Draft for a better poem

It's not that I don't want to go to a potluck

It's more that I want to be served in the same way that I want to serve you

Not tonight

But sometime later

I don't know what to bring that I wouldn't rather buy at a restaurant where I don't have to carry it

Lay it out next to everyone else's dishes

Schlep it back half eaten through the metro

And is anyone going to bring dessert? There is so much I don't know and that makes me feel awkward

"Bring whatever you want to eat" they said

But I don't think they're ready for a bag of madeleines and a pack of American Spirits

I mean if we're talking true desires that's all I'd eat

No, no, now I'm searching for a dep that has chips or something 

It's cold and I just want someone to feed me

Everyone on the street looks like someone I know but that's because everyone looks the same buried under hats and scarves

Some of these people are from here 

And probably know what to bring to a potluck

They have a pantry shelf for surprise potlucks

I have a premonition of feeling strangely judged for whatever it is I bring.

You can't go wrong with Pabst and grapes.

That's normal and good.

I am normal and good, like PBR and grapes.

And peach rings.

I was thinking of our love 
like a thick glob of roving
wild wool unfettered
few people know how to
pull at the mass 
and make yarn appear
and i don’t know 
I don’t know
how another day unfolds
with us here together 
the togetherness
so big and clumped
that it becomes unseen 
I think we both 
do know
how to pull at that love 
and make a small thing appear
a long delicate strong strand 
a feeling that we are known 
so deeply to each other 
and the days spread on

1.17.24

today was nothing –

i clocked in, 

i clocked out.

Two haikus on rational behavior

Prefrontal cortex

Over the limbic system

A losing battle

An impossible

Aspiration not to hate

Or love anyone

 

Finishing School

Collar starched and the holly fixed

blueprints of the table settings,

shape and form, the veil over

so much horror, and

unquestioning commitment

for what's appropriate,

my theocracy, the stinger trope

reaching through the soil

for my ankles, then my hair,

subtitling the hum of my

arguments with the ghost echoes

of school corridors,

in the knowledge 

I'll never know who played

the Last Post year after year,

teachers bowed

in cloaks as absurd

as mascots caught in

the one minute silence.

        

To be honest, 

all birthday parties 

are surprise parties in this economy. 

I mean this in the best possible way,

 actually, 

To be honest, 

the greatest gifts 

are the ones people want to give you.