Out of a long list of lovers
Someone’s neck smelled like gingerbread.
Yes, it is possible for someone to follow you down the elevator
There is such a thing as laundry room etiquette-
flip through a magazine and know it.
There is half of a welcome mat outside my door
I put the other half where I jump off the balcony.
I am on the eighth floor and the squirrels still find me
They are welcome because I am nuts.
thanks to our parents
we were allowed to have
our own apartment.
a graph on the bathroom mirror
let us know how many days
we’d been outside
and that half our weed
was in the couch cushions
and for a while there
we never cleaned out the fridge
and all our laundry
piled up in the sink
these people started
to call our phones
their voices
fit through the walls-
we rubbed our lips
on dryer sheets
and waited for
our ears to hum.
I am leaning against the side of the house again this morning, smoking a cigarette.
I used to come out here before everyone woke up, to think about everything that is wrong with all of us. I am tired of thinking, lately, and I rest the back of my head against the brick and watch the smoke curl up from my lips. It looks awfully sexy, but strange too. Feeling sexy when your socks are soaked through with dew.
The cigarette is done now, and I stash the butt under the rock that I keep just behind the fence. My head feels strange, too, because I’ve stood up too quickly. A car starts somewhere down the street. I touch my lips and have to force myself to go back inside.
J. packs another bowl and we pass it around a few times, getting a decent buzz going, and then we all go upstairs to see Rusko. Our group is divided between those who have seen Rusko before and those who have no idea what to expect. K. shows us to his room, and everyone gathers around the dresser. On top of the dresser is a huge glass terrarium and inside it- a motionless yellow-brown banded gecko.
K. lifts the creature out of the terrarium and presents it to us, beaming, and the girls smile indulgently and quietly slide their phones from their back pockets. “Here,” M. whispers to me, “let me take a picture of you with the lizard.”
“He’s a Velvet Gecko,” K. announces proudly, looking down at his cupped hands.
I don’t want to touch it, thinking for some reason of the resin on my hands. I’m afraid that I’ll hurt the thing- who knows what’s going to poison something this fragile? I bend my torso around Rusko instead, positioning my head directly behind, and at eye-level. From the viewpoint of M.’s camera, the effect of my round, red-cheeked face is Rusko transformed; he acquires the majesty of his prehistoric ancestors, solemn and unblinking against the backdrop of a rising sun.
We pack more bowls, and take lots of pictures of Rusko chilling out on top of everyone’s heads.
We met the first time at an outdoor jazz festival
so why are we folding clothes
in this sad humming spaceship of a Laundromat
we were going to be better than that
we were going to
we were going to stop stealing detergent
or whatever we could get our hands on.
your lips and ears are famous
but you lost face with what’s between them
i didn’t mean them
i meant that we were going to
not end up like our teachers.
it turns out we were worse off.
our hands dipped in milk
to take the edge off
we are tracing circles of frost on glass
until the coach asks
who’s got fresh legs?
we look at our legs and then look at each other
and become a team.
if I was a bear
i would lumber and
i would make into my home
the cave behind this waterfall,
and wait for you
to flail over
i would punch your fish-face
with my head-sized paw
until your
gills caked with blood
until your
popcorn brain
eked out even one thought,
i would spin you on my claw
i would watch the water fall
and listen
for larger prey than you-
i would peel off every single scale
and underneath you would be blue.
long live the martyr 