasta salad
With red onions

Eating red onions on a Friday night

It seems like a sort of surrender

Like saying--Nope, I'm definitely not going out tonight

She scrolls through the DVR
And finds nothing to watch

Oh, there's plenty to watch
But there's nothing
She feels compelled to watch

She thinks about getting a cat
But that would be an even bigger surrender
Than the red onions

A single woman with a cat
A single woman over forty with a cat

At least she still wears high heels
Nice shoes, that are in no way sensible

This is her fighting
The cliche
She is on the verge
Of becoming

One cliche she will not fight, however:

Wine

She pops open a new bottle
Her third of the week

She looks around for someone to judge her
But even in this, she comes up short

So she judges herself

The red onion steams her mouth
But she likes it when it gets hot like that

She likes seeing how long she can go
Until she takes a drink of something
To cool it down

She fantasizes about going to the city
To whatever the nearest city is
The nearest impressive city

One you'd see in a car commercial

All dark and lit up
At the same time

She imagines walking down a street
In her not-at-all sensible shoes
Swinging an expensive purse at her side
Laughing to herself
Because some man just necked with her
And smelling bread
From a nearby bakery
Because that's how late it is

(In her fantasy, anyway)

She doesn't actually live near an impressive city
And necking is something nobody does anymore
At least, nobody does it on tv

And where would this necking man come from?

Where do women over forty go
Without looking pathetic?

She lays down on her couch
Which is the ultimate surrender
The real surrender

Ava may as well drape a white flag
Over herself
And close her eyes to die

She is going to fall asleep on her couch
Watching bad television
With an empty food container
Mere feet from her
And an empty glass with wine lingering at the bottom of it

This is how they're going to find me
She thinks to herself

One day I'll die like this
And they--

Who is they?

Somebody

Somebody will find me like this

It'll be incredibly sad for them

Not so much for me
I'll be dead

God this was all so morbid

Ava gets up

She goes into her bedroom

She finds a dress at the back of her closet
That reminds her of the nineties

Are the nineties back yet?

She missed the seventies coming back
But she didn't have all that much from that decade anyway

Her mother used to dress her
Like the third wife
Of a cult leader
So she burned most of that stuff

But the nineties were supposed to come back soon
Isn't that right?

Give it twenty years
And things become vintage

Ava puts on a nineties dress
And lo and behold

It doesn't fit

Not at all

Why were the young so effortlessly skinny?

And why didn't she enjoy being young
More than she did?

More than she remembered anyway

She put on another outfit
This one from last year
And she looked much more presentable

She brushed her teeth
To rid the onion smell from her mouth
Then mouthwash
To seal the deal

She went into the hall
And considered the earrings

Screw 'em

Who needs earrings

She put on the not-so-sensible shoes
And took her coat out of the--

No, it was warm

Who needs a coat

She had no idea where she was going

Maybe just for a drive
Maybe to the nearest cliff
To look out over it
And think up poetic suicide notes

Maybe she'd surprise herself
And bring back necking
With some man
At some bar
She was too old to be at

In her head it was like a car commercial

Her, Ava
Driving through a generic city
With some low-throbbing techno song
Playing underneath her

In the commerical
She'd have sunglasses
And her hair would be perfect
And she'd have a look on her face
Indicating 'don't mess with me'
And also 'I'm a tiger in bed'

But if that all didn't come true
It was no big loss

For now she just wanted out of her little apartment
And the 'now this will happen'-ness of her life

She wanted to say she did something
Without thinking

Without giving it even
A second thought

I Heard It's Good

So how long are you in town?

Two days?

That's great

You should really go see some theater while you're in town

So, let's see--two days

You could see two shows

Three if you caught a matinee on Saturday

Is there anything you've heard about that sounds interesting to you?

Ohhhh The Tempest

I heard it's good

One of my friends saw a preview
And said it changed her life
And now she wants to move to a deserted island
With a gender ambiguous twelve-year-old

Yeah, you should definitely see that

The revival of Call Me Madam?

Oh, I heard it's goooooood

Someone posted a clip of one of their rehearsals
And one of the comments said that Sheila Fenton
Is giving the performance of a lifetime
And that if you don't see it
You might as well just kill yourself

So that's a possibility, right?

That new play by Christopher Diaz?

You know what?

I heard it's goooooooooood

Someone on Twitter read a page from the script
And they said it was the best page of anything
They've ever read

You should definitely try to catch that

Oh, and the revival of his last play Confusion

I heard it's soooooooooo gooooooood

I know someone who's in it
And they said it's amazing

They specifically said they're amazing in it
And even though it seems like they'd be biased
They promised me that they're not biased at all
And that both they and the show
Are phenomenal

So you might want to add that to the list

You know what?

I'm probably overwhelming you right now
With all these choices

You should just enjoy yourself while you're here
And not worry about checking stuff off a list

Just go grab dinner somewhere
And relax

Where?

Well, do you know about that new restaurant Tori's?

I heard it's good...

The Clay Pot of 1997

I haven't made anything
Since the clay pot of 1997

Granted, it was a...

