Forever
It took forever just to realize
That infinity is just an 8 on its side
And it’s no different than a circle or a square
Or anyone dying anywhere
Because everything washes off so easily
(even if it’s permanent)
And after you thank someone
For listening to you vent
Or saying what they meant
Or for loving you and spending all that time that they spent
Remember
That they’ll forget it all
(they’ll even forget your last name in a few years)
And if your impermanence makes you feel small
Remember
That you are
And it doesn’t matter how you love or speak or sit
Because if there’s anything that doesn’t mean shit
It’s “forever”
There’s no place like here
Ruby slippers collecting dust
You’ve been gone for so long
And I’ve been home
Collecting dust
Like I’ve been doing all along
I found another freckle
Don’t be a freckled banana
Getting older and wasting away
Don’t let someone ask you to stay
Go
Quick
Before you find another one
Killing bugs
I thought I had a beetle tattoo
That moved up and down my legs when it flew
And crawled down my neck and around my waist
And into my mouth to give me a taste
Of what it feels like to be an insect
So beautiful
And
Unwanted
Listening
“The swans,” she says
He looks up to meet her eyes
“They can hear you waiting and wondering.
They know when you will die.”
She fixes her bangs
And he scratches his nose
He scans her paper swan collection
And thinks she has too many of those
She peels an orange and fans herself
And watches her swans on the wooden shelf
Then he goes back to his newspaper
Never reading the words
And she keeps singing and smiling
At hundreds of paper birds
Suddenly she’s very nervous
And fiddles with her keys
“I have to go somewhere,” she says
“I have some place to be”
She goes outside so she can cry
Because she thinks she should
Leave him inside so he can die
Like the swans said he would
Gone
You’d say there’s nothing like you and I
But there are thousands of ways
For a love to die
And we’re kind of like those
Blank faces
And cold shoulders
And silent dinners
And empty places
Because I don’t see anything in you these days
Except maybe love that’s evaporated
In a thousand different ways
Hollow
It scares me when there is just
nothing
worth anything
going on
in my head
Especially when I can’t even think of a valid excuse for why I feel like such an idiot
Telephoning
Somewhere in southern California
Karl Wagner picked up a phone today
He is 89 years old
“you have the same name as my grandpa”
I wanted to say
But my grandpa would have been younger anyway
And I was just “MargotWagnervolunteeringfortheAmericanLungAssociation”
Not his granddaughter
And I wondered why I couldn’t be
Still
I was mostly just
“wonderingifyou’veheardofProposition29”
But he didn’t care
And neither did I
Because I wanted to talk about other things
But as soon as he hung up
Another phone rings
Somewhere in San Francisco
And “MargotWagnerfromtheAmericanLungAssociation” asks for Louise Apple
Who died a few months ago
And I’m very sorry to hear that
But “MargotWagnerwiththeALA”
just says
“have a nice day”
And waits for the next answer
Parting
We watch the petals
fall from the trees
like ashes
from half-smoked cigars
And I trace the hairline crack across your porcelain hand
We sit on our cement thrones and count the cars that pass us in the lot
(and I count the seconds I have left with you)
But the night makes everything a different shade of blue
And it’s hard to tell the difference between us two
Then while we sit and watch the petals fall
I wonder if there even is a difference all
I am you, and me, and a porcelain doll
And as our paint chips
We think of ways to stall
So we can be together a little longer
The things I’ve carried
Violent images
of things I’ve never seen
Scarlet covered bodies
In miles of misty green
It’s never been my job to kill anyone
I haven’t pointed a loaded gun
I’ve never watched anyone stumble into a bomb
Or washed blood from my hands
in Vietnam
No
I’ve just been a girl wearing lacy socks
On soft carpeted ground
Who eats Quaker chips
And fucks around
That’s all
(K40G7)
Swim with your palms open
It’s easier to paddle that way
It’s easier to love that way too
After all
Palms are for giving
And people are forgiving
So you don’t have to live
With your hands
In fists
