you have freshly dyed hair and a pocketful of bills, so Tonight
You Are Dancing. this is what friday nights are for, right? it’s for
work parties, empty tabs, sleazy ex-colleagues who won’t
take the hint, soundtracked by thudding mainstream doof
oof.
alcohol softens noise and increases the urge to pee - they should
name a drink after this, call it the seal-breaker, joke about
ethnic girls and standards and size… what’s in this cocktail?
it’s called a dealbreaker
we do better beats in our youtube party
ACTUALLY, fridays are for sleepovers
playing dj with lights until we’re epileptic
with glee. if you subtract the vowels from a band
you get something that sounds pretty good
on stereo. why all this free verse? - oh right,
we’re word-jamming, swapping molezines and adding
phrases slack from tension strung out too far for too long
“intricate pieces of heartbreak” and the anatomy of cows.
a shapeless curiosity, lazy with rage
here is a list of dealbreakers
here is a list of indifference
here is a list of friends you can’t look in the eye
searching the top shelf for mason jars
“why grandma, what long reach you have!”
all the better to keep you at arm’s length, deer
you’ll only kiss if you think someone’s love of music is sincere
but it’s never enough. forget romance, Tonight You Are Dancing
later we make tea and watch SHOWGIRLS,
nod approval of breasts and sexual tension & the misfit
of european film techniques on lonely american landscapes.
it passes the bechdel test and we fall asleep slurring…
“the strength of crazy women.”
life and art, life and art.
last night you wrote a poem on social media
today X sends a tweet so stupid
it conflicts with the silent
rules of online courtesy.
and finding a phrase so perfect you scrawled it
on your mirror - “Cassandra: that’s you incarnate,
sweating the details of a future bliss
as if you could control it”
the terror of someone knowing you
completely
drives everything you do
& everyone away
a million milling people at the rally
from school, from music, from hustle
even a girl from work you once kissed during beats,
still hungover from that party you flaked on.
there are things you still believe in. there are things
that still bring people together.
the rainbow train gifting chapped lips, sunburnt skin,
raspberry slushies and a syncopated rally-cry.
you’re counting signs and leg-hairs and the fixed hand
on your candy watch,
ready to turn around and walk away.