I mean, it was a stellar pot

It was featured in the "Up and Coming" section
Of Artists & Clay magazine

I was sooo intensely proud
Of that piece

And, you know
That was fifteen years ago

Okay, so--yeah
I admit
I haven't exactly been
What some people would call

'Productive'

But you know
When did the goal of art
Become all about
You know, pumping out piece after piece

I mean, I'm not--

My goal
When I set out
When I first set out
Was just to, you know
Do the best work possible

So, it was 1996
December
And I started working on this pot
This clay pot
And in, like, a month
It's finished

Done

Bang

Just like that

And I was--

I mean, I was shocked
At how quickly it all came together

But I wasn't about to say--

'Okay, that's my process

That's how quickly I'm going to work
Forever and ever'

Because it doesn't really work that way
And it turns out I don't work that way

Maybe I'm just one of those artists
Who creates something
Once every few decades
And when they do
It's this ground-breaking piece of progress
That pushes everything forward
In a new direction

And if that's the case
I have at least five more years
Until anybody should be expecting anything from me

So why would I even bother
Sitting down
Trying to force something out of myself?

I could still be in the germ phase
I could be percolating
I could be on the verge of something
And if I push
Forget it

You know?

Just--forget it

So I'm not pushing it

1997 was a great year
And I'm sure that probably
Two or seven years from now
Will be a great year

But what's the rush, you know?

I just don't see the need to rush

Suggestions for the End of the World

Carly, I'm not sure how to say this

I realize things are a little...

...unconventional right now

What with the zombies and the...vampire-like creatures
Eating everybody
But--

It is important
I feel
For the, you know
Normalcy of everything
That some things
Don't change

For instance--monogamy

I don't think that should change

I think all monogamous relationships
Should stay pretty much as they are

Relationships, marriages
Even relatively new marriages
That were created, or what have you
Right before the quasi-Apocalpyse

I think we need to honor
Alllllllll those unions
In order to, you know
Keep firm the fabric of society

Uh, so, as far as you creeping into my husband's sleeping bag at night
And begging him to make love to you
So that you can produce more life
Well--

Though I admire your spirit
And your willingness
To single-handedly repopulate the planet
Uh...right now, I think we're still good
As far as, you know, people go

I mean, there are still quite a few of us
So I don't think we need to worry
About repopulation
Just yet

And, when we do
There are still plenty of non-married men
Who I'm sure would be happy
To supply you with the sperm
You're looking for

I don't think we need to just throw caution to the wind
And start humping every man we see

That just doesn't seem...

Wise

Particularly because
Even in this sort of new world order
Where so much has been broken down
And rules and civility have been shaken up

Some of us have still retained primal and also societal urges
To rip the face off any tramp
Who tries to sleep with our husbands

Sooo...

Just keep that in mind

Oh, and also
The next time you try to seduce someone's husband
By sneaking in their sleeping bag with them

You may want to make sure
Their wife isn't on the other side of them
Listening as you talk about how the world ending
Has intensified your libido

Again, these are just suggestions
Just simple things I think we could all do
To improve the life we have left
Here on Earth

You have a great day, Carly

Oh, and by the way
I may or may not have been the one
Who stabbed you with that syringe I found on the ground
Near the headless corpse
The dogs were eating

I apologize for that
My emotions overtook me

And if you notice a fever overtaking you anytime soon
I'd let somebody know

See you around!

And the Music Plays

You missed my show

Not that I'm upset
It wasn't that...

Sorry

I was about to make an excuse

About why my voice...

First it was a cold
Then the cold became a condition
The condition became this and that

But it was never the drinking
Never the drugs
Never the bad behavior

So yeah, you didn't miss much of a show

You know...

Tonight I looked out into the audience
And it hit me

I don't know any of these people

And I used to, you know
I used to look out and know...everybody

Which was, in its own sort of way
Depressing

Thinking--Okay, so who comes to my shows?

Friends
Family
Obligated parties

Now, I'm playing to people who are actually interested
Who actually want to hear me
And it feels...empty

I started doing the rounds in my head

Where did everybody go?

New York
L.A.
Chicago
London
Pennsylvania

Most of them are still 'around'
They just have kids
And families
And cars with tv's in them

And they can't go out during the week
They have...responsibilities

And I have the music

Remember when I told you
All those years ago
That the reason I missed everything

Weddings and birthdays
And baptisms
And all that bullshit

Remember when I told you
That I missed all that stuff
For shows
And that the reason
I would always choose shows
Over everything else
Is because in ten years
The shows would be there
And everyone else would not?

Well...

I was right

And I've never been so upset
About being right

Smaller Buildings

When I first got here
The buildings were short

Two, three stories high--tops
And the roads...

I don't feel like there were that many roads

Then again, there weren't as many places to go

I remember waking up here
Not coming here
Not traveling, so to speak

Just opened my eyes
And I was...here

Sitting on a park bench
Listening to a violinist play
Two feet from me

A bucket in front of him
Saying--'Thoughts?'

Written with a question mark
As in--Do you have any?

I went to the nearest phone
And called my mother

Mom, I'm here
Come get me

Where?

What do you mean 'where?'

Here

I'm here

She hung up on me

I thought maybe she didn't believe me
So I called back
No answer

Never an answer again

I started walking
Towards the edge of the city
Thinking...

