Make this the best it can be
what I want to do instead
is watch movies
that speak to our time:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—
the wrong one,
Lost in Translation—
the ache of longing for connection,
The NeverEnding Story—
power of the imagination,
Finding Forrester—
the birth of the artist.

I want to listen to records
that feel like winter and loss:
Bon Iver—For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver
Radiohead—In Rainbows,
spinning on your turntable.

Then recite poetry:
Bukowski’s Raw With Love,
Mary Oliver’s Blackwater Pond,
Yeats’ When You Are Old.

I want to mull over Dostoevsky
and Kafka, whispering,
“I miss you deeply,
unfathomably, senselessly,
terribly.”

Fuck those half-ass trips.
In spring,
a weekend in New York City—
the greatest city in the world—
then San Francisco
to see old friends,
Hawaii to relax in heaven,
Japan for sushi, the city, chicken,
and cold beer,
South Korea - soups and soju,
Thailand to explore—then rest,
time to dress down
in flowy linen,
and cheap sunglasses,
like those polaroids
of our parents

And after that?
A whole lot of nothing,
waiting for it all to end
again.

-

we never cooked a meal,
never recorded a song,
never painted a bookshelf,
never adopted a cat,
never made life.
you ate my ass
that isn’t leverage

-

In the summer,
maybe we’ll stargaze,
just turn off our phones,
and run away