I could sit here all night with you, you know.
Eating cold noodles from the little Chinese place off 9th and… that street that starts with an A that I keep forgetting.
Blinking at the red neon that says Open, and laughing at the sign on the door that’s translated really,
really badly.
You point to it every time, but it’s getting old. just by the way.
And you insist on taking a pair of chopsticks, even though you can’t use them for crap,
just like you **** at pool. the table is not slanted, you’re just sad you’re not good at everything.
**** it, you are.

I could sit here all night with you, making up constellations with the few stars we can see,
ones we’ll call inappropriate names just to hear you snort.
and pretend we can walk through moving cars and not die like humans,
the disgusting things.
I’ll hold your fingers but not your hands because they’re covered with soy sauce,
and we’ll ignore the 5’ 1’’ noodle shop lady yelling at us because we’re being too loud
and scaring away customers.
Who comes to eat lo mein at 3 in the morning anyway?

I'll stay if you do.

it was right in front of me, the entire time.
it’s the end of the world now. at least before, I didn’t have you.
get ready for the bricks to rain down, we’ll run down the streets
and dodge the falling plaster with shredded eyes.

Some **** weird weather we get around here.

Could I have known you would have been perfect?
I didn’t ******* know.
And now, I’m trapped in your arms,
under this heavy sky.

it’s  a sad thing really, that you think my name is pretty,
that you think it’s cute that I hate ******-doo,
that you care when I cry about spilling soda on the carpet because life is just too hard.
that you like my refrigerator magnets so much.

I can’t do anything anymore, you’ve found my weakness for
sour gummies and tater tots, you ***.
I can’t do anything anymore, except give in.
hello.

He tells me he likes nachos while we sit in front of his living room TV,
lights dimmed. his dog has shed relentlessly on this couch.
I’m feeling dizzy, because I’m pretty sure that cheese was growing mold and I remind myself that
this is the 4th boy this summer (it’s only July), and he’s holding my hand.

it’s not so comfortable. in fact I realize I really don’t want to watch this movie about chemotherapy and space aliens (willing to bet he’s run the same one for every girl) at all. for a moment I forget where I am,

and I ask him if his name is Mitchell.
It’s Rafe, he says, ¼ laughing, ¼ wondering why he invited me over, half imagining what he could do to me.
what a ****** name, I think to myself, and I throw the scratchy blanket off me in his too air-conditioned apartment,
much more breathable.
I open the door. sorry Mitch, my mom told me to be home by... (squint at my watch in the darkness)
he stands up and knocks over my untouched Pepsi, probably spiked, saying it’s pretty early, are you sure? and the name’s –

(door shuts). bye, Mitch.

when you leaned in to kiss me, I could’ve counted your eyelashes if I wanted,
and I started to.
but I was terrified.
so I scrambled backward and splashed the cup of pink lemonade I was holding in your face
and ran home tripping over my own bones,
slid all the books you recommended to me off the kitchen table
and made some instant noodles, burning myself on the stove and spilling cold water all over my toes.
I couldn’t find a fork, and almost cried and burst out laughing when I realized I hadn’t washed the dishes,
I’m sorry, love is the scariest thing.
but I couldn’t help but wish you were there to wipe off the soup from my face.

don’t ever tell me that
you love me,
I am afraid I will run away like
                the donkey you said your papa had when he was a boy
                on the farm he lived on somewhere in

                southern Argentina
when he was 17 like you.

it was his pride and beauty.

she lit her
co-
       ffee

on fire because her lips were stained
with cheap cheat and
ci-
      garettes

and
lies

and her mouth burned

o
   f
      f.                  

Oops.
The poor fool.

we can paint this whole city gold like a giant oil spill,
blinding and much much heavy on your tongue
and enlist a gleaming marching band whose buttons are falling off,
the tuba player is a gum chewer, there are mint chunks caught inside, barely playable
all she can do is honk
we’ll get limos with cracked windows and yellow fire trucks,
with flat left tires
acrobats in risqué costumes that little boys will point and giggle at
with sick clown faces, sick clown faces white, 7 or 10 layers of powder
and people from the slums of Uganda/Somalia/Niger or something, poor areas won’t be hard to find,
foreign tenants who live in dirtied-down shacks and
we will release from plastic cages, doves that have lost their pure color
that have been injected with toxic who-knows-what to be captured
hookers with big hair from the streets of large cities, they will blow kisses at the children and
wink at grown men
pigeons will **** on the windshields,
and the air will be so thick with pollution and filth that no one will be able to see
the deflating balloons of Mickey Mouse.

it will be The Biggest Parade the-world-has-ever-seen.