I'd get outside the limits
And see something familiar
See a sign or a landmark
That'd remind me
Of how to get home

But I'd get three steps forward
And I'd be back at the bench

Back listening to the violin

Eventually the buildings got taller
The roads multiplied
The violin stopped playing

I sit on this bench
And talk to myself

People say it's crazy
I say silence is crazy

I say when you stop feeling the urge to make noise
You've really lost it

So I talk, I babble, I mumble
But I don't shut up

I have no urge
To descend into the silence

To fall back into the shadows
Of the ever-growing buildings

So I find a patch of light
Strangely enough
There's one right over the bench where I sit

And I wait for someone to tell me the way out

How We Handled the Squirrels

We handled the squirrels
By dressing up like giant raccoons

We went running through the yard
Making what we imagined to be scary raccoon noises
Hoping that the squirrels would believe
Their territory had been taken over
By obscenely large raccoons
With violent tempers

In reality, the squirrels just sat in the trees
And waited until we fell into the pool

(Those raccoon masks had such tiny eye slots)

Then they came down from the trees
And continued to eat the corn
Off our decorative door wreaths

This is how the war continued

Some of us gave up early
Leaving bowls of birdseed out
In the hope that the squirrels would eat that
And leave our patio furniture alone

But those people were fools

The squirrels weren't interested
In our measly birdseed

They didn't want to simply eat
They wanted to torment us

The more militant among us understood this
And made bigger, better plans
To destroy the squirrels

We'd like to tell you that we were above poisoning them
But we were not above that at all

But the squirrels were not stupid
They left the wreaths with the poison in them
Right where they are
And so instead we had dead chipmunks
All over our porch
And this made our children cry
And our resolves strengthen

The squirrels had sacrificed their chipmunk brothers
And they didn't even feel guilty about it

We adopted angry, vicious dogs
That we turned loose in our yards
Hoping they would like the taste of squirrel blood

And the next morning we woke up
To find photos of our dogs in our mailboxes
Blind-folded
Looking starved

The squirrels were sending us a message

Keep this up
And there will be casualties

We should have stopped there
But at this point
We weren't thinking clearly
If at all

And so we lit the tree on fire

The one in our front yard
Where the squirrels lived

And we waited around the perimeter of the tree
With shotguns
For the squirrels to come running down
So that we could shoot them

Not in the face
Just in the leg
Just to cause them some of the pain
They caused us

But they didn't come down

They stayed in that tree
As it burned

Until it burned to the ground

And when the last bit of bark
Charred over
We all looked at each other
Put down our guns
And glanced at the respective windows
Of our respective children
Who were standing with their faces
Pressed up against their bedroom glass
Horrified by what they'd seen their parents do

We'd burned the squirrels
We'd burned them alive

. . . . .

There wasn't much talking after that night

Just sullen dinners
The sound of knives cutting up against porcelain plates
Sad little children
Who still burst into tears
Every now and again

And each night we go to bed
Turned away from the window

But--and we will swear this is true
As we lay facing our bedroom walls
We swear we see the shadow
Of a little head
And little paws
And a little tail

Silently waiting outside
Our bedroom window

Waiting for us to fall asleep
So it can come inside
And finish
What it started

Clear for Take Off

I stabbed the man next to me
Which was, unfortunate
But unfortunately necessary

He mentioned something
Something subversive
And I panicked

So I stabbed him
Then I relaxed
The stewardess brought me a drink
I watched one of the in-flight movies

'Lethal Weapon 3' -- I think

I'm really not sure
Why I'm even being questioned about this

The man was making me nervous
He mentioned something subversive
He said he didn't like flying
And I detected a sort of ominous tone

After all, why wouldn't he like flying?
What's wrong with flying?

It's perfectly safe
Provided you don't get stabbed to death
By the person sitting next to you

But if you don't say subversive things
Then you won't

There's a very clear set of rules in place here
I don't know why people don't want to follow them
These rules

You know, I fly a lot
More than I'd like to
Because, honestly
I'm not a big fan of it either
But I wouldn't go around saying that
To whomever might be sitting next to me on a plane
Because I wouldn't want to make them nervous

When you make people nervous
They do--By the way, could I have a glass of champagne?
I'm really very parched
And also on edge
And I swear I can still see little specks of blood
Underneath my fingernails

So do you have anything you could give me?

Champagne, a Xanax, maybe something to just--pop--knock me right out?

As if flying isn't stressful enough
Without having to add
Homicide to the whole thing

Anyway, he unnerved me
So I stabbed him
With this pen
Not like I carry a knife around with me
Wherever I go

I'm not some sort of wacko

I just...

You know, we have rights

After everything that's happened
We the right
To travel
And live
Or, you know
Do whatever
And not be upset the whole time

And this man was upsetting me
So I took care of it

That was all I did

I took care of it

One-two-three

He barely even felt it
Once I punctured his heart
I'm sure
I mean, I'm not a doctor, am I?

Maybe if you provided better security on these planes
It wouldn't have needed to happen
But as it was
I had to take matters into my own hands
And so now here we are, aren't we?

Yes

Here we are

Do you think I'll make my connecting flight, by the way?

I really hate getting delayed by things like this
So I was just wondering

I mean, isn't the issue sort of moot at this point anyway?
Isn't he dead?

I mean, he is dead, right?

God knows I stabbed him enough times

But after that he was very quiet
And the flight was very enjoyable

And I hadn't planned on asking for a refund
But now...

Well, with all this...detainment

I may just have to file
A formal complaint

God, when did traveling
Become so difficult?

This Particular Man

Ellie, listen

We're all well-aware
That you are not taken
With this particular man

But honey, and I hate to say this
I mean, I am positively shaking as I do, but--

Honey, you are not getting younger
Nor, like any of us, are you getting prettier
And that's not salt, sweetie
That's just love talking with a hard tongue

Because this man
This particular man
Is getting frustrated

Well, we're all--

I mean, nobody here wants to rush you, sweetheart
But we all are getting frustrated with--

The situation

Now, when Momma and Daddy were alive
And you were living with them

I'm sure there was no reason
To rush yourself

Nice big house
Plenty of rooms
No reason to go rushing out of it

But, sadly
They're gone

And now you live with us
Me and Jim
And we're happy, you know
We're happy to have you here with us

It's always so nice
For a little sister
To have her older sister around

Sometimes it's like Momma never died

But you need to think about living your own life
And this house isn't nearly as big as the old one
And even with what we made off the sale
We still can't afford to support you and a baby
And twins on the way

It's just not fair to anybody

Now, Ellie, you have been given
A wonderful opportunity here
To marry a wonderful man
Who will give you a wonderful life
Far, far away from here

Honey, I know what he said
I know, I know
I know he's said things
That are unpleasant

But sweetheart, that's just life
Men are unpleasant
Marriage is unpleasant

But it's like breathing
You have to participate in it

You don't have a choice

I'm sure he did
I'm sure he did say things about...

