I still get my news from my hometown.
And I do not respond to my new friends.
And I cursed November when he came.
And I told myself my existence was feeble.
And I got all the movie quotes wrong.
And I was coughing all the **** time, craggy inhales and spittle in my tea.

They were all phonies then.
Except the boy
I met who
ended every sentence with
"I don't really know,"
so
everything he said could be true.

And I was running all the time in my sleep, then.
And *******, too.
And the same boy was always in my dreams - but not the right boy - the boy who was important to me only ever in sleep.
But dreams seemed important then, too.

Oh, I remember!
5 a.m.
when I yanked you out of bed, come, I am going
MAD!
(you were going mad, too,
just last week.)
The fog was not rising at all
     chain smoking in respect to my lungs
     and their strike on air
     my strike on a way of living whose sole purpose was
     to stay alive longer
     what's all the yap about?
I was not sure I wanted to live
     you kept on talking about dogs.
I do not want to live
     you started talking about cars!
I have death in my fingertips, you fool!
You supposed heaven was real
     and I thought over what I had heard:
     heaven is all around us
     (yes, we were in a cloud.)
And I supposed you were right
     but I kept silent,
     I could not put my world on you
     and its godlessness.
There was a green flashing light
on the other side of Cincinnati
     but you did not understand that reference yet.
But we counted all the
     churches and rainy cars
They couldn't grasp at God either.

Godlessness!
     it will make us all mad, then.
but it was science who spelt of protons and electrons;
and when I am GOOD
     he shows me his twisted, gnarled little black heart.
and when he, angelic, comes--
     I am the Darkness.
We supposed this was how God talks, anyways.

And the sun curled up again
we drank coffee
     in bad lighting
     over silence
     the insanity
     soggy waffles
night shakes leaving me and...
It took you hours to respond!
Grappling with insanity for hours!
     the kinds in wavelengths
     static
     feeble
     hours
     glowering hunched electric clock in the corner
     cracked windows
     pane
I could not stop thinking over forgiveness
     and if I forgave my father for forgetting my birthday
     nine years ago
     so mundane.
And if it mattered anymore
And if I forgave God
And if I would ever apologize to Him
     there was a green flashing light in my baptismal basin, too.

I do not call myself Gatsby anymore.