Wanted* (read the three day old paper):
yourself, position effective immediately, pay negotiable

Being in the job market for longer than I’d care to admit, I applied.
I could be a yourself.
I hoped I wouldn’t have to sit in a cubicle.
(I knew I could though, if it came right down to it).

I wore Roots sweatpants to the job interview,
It’s quirky, I thought, I am *just doing me.
I envisioned my power animal: that vastly underrated emoji
(You know the one; he’s coy as ****).
I was also coy as ****.
Or as coy as I could ******* feel in pants whose proud purpose was to make their wearer perspire.

I bet NO ONE had thought of this.

Turns out everyone had thought of it.
****…

Needless to say, I didn’t get the position; the yourself life wasn’t for me.
So I applied elsewhere.
Somewhere far away from that whole embarrassing sweatpant fiasco.

I made notes of docking posts
pointing out to murky reflections
of tourists that didn’t have time
for a souvenir mug or a picture
with a black trumpeter content with his brass,
and nothing else, blowing life into the seagull
sky, making the clouds pop and drop spray-
mist jazz, which accompanied his trumpet
with a gentle washboard scrape.
He beat his heel to the thousand pin-drops
of passerby earrings, crab sweatpant draw-
strings, and trawl nets dissolving into the sea.
Baltimore filled the margins
of a travel notebook alongside
pencil sketches of the Aquarium,
Prufrockian split claws
wrapped in algae bandages,
that homeless man weakly thumbing
through a pocket bible, the 32
cents wearing sea salt jackets,
and my cold girlfriend pulling on patron
sweaters in an art museum closet.
But it’s all a gimmick.
It’s $22 crab cakes
and paint-splatter-printed
sweatshirts that say New York
or D.C. or Everything on a Disposable
Kodak Camera.

Tired of the idea, I threw the page
over the edge, hoping to drown
it in green, but I never heard it hit
the water. I braced myself on a life
ring rack, leaned over,
and watched it settle into a natural
barge of dead leaves and orange peels
while sea foam circled
it like a bed skirt that’s only
noticed for the few seconds spent stripping
down before going to sleep
just to wake up to rain on the Royal Sonesta,
kids racing down the hall, the obligatory
alarm clock,
and the black trumpeter’s groove
four floors down.

my internal therapist is telling me to not write this poem
to not dwell on damaged thoughts, there's no fixing them, dear.
so maybe not.
maybe i'm not writing this poem to try to fix my broken thoughts
maybe i just want peace maybe i am hurting and writing this poem is the only way i know how to wade through the swamp of pain you've thrown me in
two years ago this week, i was getting ready to see my sister marry her best friend
i was bright eyed, had a mane of hair i couldn't tame, excited about life
i was joking with some new friends i'd made about one of them crashing the wedding
i was about to meet Anxiety for the first time
now here i am, shorter hair, sitting with my laptop perched upon sweatpant clad, starved, legs, my fingers not moving fast enough over the keys, i'm tired.
Anxiety and I have taken our relationship to the next level and he visits me often, particularly at night when I'm thinking about you
Anxiety gets jealous, punishes me, forces me to think about your words while suffocating me
i'm tired
i'm afraid that lies about me still flood your mind and i can't change that
i want to talk to you, have a conversation, ask you why
i've apologised and still i will say i am sorry because i am
why do you loathe me so much
i've had people tell me to get over myself, over you, over the situation and i'm trying
but i've never had someone do what you did to me and i'm hurting still this pain i wonder, did you intentionally do it to bring me down?
you've must've known what with my history of attention seeking self harming downward spiral
i never did it for attention
i've taken to numbing myself, last night i dug around my art supplies box for the set of extra blades my sister in law gave me for my pencil sharpener for christmas
i'm not sharpening anything, there isn't anything to sharpen
my friend tells me not to do it, that it doesn't do me any good long term
because that's what i'm dealing with right? long term pain?
sleepless nights and anxiety attacks
sadness i can't escape from
saying no when my niece asks me to play sorry willow i'm tired i'm so tired
so maybe my blades won't bring me long term salvation
maybe two years in therapy won't help but that's okay i was in there anyway for the big mess of my life that you told me to get over
maybe i don't care and am going to treat my thighs as cutting boards because temporary sanity is sanity and i've lost my head as it is
my therapist on wednesday will tell me to forget you
and i will try
and i will fail
i don't know why i'm writing this poem
i'm a crazy believer in better things
how this poem will make things better is beyond me but hey
sue me for trying to see hope in the little things
how artless of me
the artist in me, pain(ting)
-
-z.z

The clock radio predates my birth by at
Least five years
It must .
Looking like that.
On Sunday morning
The alarm is still set :
And goes off before the sun . Before time
Deserves to exist

Smothered in heaps of (hopefully )clean
Laundry on top of the bureau

The Sunday morning art program slurs
Words between the tangles of sweatpant
Legs
And
Unpaired socks

(Socks I am not responsible for)

/

My mother used to have an old radio in
The bathroom that must have been of a
Similar vintage.
It was a beach radio:black with a brown
Grill - thin red line across the white strip of
The station numbers,

Pushing around the little plastic wheels on the
Side,the red line never lined up quite right .

It hung from a long black drywall *****
From its
Squared off handle on the wallpaper behind the toilet

I think it may have belonged to my
Grandfather
We never took it to the beach,
I’m not sure what he did with it.

He may of just sat out with it on the back fire escape in August.
By the spindly dogwood tree that I remember my nana picking white blossoms from in spring.

The blossoms still come each year , I’m
Sure.
(I don’t know who lives there now)

My radio wakes me up on Sunday
Mornings .
My mother’s radio would play softly at night around the corner from my room.
Sometimes she would shut it off in the early hours of the morning -
When she went to bed.
Other times it would just play



///

She laid curled up on his bed with a blanket haphazardly covering her.  He had mindlessly thrown it in top of her, after she complained that it was cold, instead of taking the hint and moving to cuddle her. Instead of saying something bratty, she resolved to forget about it and shoved her face back into the feed of badly cropped stolen memes.

The room was otherwise filled with a comfortable silence, except for her occasional giggles, probably due to watching silly cat videos on Instagram as she always does, and his yelling at his friend Spider on Xbox. Or was it Lizard? It was some odd name of that sort.

While spending time together, there was never a need for them to constantly talk or look at one another, even though she couldn't help but steal glances at him from time to time. Even in their own two worlds, they were still able to find comfort merely in the other's presence.  

Her calf was closely nestled against his sweatpant-covered thigh, that being the only physical contact between them, at the time. Yet, he would periodically let go of his controller, reaching down with his right hand to squeeze her ankle. Before refocusing his attention back onto the screen, his thumb would stroke her skin.  A simple, reassuring touch to let her know he was still there and hadn't forgotten about her.

After a while, however, she grew dissatisfied with the brief touches he offered her, so she shifted closer to him, lifting her thigh over his. Content with this new position, she went back to her phone, resuming the YouTube video, an episode of a food series called "It's Alive!" She had recently discovered it and had already watched many, if not all, of the episodes currently posted.

All the while she was caught up in the countless spices and ingredients being thrown around, he had already caught onto her tactics.  Even though she didn't realize it herself, she was slowly positioning herself in a way where he would be forced to pay attention to her.  When she shifted onto him more the second time, he barely spared her a glance, with an amused expression on his face.