Well, whatever he said about me is just...

Well, it's irrelevant

It's irrelevant to the...

Well, what--exactly--did he say?

Because you see
We--your friend and I
We did strike up an acquaintance
Because, of course
I was trying to, uh, inform him
As to the, kind of...wife
You would be
And so--

...Perhaps you're right, Ellie

Perhaps we do want to keep our options open

I mean, what's the rush, after all?

We're all still healthy
And this house is...bigger than it looks

Why, you can stay as long as you want

You're my sister, after all, aren't you?

I mean...

What are sisters for?

The Mentor

It's not a bad painting
Nobody's saying it's bad

I can't sell it, of course
But you know that
That's no great surprise
Is it?

I didn't think so

I'd sit, but there's paint everywhere
And broken glass

You didn't cut yourself again, did you?

The, oh what would we say--?

The marketability? --of the painting
It's not something to be concerned about

I'm not always worried
About whether or not
I can sell your work

I worry about bigger things than that
I worry about the big picture
The progress
The road we're going down
Together

We're doing this together
You know that, don't you?

Sometimes I think you forget
That I'm invested in this too

That I don't just stand by
And wait for you to produce something
So I can run it downtown
And stick a price tag on it

I am very, very invested in you

But this?

This is not good

This is not progress
This is--

I don't know what this is

But obviously it concerns me

As a mentor

As someone who believes in you
And sees something like this
And knows what it is

Knows that it's really just...

Laziness

So I'm going to leave
Hit the lights
Lock the door

And you need to sit here for a second
And make a decision
About where you want to go from here

Do you want to stand up
And turn on the lights
And start from scratch
So that maybe in a few days
I actually proof
That I haven't been throwing my life away
For the past seven years?

Or do you want to pick up a piece of broken glass
And finish what you started last time?

Because everyone's tired
Of your bullshit artist nonsense

It's one thing when you're actually producing
When you're being productive
But when you're just sitting here
Like...

Well then it's just annoying

A suicide is a tragic thing
A suicide attempt is pathetic

Such a fine line

I mean, when you really think about it

So think
Think very hard
About what your next step is

And remember
That no matter what you decide
I'm with you

I'm with you all
The way

Once Upon a Wednesday

Once upon a Wednesday
Bo's dancing in traffic

Bo don't give a shit
That's what you need to know about Bo
Bo
Don't give
A shit

Sat on a park bench
With fresh paint still on it
And came up with new blue pants

Mother's gonna kill him
Or she would
If she were awake

Works nights, sleeps days
Probably doesn't know she still has a son
And can you blame her?

Bo don't blame her
Bo just plays in the street
And tries to make the car horns honk

It's the clearest sign of a boy needing attention
Not even a metaphor
An actual thing

Honk your horns at him
Show him a little love
Just don't run him over

Already had a broken arm
From the time he fell off the dumpster

Bo would put on a cape when he was a kid
And jump off things

We'd tell him he was going to get hurt
But a kid who likes jumping off things
Wants to get hurt
That's the point

They wanna see how tough they are

So he jumped off this and jumped off that
A stoop, a first floor window

But he landed the wrong way off the big dumpster
In the school parking lot
And broke his throwing arm
And that means no little league for him
Which is a shame
And not a shame
Because the boy should be doing something else anyway

Something artistic

That boy has art in him

So when we think of it
When we have a few extra dollars
We toss him some crayons
And some pencils
And, every once in awhile, a sketch pad

The one with the nice brown paper
That's heavy, so you can press the pens down on it

Once upon a Wednesday
Bo will step out of traffic

Sit down on a park bench
That's long since dried
And draw a picture of us

Watching him
Dancing through cars

We tell our stories our way
And Bo tells them his

But in his stories we look like such good people
Always keeping an eye out for him

And in our stories, we don't feel so good
'Cause we feel like we're not doing enough

But I guess a story's one thing on a Wednesday
And one thing on a Thursday
And something else
Every different day it lands on

We guess those differences are all you have
When you can't have happily ever after

So today we're kind
And tomorrow Bo will jump off something else
And the day after that his Mom will wake up
And wonder where her son is

Today

For Those Who Think They're Ahead of the Game

Chick walks down the street
Says hi, I say hi
She's alright
She's nothing special
But she's alright

Probably don't think much of me
Sitting around
Drinking soda all day
Talking to whoever walks by

But what are you gonna do about that?

