1 by matt nelson
Image by Ryder Ripps
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CHAPTER 1: You forced the edge to awaken the engines. |
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Sorry I didn’t mention this before but
I can’t help but to think back to the B-cut of the car inside of me my when of leaving it and you with you in the driver seat, guide book under your Jordan 3s wondering whether you can get away A pure no hug vehicular transaction balanced by seatbelts bent over an awkward yellow Like that color yellow which screams for sleep with no lemon no salt rim imagine that solvent Goodbye afternoon So that’s what I really think about: About how fast departure is possible, how you absolutely have to want what’s different than what I want Although this is me thinking for you so obviously not true so obviously fuck me Mark said the bests in life are second person plurals First comes the tear Think about the last time you read a poem that cried really broke down and wetted the bed, went for the sniffle on the crushed curve of a lurid curtain Whenever I see the word cry or tears or wail or weep there’s an involuntary and unencumbered scoff like a dolphin jumping ship before the ticket takers ask, How did you get on without a ticket But I should give myself a break a tear break which is redundant read all over Walking around Manhattan I feel inhuman and quiet and it makes me want to lick self-addressed envelopes with postage stamps showing a forest losing its hair Has anyone seen lately in neon blocks over Time Square *GOOD TIMES ARE HERE AND ALSO AHEAD* ? I didn’t think so That is why I am not what everybody else is and what I potentially could be is hard to touch and I’m not saying I’m not everybody but you are My body is a cardboard house built on the fake business presidents give to each other when they crash international hot tub conventions pretending to be entrepreneurs in the spa world interested only in high-functioning abbreviations The F.U.C., the K.T.H.A., the T.S.H.O.T. Is crying really that bad? Why does everybody scoff? If I snap my wrists is that the same as letting my eyes spill built stolen images? What about the bit when it gets stuck ahead of its snowed-in future? I want to see it now You should know I’m crying I’m not telling you to cry or to scoff or that it sounds like a trout rubbing its scales off after a bad date It is not a statement of truth you can prove like I was born on a Tuesday This is snot in my nose and snot that has left my nose since I’ve left Mark’s first class mail embrace (He got out of car in case you were wondering by why would you because duh, he’s Mark and so is the situation) I try to remember when it was exactly that I was planning ahead to this moment of release How happy I was then (can you still say happy in a poem?) Happy just to walk the streets with other cardboard houses on three wheels talking about Mike and his heavy-weight title where every one of our titles come from We can’t hold this daylight and we didn’t make the streets but nighttime has a key card to the hotel pool room where we all cry underwater with LED fashion goggles lighting up our indeterminate but extremely loving parties Tell me where you got your shoes. Tell me more about how you were already in a cloud when the rain came Tell me why you teach your friends how to swim Tell me about merch tent ghosts Tell me to pronounce miniscule better Tell me the time you danced above yourself and tattooed the face of the club onto your leg Tell me everything you take out of your pockets Tell me your favorite stop sign, your favorite lamp post, your favorite emoji combination Tell me the difference between door knobs and hand shakes Tell me about soccer parties and data plans and one hitters saved from cousins in college Tell me about your family’s backyard Tell me how to dig through sleep in a dog bed And for that, II’ll tell you why the roof is the best place to kiss why the wind is curved just so why I scar easier than I break I’ll tell you the secret final location of the [Q.E.D.] And why it is that we see light bulbs under every umbrella |
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CHAPTER 2: it’s hard to get across the truth. Not in any movie, no top lock combination of hair, clothes, shoes, nose, or goggles. |
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When love is like a full moon
I thought, while pointing, to point at it is to make it true. There is, there it is, an expected, navigable, trace on the blackboard. There she, there it is now, (such confusing) is and there’s it, the shame is (twist), and there is, she is and here, her here I found you she found me I found you I found me I found you I found me |
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MATT NELSON is co-founder of mellow pages. read his previous work in shabby dollhouse, the brooklyn rail, and a big wind. or shave his beard.
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