You didn't notice the girl gazing at you
like desert stars do
when you lay with ancient light in your eyes.
She was toying with her hair
and you missed it.

I thought after I had my own place,
I'd finally have girls in my bed,
the kind that read in coffee shops.

But after too many failed apartment getaways
and 2,346 miles of stories
that could brim a hundred journals,
I'm in my old room
with the same songs and
the same parents, with
the same questions
about the same girlfriends who
have new boyfriends
with new cars,
more money,
more testosterone.

But they won’t walk out of a job
with both middle fingers in the air,
towards the road.
It won’t even enter their minds.

Emily dropped out of Humboldt State,
22 years old.

She paints fences
for money and
takes the train into the hills-
finds fireflies,
sleeps on the sand,
empties wine bottles,
can't pay her rent. It's 345.

Her apartment is small,
400 sq. feet.
Had a guy sleep over last night
in the kitchen on a blowup mattress.

She wrote about it in a journal,
the one I gave to save her
from rain, fog, and moments
like this.
Flickering sky,
distant glitter of valley stars.

You're all out
with friends,
and terrible music.

That's the first stanza
of the first poem here.
The next is different.

Stay where you are,
we don't need you or
the simulated *** you call dancing.

When you've grown up,
like I'm trying to (sometimes too fast)
you will walk out of one of those clubs
and see the clouds have cleared.

Then, after you've discovered that you have a body,
you'll see it as a tool,
like a hammer you watched your father
swing a dozen times in the shed.

That's all it is:
A tool for your spirit.