She's alright, I mean
She's nothing special

Cosino lost his job last month
Now he sits around
Marjean lost his job two weeks ago
Now he sits around
Everybody's just sitting around
Saying 'Hey'
Asking what's going on

Ain't shit goin' on
But we ask

We're not the bad-off bunch
At least, we're not the baddest of the bad-off bunch

We're smart
And not just street-smart either
But like, real, some-of-us-read-books smart

We saved
We put our money away
Some of it's even in banks

Like, accounts and shit

We saw the devil coming down the street
Saw the writing on paychecks
Counting down

This will be your third-to-last paycheck
This will be your second-to-last
Going, going, gone

We didn't want to wind up like our dads
Depressed on a couch
Going through the channels
Then going back and going through them again

See if the news was new
See if there were any game shows
That you don't need luck or intelligence to win

Saying--'I'm going to go on "Wheel of Fortune."
I'm going to go on "Love Connection"'

And we'd say 'Dad, they don't give you money on "Love Connection"'
And he'd say 'Yeah, but they pay for the meal'

We weren't going to be like that
We were going to stay ahead of the game

So here we are
Ahead

There's a chick walking down the street
Looking for a man with a job

Keep looking, girl

Keep looking

We're all ahead of the game
But the game's catching up
The game's catching up
Real fast

The Teddy Bear's Big Plans

I was going to go with the little boy
With the overalls on
But his hair...

I mean...

Did you see that hair?

There were major issues
And frankly
And I say this realizing
That a four-year-old's hair is not his fault, but--

Frankly, I would question the ability of a boy with hair like that
To care for even a non-living thing
Such as myself

I mean, if I had actual fur
Like, actual fur that could grow back
In the event of an emergency
I'd say 'Oh sure, fine!  Just give me to anybody
Give me to that kid who clearly plays with matches
And laughs every time a kitten gets hurt'

But--my fur isn't exactly real
So I sort of have to be a little more protective
When it comes to--

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

Now, there was this little girl the other day
But she sneezed a lot
I mean, a lot
And yes, technically, I can't get sick
But still--I can't have germs crawling all over me either
Because then when the little girl grows up
And it's time for me to be passed onto another child
Who'll want me?

You always need to be looking ahead

Everything is temporary
Even ownership

I always plan for the worst
The worst being a yard sale
In July
Where some fat sweaty woman
Haggles over how much you're worth
While her demented toddler lays chained in his stroller
And looks at you
Like you're a deep-fried pork chop

That's the future I plan for
Grim though it may seem

But for now, I'm new
I'm fresh
I'm retail-friendly

So, for now, I'm picky
Because--if I play my cards right
I could wind up becoming that beautiful word
An 'heirloom'

Spending the rest of my life
In a nursery somewhere
Untouched by everyone
After my first child grows up

A family heirloom

Never to be played with again

Doesn't that sound wonderful?

Like a dream come true

The Mist in Copenhagen

The slight sensation you feel will pass
Breathe, it will dissipate

You are taking a plane tonight, yes?
You have a flight planned?

It is good
It is good to have plans

I, myself, do not anticipate leaving
Anytime soon

The water is cresting
Ebbing, coming in

We find words to deal with ways
To deal with denial

The water is coming

It doesn't speak our language, this water
In many ways, I find it similar to you

The Inevitable Visitor

Imposing, foreign
Holding more than a few secrets

That mist that comes off the water?

People who are not from here
Tell us it is a new kind of mist

One they have never seen before

Do you agree?

Do you see much mist where you are?

Or perhaps none at all?

Perhaps where you are from
Things don't rise off the water

I believe when it finally happens
When the water overtakes us
It will be very easy
To be a bad person
In this city

Everything will be
Disposable

Who can tell the difference
Between a murdered body
And a body that drowned
Of natural causes?

Not quick enough
When the water came running

Sharper than a knife
This cold, black mist

I find it bites at me
It bites
And pulls back

Quick
Very quick

Well, I suppose your plane must be leaving soon
And all the better for you

It won't be long now
Until all of this
Is submerged

Perhaps you'd better get on with it then

What it is
You came to do

Why We Never Talked About Dad

We never talked about Dad
Because Dad was hard to talk about

We never talked about the silence
Or the cigarettes
Or the one drink after dinner
Or the beers on the weekend
Or the television that was never, ever turned off
Or turned onto any program
Other than the one
Our Dad wanted to watch

We never talked about discipline
We knew there was no spanking
Never hitting, never slapping
Never a hand landing anywhere
Although, we didn't know that
Until we finally did talk about Dad

What we didn't know
Was that there was no violence
But instead, there was...

A sort of...

Absence

Break something?
Clean it up
Say a bad word?
Don't say it again
Develop a problem that can't be fixed in the context of a sentence?
Move out, move on, see you at Christmas

We never talked about Mom
Always working, always holding things up

We never talked about Grandma
Fussing over Dad, telling us how lucky we were to have him as a father

We never talked about Grandpa
Grabbing Dad by his hair, like he's a kid, when he has kids of his own
Asking him when he's going to get up and do something with himself

Then Grandpa looks over at us
And smiles
And says 'Oh, how big you're getting'

Maybe kindness skips a generation
Actually skips a generation
So that it's harder to be nice to your children
Than to your grandchildren
Because you don't know them as well

We never talked about Dad's shaking of the head
Or his licking of the lips
Or of the things he'd do rather than just say

'I'm mad at you'
or
'I love you'
or
'I'm glad you're my kid'

We never talked about the lack of affection
Or attention
Or anything, really

We never really talked
About anything

It didn't occur to us
Until much, much later

That there was so much
To talk about

The Gold Rush

We're not here right now
We may seem to be
But we're not

Actually, right now
We're in a restaurant
A Paris restaurant
And we're eating something
We can't pronounce the name of

We may seem present
But we're not
Not at all

. . . . .

There's no gold here

We came
We came from afar
We uprooted
We believed

That's the saddest part
You can hear it in our voice when we say it

We believed

Because when you believe
Whatever it is you believe in
Becomes a part of you

So when you stop believing
Something about you is lost

We have lost something

We came for gold
We believed in gold
We believed gold was here

And it...is not

Maybe it was at some point
Maybe there was a time
When gold was prevalent here
But it certainly isn't now, so...

