stupid shit/real shit

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.

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

Always trying a little too hard

Then taking the F into the city

Last college classes

Pizza and The Park

Texting boys from Southern Florida

Thousands of strangers

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

Fevered, but poetically

Conscienceless, but healthily

Long-legged, long-haired, long-jacketed