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I'VE LOST TRACK OF MY FRIENDS
they get abortions and tell me years later
then disappear into medieval video games
I see pictures of what they eat but don't know how they feel
when they call me heartbroken they have to give a lot of backstory
they don't drink anymore but they're eating meat again
they have group sex with their neighbors every weekend
they've entered the gritty street-punk world I step over on the way to my bank
they married the guy we used to make fun of
they got banned from their book club
and left their wife for their life coach
the charity they started wasn't a charity at all
their house fire is being investigated as arson
I read their vindictive post before it's deleted
we play phone tag for a year
flinging emojis at each other
when we meet up we remember completely different things
we can't get back to that place where we needed no one else
their kids are like who is that?
MY EYES ARE CLOSED AS I WRITE THIS
Im rememverung learning how to typr in seventh grade
In computers class
Writing ofofofo and fjfjfjf
Copyoiing the board or screen
Me and Craig figured out how to writer eachother letters in rhe computer
And find them and read hem at the start of everu class
It was the first romance of my life
It didn't feel like romance
It was a few years before email
Computers was taught by a weird man with a curly grey mullet who smelled liek alcohol
No one took him serious;ly
He barely spoke but sometimes yelled when people talked during class
Every day there were more of the same ecercises
Dododod lelelel sususus
it didn't have to be that boirng but it was
I didn't realice I'd be doing it everyday
While my husband vacuums ants downstairs
Mourning and hating the ants
Fretting about our tax return
It IS like the game of life we played in people's base,emts
Plastic souls stuck in a van
The game was right!
I earn below the "teacher's salary"
But my house is nice
Itslike I picked the house when I was ten
And the husband when I was 11
Im listening to Mozart
I know I mention him a lot
it helps trick me into beliving I'm writing a masterpiece
I'm topless too
But you knew that
This isthe only way we can really talk
In the nowhere computer mansion
Ewhere Craig and I used to send each other letters
Which were mostly about what was going onin the NBA
I was the one writing more of the letters
Because he had to do the lesson
And write fffkkk
Lllldddd
Because he had class first
And I had it after lunch
I would copy and paste his file
And then write miy letter to him
Riffing just like this
ALIEN AT THE PARTY
it looked human enough that I thought of it as male
but seemed deeply uncool
robotic, pleased with itself
its head swiveled on its long neck
its hair nearly touching its shoulders
it singled me out with its wet eyes
and began asking riddles
proving a language ability superior to mine
like me, it found humans conventional
and their lives common and boring
it showed me where it slept—
a dark capsule hidden from the sun
it began kissing my nipples over my shirt
like I...could be attracted...to an alien...
I thought skeptically
my blood pounding through my body
when it put its fingers in me
it felt at first like being prodded by a doctor
then there was a violent whooshing in my ears
my soul raced up a spiral staircase
an inner door opened
revealing wilderness
I felt pressure in my ears
as the alien transmitted his standards of beauty
you might assume he was hot for technology
but this was the opposite—
operas, Renaissance painting
fresh bread
a teenager's journey away from their family
I don't need the alien, I thought
returning to the party
tangled in the past
blind to the future
ungracefully lurching into obscurity
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