So where do we go from here?

From this hill, you can see Paradise
Or at least, I believe you can see it
You can see where it will be
In fifty, eighty, two hundred years

Soon, and I say 'soon' while being aware of the rapid pace of time that humans can never truly understand

Soon, this will be California

Now, it's just a place
Where dreams come to die

Oh wait, that'll always be California

But still, people will come
They'll come believing
And slowly, those beliefs will disintegrate
But the people they belonged to will stay
Because...

Well because sometimes the last bit of yourself that you have
Is the fact that you're staying somewhere
Stuck somewhere
Long after your reason for being there
Is gone

It makes you feel...

Loyal
Determined
Proud

You feel proud of yourself
Because the weight of a broken thing
Is so much more
So much heavier
Than that thing when it is whole

Here you are holding the heaviest thing you've ever held
Like Atlas
Like an immortal thing

And all the while
You're sifting through water
Just water
Trying to pretend
There might be something in it

And it's crazy because...

Well because, it's water

You can see through it
Even when it's muddy
You can tell if something's in it

And there never is
And still, you sift
And you stay
And you say you believe
When you don't

And you wait

You wait to feel proud again

You sit on a hill
With your empty bags
And your broken spirit
And you wait

You wait, and you wait, and you wait

Where is it?

Huh?

Where is it?

Where is that golden pride?

The Geometry of a Dragonfly

You don’t need to remember the names

Emperor

Yellow-winged darter

Banded pennant

Not necessary

Not even for extra credit

What you need to remember is the geometry

What it is exactly

That makes up

A dragonfly

To best illustrate this

I’ve given you a series

Of seventy-two page hand-outs

That touch upon

Merely glide against

The make-up

Of this insect

But if you want to skip the hand-out

And ace the exam

Just listen

To the following story:

When I was four years old

I caught a dragonfly in a jar

I’m not sure how I did this

Or who gave me the jar

But I remember it distinctly

My mother cut small slits

In the lid of the jar

So the dragonfly could breathe

And, because I was still concerned

We found an even bigger jar

To put it in

So it could have some room

To move around

There was a shelf above my bed

And that’s where I put the dragonfly

Before I went to sleep

Somehow I felt safer

Having it above me like that

When I woke up a few hours later

There was a man

Standing above my bed

He reached for me

At least, I thought he did

And I was going to scream

But I was so terrified

I just pulled the covers up over my head

Then I felt him reach for something above me

My dragonfly jar

I pulled the covers back down

And he was sitting in my open window

It was July

And the air smelled like an old radiator

The man was holding the jar

He a hat with a low brim

Covering his face

And a long brown jacket

And boots

Dirty boots

That looked like they’d just gone through a swamp

He stared at me

I stared back

Then he raised the jar over his head

And threw it down onto the floor

Instantly, the entire room

Was on fire

And the man fell backwards

Out the window

I don’t remember who pulled me out of the room

But my nightgown was black

And some of my hair

Had gotten singed

That was the worst of it though

If you don’t count the house

Which burned to the ground

 I remember standing outside

With a blanket wrapped around me

One from the firefighters

And I remember the jar hitting the floor

And the dragonfly being released into the air

And immediately turning into fire

That’s what happens when you contain something

You run the risk of it escaping

And becoming more

Than you thought it was

More than could be contained

Dragonflies are made out of fire

And other things

Things you can find in the handout

But all you really need to remember is this:

There are some things you can capture

And some you can’t

And it’s very important

To know which is which

Thus, Momentarily Transcending Her Everyday Circumstances

Someone in Italian

Says ‘I love you’

On the record

She repeats the verse

And strokes her hair

She should cut it

George the Cat surveys her

Wondering why she’s at home

On a Sunday afternoon

When she’d normally be

Getting brunch

With Ted

Ted is gone, George

She says

Ted is gone

Somehow telling George

Is harder

Than telling her mother

He left her for a girl

For shorter hair

She replays the record

She strokes her hair

She should cut it

Ted is gone

George doesn’t seem all that devastated

Confirming her suspicions

That he never really liked Ted in the first place

You should have warned me, George

But George believes in letting people

Make their own mistakes

Many mistakes have been made

Over the past twenty-four hours

The sink is backed up

Because she shoved a photo of Ted

Down the drain

She wanted it to go through pipes

And muck

And be wet

And irretrievable

Burning it seemed too…

…Romantic

Now the sink was clogged

And when she turned on the water

It came up from the drain

Rather than from the tap

Which was very unusual

Little shreds of humanity

Starting bubbling up

In the sink

Amongst the dirty plates

And floating forks

A nose

An ear

A hand on a shoulder

She ran to get the plunger

But it was stuck to a hole

In the bathroom wall

(A long story for another day)

When she ran back into the kitchen

The water was already pouring over the sink

Onto the floor

She grabbed a pot from the cupboard

And tried scooping it up

And running it to the bathtub

But after one lap

She was already fighting a losing battle

The water was up to her knees

And then her waist

George went floating by her

On a couch cushion

And she could swear

That he had a pair of scuba goggles on

That was the last thing she saw

Before she submerged

. . . . .

