I’m sorry but I can’t write a poem for you. There was nothing beautiful about your death I wasn’t even there, I heard about it on Snapchat when our buds were at your wake & thought how fuckin lame is my relationship with my friends that I’m the last to know & then I thought you’d give me a big ole smack of words, you destroyer, for making your absence about me. I can’t write about it, I’m sorry. Every literary device I throw down sits in my mouth like raw garlic & nothin’s sweet or sour, Madrugada. What’d you do when they told ya? look in the mirror & tell your brain “you bastard”? look at your hands & wish they could fish hook it out of your skull like a scab? Did you deny your body’s betrayal or did you find it consistent? I can’t put it together. You know when the chemistry teacher says a gas will expand to fit its container? It’s just like that. All I wanna do is turn these poetic particles into liquid so at least they’d flow like the rushing stream of your memory but I’m all dried up. All I could do was pour Bacardi down the sink, I gave you two shots but didn’t tell because my roommate was callous and would hound me for wasting alcohol. I thought about you in Malaysia during a sunrise & spoke your name, La Madrugada Roja. You died seven months ago but this is the best I could do.
Author: Eva
-
April 2nd, 2017
I finally finished the lyrics to a song I started writing in 2013.
I edited many poems and wrote more
This week is going well!
Yesterday was my dog’s 5th birthday
we had a bonfire.
Tomorrow I’m doing stand up comedy for the first time ever.
This is not a poem. -
Excerpt from Sort of Super Volume 1
Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of Sort of Super. Randy Bones has just stumbled out of the spaceship onto a new planet and is accosted by an old man claiming to give him superpowers.
“You get four options,” the man began.
Four options? “Isn’t it usually three?” Randy asked the stranger.
The old man snapped, “The number of options depends on which type of people we’re short on.”
“Wha-? There are types? But that means I’m not…” he tried to think of a word that wouldn’t make him sound like a whining schoolboy, but time was running thin. “I’m not special?”
“No. You were chosen from among the earthlings because of your incredible generic-ness. You are average in almost every way.” Delight oozed from the man’s face as he continued, “Average height, average weight, job performance. Even your romantic life is average. You’ve had sex twice in the past year. Honestly I’m quite pleased you’re one of my recruits. What you do excel at, however, is imagination. Your thoughts are almost constantly going to another world. That’s value.”
Randy wanted to cry. He wasn’t special? Someone was reading his mind? How many sexual fantasies did this old man know about? How did he know about his sex life? And hell, he thought working as a daytime receptionist for a music venue was hella cool but whatever!
-
Honey
you only commit to illusions like me
pulling fists from my pockets
but they’re bees
in your stomachyour mouth is full with the honey of my language
yes, it’s Crimson and Clover
dripping over and overyou ran up the alp to whip your heart in shape
but worked too hard
it’s over zealousyou caught a bird in your hands
who flew you south for the winter
now your blood’s with the crows
and you’ll never learn my syntax -
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe, Arizona
is the Oscars on a blowup bed,
my dog saying No to the desert mountain,
mystery mariachi slipping over a wall,
drinking beer at the movies
dining at a hot Mexican restaurant and the check
insisting that friendship is expensive.
Tempe is the place where you find out
you are hotdish and your friends are sushi. -
Yellow Amarillo
Yellow Amarillo,
I almost did not find you because of the sunset.
That fucker took my eyes like a beak to marbles
and the visor in the car? I slapped my face with it.
Knocked the wraparound sunglasses clean off
in a rush to see the road again
but the sun spat “look at me, you ignorant swine”
and I was like, “Amarillo?” -
A Dollar Twenty
A Dollar Twenty
it’s 2017 and I owe the library a dollar twenty.
I forgot four books at once
but they don’t talk about it at the checkout.
no “hey look it happens but if you don’t pay us back
you’ll never read Stephen King in this town again.”
Consider me a villain.
Give me a franchise.Miss Sayonara and the Book of No Return
and the reVIEWS, darling!
Box Office Anti Hero Stuffs Two Dollars in Envelope
Bloody Insignia Indicates Unstable Temperament
Non-Returner Repents
Book Bandit at it Again
Library Seeks Revenge
she owes a dollar fifty.That’s it? I’ll give you three.
Take my dreams to the laundromat
show me the muscles of your forearms dry
here’s the chipped yellow grass you can water with sepia tone
dye this landscape burnt orange like those teeth in that Western
read me the trash about galloping abs
you want a dollar fifty?
I raise you my space ship
pirate ship indigo baby dragon
majestic brown horse washboard nihilists
will they won’t they modern friendship
psycho brawler dream thieves
bank bullets shooter boots
a black cat a salt circle
a weather woman shoots rain from her eyes
into the neck of a hipster
and I return to you with these stories. -
Omaha
Grandma’s yellow raincoat makes me eerie
like a liquor woman undercover
like the man who waves back follow the leader.I want to hear the ocean boom from the belfry,
a sonorous bell singing nine p.m.The town fell dark before I arrived
so I forgot to fear the men
this city gave me
new air, wet tiresMy hometown shadow scales the tower
I play the old game, follow the leader.
The belfry plays nine thirty. -
Road
I’ve been on the road for two weeks without doing laundry anywhere but the sink.
I brought a white flowy tunic specifically for Arizona.
Now the cuffs are tan in Denver.
my laptop clicks when it opens and I wince because I’ll need a new one,
but I gave my money to the waiters in Tempe.
I’m drinking Folgers in a borrowed mug,
thinking about Minnesota.
