v-v-vaporwave aesthetic and s-s-sorrow
and **** baby i just wanna live like life ends tomorrow
i like the pretty boys and i like the pretty girls
and their picture-perfect instagram teeth shining like pearls
they all love the way the car goes to roar
as we race away hiding from college loan gore
take a knife, take a pill, i hope-i swear to die
if by the end of all this **** i can't even go to cry

give me the ******* battle-flag and let me pledge allegiance.
let the boys cry, let the girls sing, let the old-folk mumble and groan,
but give me your trials, your tribulations, and let us go to war.

we are losing to an enemy with no god, no hell, no entropy but the one we--
make
and the world will end in fifty years if we don't do something;
collapse under the weight of its student loans,
its political polarization,
its religious animosity and identity politics,
its carbon emissions slowly melting the ice cap.
**** your pity, **** your intellectual debate,
and pick up the life-water in your hands and help the thirsty.
people die while you pretend they don't exist.

give the ******* battle-flag, bitter neighbor,
i'm pledging to not ******* it up like your generation did.

and i'm waiting for the day
that your kisses will feel like cold steel on my throat,
and your tongue will be tasting the ashes in my mouth,
and your fingers will burn bulletholes in my skin,
and your eyes will hold nothing but despair and apathy for me.
the freckles on my cheeks will lose their charm,
and you will grow weary of my laughter and my arm around you.

because you and i both know, lover, that this will implode
and it will be so terrifying beautiful when it does
(just like how we've always been, dancing with the edge of fate).

her name was ever-so-lovely, ever-so-light, ever-so-sweet
and your name was problem child, troublemaker, never-fit-in.
i loved you both--
but not the same.

she was darling of the class, a-student, charming, compassionate, attentive;
you were flawed, pulled out of class, screamed at, split apart, lonely.
she went to dances in beautiful dresses and ceremonies like a little star
and you skipped them all, staying home, quiet, writing-always-writing.
i was stricken by her beauty--scared by it, entranced, could not understand--
and took too long to ever notice yours.

(the first time anyone ever touched her was loving, gentle, planned;
you were barely twelve and your best friend puts fingers in places you didn't fully understand yet. you were always second to her boyfriend, though.)

i trailed after her for two longmiserablelonely years and never found a thing from any of it, any of it.
you, though, you flirted with me in class and touched my shoulder
and so often you'd reach out to my hair and look at me with that look,
love.
she was the first i confessed deep dark secrets to,
but you were the first i made them with.
i miss her sometimes, her radiance, her sunshine, the way she smiled
ever-so-pretty
like a barbie doll almost broken beyond recognition.
you and i fixed each other together,
you, trouble child, problem child, inattentive, daydreamer, not-enough;
me, *******, perfectionist, procrastinator, obsessive, compulsive, not-enough
never-enough-enough-enough.

you are the most brilliant beautiful wonderful person i know.
(and i will never tell you that i loved her first
because i know it would break your heart, angel.)
i'm in love with you, though, uniquely, undeniably, terrifyingly.
(i loved you second but i love you more;
i loved you less instantly but i love you more honestly, more sincerely--
and you too love me in return.)

the only problem you've ever been for me
is me wondering how i ever got lucky enough to hold you in my arms.

please don't talk to me about how i'm feeling
please just--
hold me a little bit longer, a little bit closer,
a little bit less like i'm tearing your soul from your heart
and more like i put it back together (because i did, i helped);

your blue eyes are brighter than a fast food sign even when they're glazed
like a sloppy coat of paint
and your breath stills feels like summer's relief,
but your kisses are stilted and hesitant,
like you're as consumed with concern as i am,
and dearest love, we only have the energy for one of us to fall apart
at a time.

(can i have my turn first?)

you never look quite enough like yourself--there's an edge of a mask,
something in the way you smile--
and i'm afraid of what's underneath.

(way-back-when--when we were kids--you never smiled like that, and now it's the only smile you have to give.)

(stop smiling and cry a little, will you?)