Under the water

There were fish

With long, gorgeous

Rugby player legs

And arms with biceps

And dorky glasses

And expensive haircuts

It occurred to her

That perhaps they weren’t fish at all

But men disguised

In scales and gills

They cleaned her plates

And washed her floors

And they asked her if she’d like to dance

And she said, ‘Yes, I’d like that very much’

And so she swam into her bedroom

And put on a blue dress

And came back into the living room

Where George was playing acoustic guitar

And she danced with the fish

And the men

And even with George

Once or twice

And by her head

The photo of Ted reassembled

And quietly removed itself

From the apartment

Which was all she really wanted

From the beginning

Sour Patch in a Glass

Oooooh look at you

With your bright red shoes

Guess you’re not planning

On staying in tonight

Oooooh sour patch

In a bright red glass

Looks like somebody’s

Up for a fight

Taste so bitter

But it tastes so sweet

Better than I thought it would

Look at you

Like a banana in pajamas

On top

And a Witch from the East

Going down

You’re my sour patch

In a glass

Bet your ass

Head of the class

And you’re the talk of the town

Make it fizzle

Make it pop

Make somebody’s sneakers drop

Ain’t that what you want me to do?

I got a sweet taste for candy, baby

A royal urge to taste you, baby

A black licorice

Fix on my tongue

Don’t you know when I’m done

I’m going to drink you up

Drink you up

Like sour patch

In a glass

Look at you

Tapping your red shoes together

I bet you think you’re fine

I got a treasure I can show you

In this old hope chest of mine

I hope you brought

Your alligator purse

And your diamond rings

I hope you got a song

That you plan to sing

I hope you’re tart and tangy

And as good as you look

And I hope you look

As good as you cook

Sour patch, kid

You know what I like

Make me feel like a boy

On a brand new bike

So let me ask you

And tell me the truth

When you gonna take off

Those bright red shoes?

Never Sing in Front of a Place That Serves Food If You're Bad

There's a city in Asia
With the lights slowly starting to rise
And from the harbor
You can already tell it's night

The water's dark
But dark blue
Not ominous dark
Too dark to swim in though
Too deep too
So just hang back and listen

Sometimes I feel like an unhinged door
Something that used to lead somewhere
Now just old, dried out
And waiting to be replaced
A reflection of the house
It used to hang onto

Wood splintered
Knob missing
Bell broken

Made fish for supper
If you wanna come by
Some guy was standing outside the fish market
Singing with a guitar

Told him to go play somewhere else
Don't sing in front of a place that serves food if you're bad
If you're good it makes the food taste better
But he was no good so...

It don't take too much
To make a good thing
Go bad, you know

Trip a wire
Flip a switch
Miss a note
And suddenly nothing tastes good anymore

You know, once upon a time
This whole city was covered with purple flowers
Used to give out the most beautiful smell
Then buildings went up
And cars rode
And suddenly you can't find a flower
To save your life, can you?

You keep looking in the sand
Like there's an answer in it

If there is, it won't be there long
So you better commit it to memory
The tide takes everything out

The deep, dark water

You got eyes almost as dark
Anybody ever tell you that?
Anybody ever mention to you
That when you're looking at 'em
It's like you're not really looking at all?

Maybe it's a protection thing

That's fine
If it is

Nothing wrong with trying to protect yourself

Nothing wrong with that
At all

That California Living

Sco-hopping in the front lawn
Years tears out of his eyes
Like's something, something, something
Don't give a shit
Don't give a shit AT ALL

Scratching his balls
Like I care
Like I care what he does
Problem is he got on a plane
Once you get on a plane
You can never have not gotten on that plane
You see what I mean?

I did my best
To keep him from it
From traveling
Going out
Going out west
Soaking up all that poison sunlight

But in the end
I was beat
By the law declaring
My son was no longer
Of. My. Control.

Seems a lot of stuff
Is no longer
Of. My. Control.

Well, well, well

I wanted to keep my son away from California
Because his mind was precious to me
A beautiful porcelain mind
Like a fine China plate

And I'd treasure it
And make him polish it
And tell him 'Don't go to California'

You go to California
You come back with a soft head
And didn't I call it?

Didn't I just call it?

Now all he's doing
Is California living

Not working
Not giving a shit
Not even staring
When the neighbor girl
With the nice ass walks by

It's like I don't even know him anymore

He's talking about opening up a juice shack
And getting into a religion
That believes in nature gods

I hit him every time he says it
But all it does is make him laugh
Because I never was any good at disciplining

Which is how he wound up on a plane
In the first place

That and he wanted to find his dad
Which is...

Well, he didn't find him

But he did come home
Looking just like him

Acting like he did, too
Right before he left

All big ideas
And ball-scratching

Not that it was unloveable
The opposite in fact

But the living

The living was unlivable

That California living

It was never something
I could tolerate

So now what?

I guess I got to put up with sco-hopping
And sunglasses
And crying years and tears
But I. Don't have.  Control.

Oh well

Guess I should dig a pool or something

Guess I'm gonna need to get used
To all this
Light

This Will Lead to Sex

This playing with the napkins
This twisting of your ring, my watch
This humming of a machine somewhere
Of a great machine

You look out the window
And bring my attention
To a building
That isn't there anymore

I order you another drink
Because you seem on edge

Or maybe that's just you

In our heads, there's jazz
But in reality
There's just falling plates
In the restaurant kitchen

Somebody getting fired
Or so we imagine

You cross your legs
And your skin is brown from sunlight
Real and fluorescent

I smoke a cigarette
In my mind
And tip a hat I'm not wearing

You wear a different color lipstick
Than the one you have on

I order us a dessert in French
And the waiter is charmed by me

You fancy me a renegade
I call you insatiable

Under the table
You smooth down your dress
And I kick off my shoes

And the carpeting that isn't there
Feels good under my toes

Or at least it would
If it was there
And if I weren't wearing socks
And if the feeling of carpeting under my toes
Didn't remind me of when I was a child
And I stepped on a thumb tack
In my living room

