old makeup spilled on my floor
***** clothes strewn on my floor
You can hardly see the carpet for all the clothes carelessly being trodden on.
Blue holiday lights are strung around the mirror.
I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
I am watching Andy Warhol eating a hamburger
on a new, thousand dollar laptop, slick-as-a-whistle, paid with a magnetic swipe.
For the past six months,
I have had less than four hundred $
combined in checking and savings,
and that number dwindles by the day.
I have no groceries,
but I've got fistfuls of orange prescription bottles,
and I was handing pills out like treats and candy.
(but they are needed, much and every day)
Where did all these bills come from?
Money is paper, but it means things.
Suddenly, it costs money to breathe.
Eating? Oh pshaw, that costs money, time, and the store's six blocks away.
We can subside on government cheese, beans, and the fiery licks of whiskey.
I pout on my throne of ***** cotton, thinking
"I get what I ask for, when I ask, and it always comes--at a price!" I sigh.
It's always over a hundred dollars more than I could spare
and brings bad luck, moreso than a couple broken mirrors would,
smashed over a the front of your mother's blackest cat.
"Quick! Let's do designer drugs with the paltry change given by our parents, given as allowance!
I wouldn't feel like I wasn't nothing, nothing at all," I say, batting my eyelashes, "Wouldn't they feel proud of our feelings of entitlement to the greater things in life and consciously responsible adult-like decisions?"
I crack open my father's checking account with that swipe of a magnetic strip,
it makes me seem responsible when he sees I just use it for pills and foodstuff.
(I prove I love him, and he loves me in this way)
Now, together, we will buy strawberries with his money, until our lips are pink.
They must be four dollars, at the very least, then we eat like the bourgeoisie (!)
I kiss the cheeks of my reflection in the bathroom
"Como ca va, darling? Comme si comme sa. . ."
I lick my lips, put on red lipstick and then blot,
tousling my hair, tipsy, as I touch up my face by
licking the tips of eyeliner up like a cat's little tail,
the ends of eyes, coated with eyeliner as black as
my tightest velvet pants and dark, dark heart.
We go together. You and me.
Lying on the floor, holding hands, in vinyl bliss
listening to the crooning of sweet Francoise Hardy,
and the addictions of the near-dead soul of Lou Reed
You should move to a big city
and I'll come call, prepaid, with
a voice that is thick and ripped,
from expensive French cigarettes
chattering of sugar-white beaches
as I cross the seas all on a plane,
burning money all along the way
all the while drunk on red wine,
twirling my fingers around, with
bags under eyes, a little anemic
(I think it adds to the glamour)
We will go out to a dimly lit place
We will go out dancing then after
I will put on dab perfume under my ears and on my wrists,
I will wear black tights for pants, but first, do a little *******
and you will fasten the clasp on my silver necklace tonight,
while I smoke, before helping me put on my favorite fur
And we will go see Andy, at the factory
I hear he's doing something
with that Basquiat fellow (!)
I will go follow false luxuries, come with me.
I will gamble with you in Monte Carlo or Las Vegas,
just as long as you pay my rent at $695 per month,
and keep pretending,
until I die, or overdose, or something.
because being poor is extremely glamorous