Am I pretty like crotchet
because my mind's in a knot?
or am I a billionaire
because I have a penny for every thought?
Am I the nemesis of time
because I think too quick or as slow as
the last drop of lime?
None.
I am my mind's
the mind's not mine
But one day, they shall intertwine and
we shall be fine.

I almost made it through today without thinking about you.
But then I smelled something like your hair —

dusk in early May,
like lilacs giving up,
and July the rest of the time —
like someone’s still grilling down the block
even though the party ended hours ago.

Like a memory that keeps overstaying its welcome.
(Like I’d forgotten how to forget you.)

(Anyway,
I started googling “what’s the opposite of nostalgia”
but halfway through I forgot
what I was looking for.)

Got $9 boba with a friend I haven’t seen in years.
There was too much ice,
the grass jelly kept clogging the straw.

I told her I was fine.
(I wasn’t.)

I teethed each tapioca like a guillotine
to feel something smash.

(I kept biting the ice too —
felt like breaking tiny bones in my mouth
and pretending they weren’t mine.)

(She kept talking about her new boyfriend —
I think his name was Ben or Matt or Disappointment.
He was younger than us
but just as dumb.)

Anyway, I saw our old dance professor at the grocery store.
He asked about you.

(I lied.)
I said you were doing great,
(but I was lying to keep you in a cage
of things I never wanted to admit to myself.)

He looked at me like he knew I was just rearranging wreckage
from a storm we used to dance in.
(Get it?)

(Oh, and by the way —
I still have your sweatshirt.)

It’s at the bottom of my laundry basket,
but I can’t wash it.

It smells like October
and a bad idea I refuse to stop romanticizing,
a wound I can’t stop picking at.
(I tried throwing it away once —
but it felt like pushing someone
out of a lifeboat.)

I almost wore it last week,
but I couldn’t —
like putting on a ghost
that still remembers my name.
like putting on a bruise
just to see if it still hurt.
(I think I wanted it to.)

Anyway, did you know
memories leave like party guests —

half of them forgetting to say goodbye,
the rest lingering in the kitchen,
picking at crumbs
like they might stay forever?

(I kept trying to swallow my gum
just to see if I could.)

I keep thinking about the time
I tried to make you laugh
by pretending my hand was a spider —

(I got tangled in my own fingers
and you called me impossible.)

(I set alarms for stupid times now —
4:13, 7:29, 10:04 —
like if I time it right,
I’ll wake up different.)

Anyway, I saw your name
carved into a bathroom stall in the city.

(Unless it wasn’t yours —
but what are the odds?
Pretty high, actually.)

I stared at it too long.
Some girl in a bucket hat walked in,
gave me a look
like I was unraveling in real time.

(I was.)

So I smiled at her
like I was chewing glass.
(I hope she’s having a great day.)

Oh, and I found your zippo lighter in my trunk last week —
matte silver, your uncle’s from ‘Nam.

I swore I’d lost it.
I keep the lighter in my cup holder now —
like a threat I don’t know how to make.

(I tinker with it at red lights —
like I’m trying to burn something down
but forgot what.)

(Sometimes I imagine flicking it open
and holding it to the sleeve of your sweatshirt —
just to see if I’d go through with it.)

I stopped going out for a while,
but last month I had three beers
and told some guy on a barstool
that I still dream about you —

(That’s not true.
I dream about losing my teeth,
then hiding them in my ears,
getting in very slow motion car crashes,
and realizing I’m too drunk
to perform the play I’m the lead in,
but I think they mean the same thing.)

I saw a crow yesterday.
Anyway, it reminded me of you.

(It perched outside my window
like it knew something —
kept tilting its head
like it had a secret
and didn’t care if I figured it out.)

I almost followed it,
like maybe it was waiting
to lead me somewhere
you never made it back from.
(Oh, and by the way —
I still love you.)

Anyway, how’s your heart?
(And why can’t I stop writing
like you might answer?)

(Anyway, I’ve started talking to myself in the car —
Sometimes I pretend I’m singing with you.)

It’s really fun.
It’s sad, but it’s fun.

I keep writing you into my poems
like I’m building you a place
to come home to.

I keep retelling the ending
like I’m trying to dig you out —
like if I say it soft enough this time,
you’ll remember how it’s supposed to go.
(Anyway, that might be the worst part:
I’ll never know if you hear me.)

Maybe I haven’t been healing,
maybe I’ve just been waiting.
Waiting for you to come back and tell me that I’m worth it.
But maybe I need to be the one to say it.

Anyway, I hope you’re okay.
(I mean that more than I mean anything else.)

Am I really unfolding myself into the hands of my enemy—as if I was sealing my fate?

That is what you thought. Scratch it because it is wrong.

Said he, "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the wokest of them all"

But I prefer to tell it by suspense. It is what is, honey.

You cannot escape death, truth or worse, me.

You may run anywhere in the world, I won't chase you; you may hide, change identity or much better, **** yourself— but your conscience and guilt will do its favor for me to hunt you down, and come crawling back to me, pleading for forgiveness, on your knees.

I might just want to **** you in one blow, nuh uh. I won't play that game that way.

Karma is doing its job right now, payback time for the pain you caused me.

I am hands free, washed my hands and raised it for everyone to see, for I am not everyone's accomplice.

Be not like Judas Iscariot, my dear;
Selling me to your mother, with your cooked and made-up stories
But I will be like Peter, that even I denied God, he still understood me.

I was in a bar outside
the gates of Pompeii,
it was already morning
and as the curtains began
to close on the moon and
the stars were turning off
their lights, she lit a cigarette
and as the smoke swirled
in the sound of mysterious
jazz I thought of Vesuvius
looking over us like some
viscous god. And between
the reflection of midnight
drunkards and broken hearts,
I didn’t know if it was the way
she held her glass or the way
she put it to her lips that made
me think she knew something
about love that I did not. She
looked at me and said something
in Italian then she looked away
crossed her legs and lit another
cigarette, I guess she said
where are you going?
I whispered Palermo …
Clay.M

Memory is a *******
It lets you stay there
In that fuzzy place
Beyond fear and care
When you think back
It's not the event you recall
But the last time you recalled it
In the records hall
Edited each go
By what's on your mind
Subconscious gymnastics
Act as a blind
To what really went on
Decades ago
If you saw as true
Up your guts you would throw.

She doesn't wear vanilla dresses,
Ethereal shoes and a mint beret.
She doesn't accept gluey embraces
And kisses, where the truth is away.

She doesn't like stuffy speeches
About the Moon and stars at her feet.
She doesn't need a fiery chatter,
If there is a hollow behind it.

No use to disturb the Sun in vain
And lead it to shine only for her.
In fact all your cries are trait falsehood.
No need to be so low-lived amateur.

The sea throws a foam right at her feet.
Sea waves are noisy and bold.
Her ear's softly caressed by seagulls.
These birds are the peerless sea gold.

Her clothes are surely relaxed fitting,
And so it has always been.
The wind in her face, unfastened hair,
And he's nearby - it's the ultimate thing.