One from my sister's science project
On sharp
And dull

You speak and I hear a whisper
I talk and you hear poetry

We get up and dance around
Knowing each step
Anticipating each move

Casting off our clothes
Right there in the restaurant
While the unhappy couples
Celebrating unhappy anniversaries
Wave their napkins in the air
As if they're at a Spanish wedding

Everything we do
Everything we've done
From the moment we were born
Until now
Has lead to this

To this knowing
This certainty
That one day
There would be sex

All the ring-twisting
And poetry-whispering
And leg-crossing

All this will lead to sex

But until it does

We'll sip our water
Chew our food
And let our fantasies dance
Right by our table

Things We Blame the Night Shift For

The screen saver is changed

That's what we find the most--

I mean, what irritates us

The screensavers

Beaches--that's what we leave it on

Calm, serene beaches

Then we come back in the morning

And there's an old dog

With mange

Licking himself

Right on our computer screen

We blame the night shift for this

For this and the phones

Smelling like vinegar

This strong, acidic smell

That you can't get rid of

Except with the special wipes

That we keep in the supply closet

On the far side of the floor

We blame them for the stains on the carpet

Stains that we, the day shift, would never make

We are not a staining bunch

We find dust on our mouse pads

Spiderwebs strung along out cubicles

Filth everywhere

Everywhere

After a mere sixteen hours
Away from the office

We also sense a sort of...desperation

Loneliness

Malaise

Because the night shift

Is a shiftless shift

Full of winos

And degenerates

At least, that's what we imagine

We arrive in the morning

And cleaning supplies are strewn everywhere

Well, a mop is anyway

A mop is just strewn in the middle of the floor

Shamelessly strewn

And we scowl

And imagine that it was too much trouble

For the drug-using, porn-addicted

Wart-covered night shift

To deal with putting away a mop

We find popcorn kernels

Left underneath the ceiling tiles

Which we now have to check

Because the night shift is so extravagantly disgusting

We find empty paper cups with faces drawn on them

Crush almonds in the stapler

Peach pits in boxes of black pens
And Post-It notes with lewd sayings written on them
In Aramaic and Senegalese

It took us HOURS to figure out

What those languages were

We blame the night shift
For the smudges on our computer screens
The stale bagels in the break room fridge
The missing ready-lunches from the break room fridge
The sign on the break room fridge
Held up by dinosaur magnets
That says--

'The Day Shift Isn't Real'

What does that even mean?

Sometimes we swear we can see the ghosts of the night shift
Walking among us
As we do our work
During the day

The sunlight cuts through their ethereal forms
As they sit
And lounge
And whisk the day away
Like so much whipped cream

We move about and around these ghosts
Refusing to let them bother us

We keep up our productivity
Bouncing our numbers up
In the hopes that our boss will see
That there's really no point
In having a night shift at all

While we work
The floors are vacuumed
The stains are lifted
The phones ring
The lights flicker
They go out

And we plan to go home
We anticipate it
We look forward to it
But in the meantime we sit
Wondering how long it takes
For the night shift to show up

Wondering when they'll arrive
To take over the jobs
That belong
To us

Lindsay

The big problem here
Is boredom

We're bored

My sister died in a fire
Four years ago

I'm bored

I'm bored by that
By that story

You know what I mean?

I tell girls that story
So they can be like
Holy shit your sister
And I can't even cry about it anymore
And they think that means I'm even screwed up
Than I really am
Which I am
But not for the reason
They think I am

See--

I am completely detached

I don't know if that's a real psychological condition or anything
But I feel it
I feel how detached I am

Like life is this thing
This next-to-me kind of thing
Like, sitting on a couch next to me
In a waiting room or something
And I'm looking at it going--

Oh, that looks nice

But I can't really engage with it at all

I've started calling my mom by her first name
Not because I'm being disrespectful
Or because we're Jehovah witnesses or anything
Just because I don't really recognize her
As my mother

You know?

I mean, she's been a good mother
But I just look at her
And it's like--she's a person
And I recognize that she and I
Have this biological relationship
But it feels like nothing
I mean, it just feels like
Nothing's there

And when my sister died
I mean, when the house burnt up
And Laura, my mom, I mean
Wasn't there
Because she was out with some guy
And I was, fuck where was I?

I was--

I don't remember
But the house went up
And Laura was out with Steeeeeeeeeeeve
Who I never actually met
And my sister was home alone
Which was--I mean, she was okay on her own
She'd been on her own a lot
Before she died
But still, this was like a Tuesday

Damn, see?

Now I'm doing it to you
I'm trying to, like
Use my sob story to charm you
And I do it, like, I even do it
When I don't mean to do it, you know?

It's just this false
This falsehood
That permeates, like--

Like you're sitting in a bar in Hollywood
Bored
Like, just, always, you know?
Bored
And...

A girl sits next to you

And she doesn't know you're from Chicago
She doesn't know your hair's supposed to be darker
That you feel like shit because you didn't go tanning today
That in your wallet you have a photo of a girl
You used to call your sister
And the reason you weren't there
The night she died
Was because you were stuck at a friend's house
Tripping so bad
You laughed at them
When they told you
Your house was on fire

This girl sits next to you
And her name is Lindsay

Hi Lindsay, hi

She doesn't know anything
And that's what's beautiful about her
That's what makes her her
And you, you're so appreciative
Of that

Her oblivion

You can put all your boredom
Right down deep inside her
Until you have to go home
And then it's time to shove it back in your pocket
With your wallet
And your cigarettes

Hi Lindsay

My, my, my
You think to yourself
My, my, my

Don't you have a pretty oblivion?