Twentysomething Emo
looks at teenage Emo
and laughs.

It was something purely aesthetic,
with brain chemicals churning
and wiry bodies yearning

under the guise of straightened bangs
and perched beanies,

skin tight black outfits
parading the dusty grounds of Warped Tour.

Twentysomething Emo is the real deal--
lamenting over high school salad days
because real life is so unsure,

college degrees and full-time jobs,
watching friends and lovers come and go in our lives.

After a long day of responsibility and groveling,
we drive home (or somewhere just as distant)
with our emo anthems blaring through the speakers.

We scream the songs back at them,
truly feeling the words for the first time.

I'm the same age as William Beckett, Adam Lazzara, and Pete Wentz
when they wrote these songs--
and though the bangs have receded
and the jeans have slackened,

I am perpetually Emo.

The unrequited love and the nearing distant future--
it's come too soon.

I hope thirtysomething Emo looks back
on my meandering twentysomething Emo
and laughs--

as he plays the melancholy tunes pouring out of the speakers
with some more of life fading away in his rearview mirror.

This town gets smaller every day.

leaving attitudes
in the same pocket as ambition
where the loneliest secrets
want to be free for a change

it's when the calls stop coming
when the drive ceases to exist
and all that's left is the same regret
which lingered in a few dreams
and promised never to come alive

the communication (or lack thereof)
wisdom carried from the greatest generation
to empathize with today's struggle:
getting the job
getting the girl
finding a home
to fill with love

to be labeled as lazy
or unwilling to commit
it's easy to brush off
unidentified trouble
basking in welcomed fear
searching the crevices of hands
for answers which don't exist

if you can't follow the trajectory
so tempted to change to “won't”
when the future is always several steps ahead
and knees have fallen to the ground
either to pray or to plead

anger to a silent God
or shouting to a quiet self
unsure how to respond
how to take this further
when life threatens to suffer
to **** starry eyes
and stop ample arms

whispers disguised as screams
looking to cast the pointed finger
when the easy excuses
forever turn their backs in shame

I walk down the street
and there is just this radiating *** appeal
in everything I could possibly do—
even in the way the rubber on my shoes
grips the hot cement sidewalks.
(I realize that may not sound too ****—
at all;
But I’m confident that in this moment
someone is drooling over that step.)
Unmistakable swagger.
A few more moments of this
untouchable cool
& Morgan Freeman will be narrating
my every thought and movement.*

At least
that’s the way you make me feel.

How dare you.

You have the audacity to become
something so earmarked in my
little,
inconsequential,
twentysomething life.

You have the guts
to learn all of those
hidden quirks.
The same ones I relentlessly
and rightfully
keep to myself.

You have the nerve
to become the reason
why I smile for days,
go to bed alone
(but beaming)
& wake up with a larger reason
to grab life by its
big
metaphorical
*****
until it sees things my way.  

& I’m aware that
“*****” may not be the most
poetic of terms—
but the last time I checked,
poetry didn’t have
a **** definition

The last time I checked—
neither do we.

So how dare you
build me up into the only person
I can stand to be,
with only the promise
of an impending expiration date?

Then again,
there is something strangely
haunting
& remarkable
revolving around
the anticipation of that sort of heartache.

I’m tired of the polite
****** boy. Sick of the agreeable,
pristine, nonburping, nonfarting
carnival setpiece toy. **** the
manic-depressive psychopathic
angel. The timid, submissive
sleepover homeboy, the blow-up-doll
for rent, the 3am *******
***-dumpster hyphenate.

Imagine me, a child.
The gayboy anyperson
willing to go the extra mile.
I assure you,
this wasn’t the dream.
How you push my buttons
like a vending machine.

I ******* to you
because you’re sad.
I come lick you
because we’re okay.
Always okay. The word.
The sound of the word.
The utterance of the word.
The utter lie of the word.
Okay?
Maybe to you I’m
a toilet-trained twentysomething
who’ll receive and dispense
on command.

Maybe we are done.
Maybe I can cry in peace.
Maybe you still have a way
of curdling the milk
in my stomach from far away.

I pray one day
to **** you out.