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 Mar 2016 Hopeful Ponderer
Scar
I still have the scars on my ankle
From the day we got drunk in school

I have a few nights burned in my brain
I have some type of mind
That returns to a mountain girl
I make peace with bodies thought otherwise to be dead
I make no apologies for laughter in churches
And my throat was raw on the first day of spring

I miss flying high in that aeroplane
Where guitar strings did anything but strangle our hearts
I left the state
Just to play our soundtrack to a room full of strangers
The broncos won And I'm still at a dead end job
Didn't even watch the game, I was too busy
washing trash cans.
Heard about it through some magic rectangle.
The kids call "social media"

about all the different things
Lady Gaga looked like when
she sang the national anthem.
Heatmiser,
pizza rolls,
Dolly Parton
Because one time Dolly Parton wore a red suit, Which I thought was kind of a stretch.
I saw a commercial saying that more than
400,000 babies are born 9 months after the super bowl.
You know what else is right around that time in February?
Valentine's day
I don't think I've ever been less ****
than during the super bowl.
Nobody looks at their man
Half covered in Beer and nacho grease stains
And goes "oh baby,
that buffalo sauce gets me so wet"
"I just wanna grab a fist full of your hair
bend you over these pizza boxes an~"
"No"
"No"
"N~I mean, I'd be into it"
"No"

My girlfriend is in Florida working for Disney right now.
They have her doing laundry in a musty basement with
middle aged Mexican woman.
It's apparently awful.
"Ruins the magic" she says.
Seeing cinderella scurrying around half naked
doing her make up
Wig cap and undergarments.
Snow white with her nose up
asking for kombucha
Won't even make eye contact with the laundry vets
Let alone my intern girlfriend.
Who says these princesses
would sooner **** a man covered in nacho grease.
Then show her any respect.

I asked how the magic wasn't ruined before that.
After watching the play hairspray
when they yell
"CUT! "
and the actors go back to their miserable lives, 
I figured it out pretty young.
This middle class manifesto
Where making a livable wage is our life term goal.
But she is the faithful type.
Loves her a good miracle.

Like when she found out she was pregnant.
Was
She had already lost him.
Or her
I was over 3,000 miles away
With another man
she was drinking herself to sleep
Praying to some porcelain god for me to stop
I'm sure the morning sickness didn't help
Her depression
Or hangovers.
Or the will to tell me, The man already greiving over one lost daughter
we had lost another.
Before we even knew she was there.
I only tell her I love her.

She says she needs me around
because I’m a taurus.
I have no idea what she means by that.
But I love hearing stories about mexican woman yelling in spanish at their iphone screens
half naked princesses doing their makeup in hair nets.
And her still believing in magic.
She gives me something to dream about
while I wash these trash cans.

Like watching hairspray together
Her bending me over some chicken wings.
Our little Princess.
Some days you surface into,
and there's no distracting yourself from
that irrefutable inevitability that
- ultimately -
entropy will win.
No quantity of
authentic artisan coffee or online memes
or juicing can
pull you out of the
black hole gravity
of that one truth.
The evidence is everywhere:
the spiteful confusion of electrical cables
your sleep-stupid fingers
fumble and fail to untangle;
the mold on the bread you
swore would keep a few more days;
the putrid, burst-open remains of
a pink armchair, left to rot in a
stranger's front garden;
the scavenging army of crows that loiters,
waiting for you to die and, in the
meantime, walks ****** little footprints
around your eyes;
the oxidation of
so many dreams.

It's inescapable.
Might as well root for the winner.
Embrace the decay.
Take photographs of
rust, smashed glass, peeling paint, dead flowers.
Learn to love faded colours and the feel
of broken things.
Catalogue your most
interesting scars and mutilations.
And, while you can,
write poetry.
I put him in my pocket
Off to the side
In dreams late at night
In memories
And fantasies
Cause I had work you see

I put him away
In the corners of my mind
For some better time
Cause there were adult things to do

And I forgot the sword fights
The dragon flights
White furry funny friends

I forgot the wonder and curiosity
And that all that was lost to me
Could be regained

But still I stuffed it away
For dull adult things
For pale redundant dreams
Until I was too tired
And that part had expired
From all the forgetting

And if that child
Could see me now
That little boy
Oh boy would he be ****** at me
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