Leaving my room today I came across the scent of fresh cut grass
It was sweet and reminded me of summer, not one month away
And I kept tripping as I read Vonnegut down the street with cloudy eyes
Now I'm thinking I'll switch my pen, I bought two new ones just yesterday
See
I'll mail these letters, one thick, the other quite thin, get lunch and go to the library
Maybe I'll be able to think when I'm in halls full of books I may never read
But let me be positive today, it's the nicest day of the year thus far
Alright,
Tuna fish on sourdough
I asked her if I could read her middle school poems
But she said no, and they weren't good enough, besides she threw them away
And at two o'clock I'll receive a picture of my kid sister at the Golden Gate Bridge
Oh and she also said
Your mother has a tiny grain of sand in her large breast
And it could really kill her, it could
And she said she had to leave soccer practice early
For family therapy
She told me she wondered what the other girls thought
Which reminds me why I have cold feet on Mondays
And my shoes feel like mobile air conditioning units
Of the likes you've never seen
I bet my skin looks blue as blue ice under white cotton
I'm also thinking about my mad mind, which interjects
"Remember when we fought in braille over wires
And I wrote everything down in hopes I'd get it out of my head?" because
My frontal lobe was filling with custom license plates and addresses
To which I no longer remember their occupants
To which I can't quite place
I see myself walking into the Italian grocery store on infinite loop
An endless summer day with orange drinks and fresh bread, day old bread
My neck, the back specifically, draped in pulsing skin
Made red by far too many hours in cloudless daylight, masking the fade of my childhood
We played foolish games and lay in the serenade of comfortable shade
Never once doubting our teenage arrogance
Listening to who knows how many songs we'd never quite understand
Smoking who knows how many cigarettes we'd never quite filter
Camel lights at the time, or was it Camel Golds?
Well now it's Pall Mall and now on the regular
And there was a girl
Yes I know you expected this, how wonderful, a romantic
She had great ideas, of safaris and shapeshifting and the female orgasm
I had no idea
This all led to me shaking her Father's clammy hand in mass
He had a continental spirit and a wandering brow, though a steady honest gaze
He was always having to protect himself from his weak kidney or something
Always leaving during the creed, it was just long enough
To check and return
I always imagined him leaving to avoid dedication
This is how I learned to avoid the doorbell, with consistent measure
And later that day (now), the day in which I had tuna fish
I envisioned her, another young woman
Falling gracefully from a ladder and mid sentence and mid air alerting me
Saying, "My God My God! Why Have You Forsaken Me?"
She went on
I've always wanted to be something other than...
An American
A Daughter
A Writer
An Artist
A Poet
The Town Idiot
She went on
I don't want to be any of those things!
She's always talking like this, most have learned to ignore her
So today I envisioned her falling off a ladder
Then draining her faucet eyes and asking for assistance
Her hand outstretched she wanted to lie down
I would ask her "Where?" as she already lay upon the ground
Because, she thinks she might have received a concussion
When her head hit historic tile floors like the Queens cymbals
And one of us would wrap her in a silver blanket and
Carry her to the infirmary
Her questions unanswered
And I folded the ladder and checked twice my memory
To complete actual events
And record necessary embellishments
