we were almost there,
i promised these were the best bagels
in manhattan
but instead of an everything with a schmear of scallion,
toasted,
we were greeted with a wells fargo.

”i should’ve looked it up,” i said,
and so i rerouted us to 6th to go to murray’s instead.
again, i didn’t look it up but thankfully
the murray’s was still there.

a lesson of coming back to a place,
not to take a place for granted,
what was once there may no longer be there,
some have gone, and some remain.

“i really wanted a toasted bagel,” i said
as i bit into my everything with a schmear of scallion,
untoasted.

just kidding.
this isn’t a britney spears song,

but i did used to think i knew more than i actually did
or do.

peculiarly pretending i had an ‘open mind’
when really i definitely—and defiantly—dared to dream
dared to believe
that i had the only answer.

“that’s just what it means
to be a tormented teenager,” you say
(an especially stubborn one at that,) i think.

but i used to think
that my answers were the answers,
and open to learning just meant open to expanding my beliefs
appreciating what confirmed my conscious convictions.

and leaving no room for anything else

i still think
i am still convicted
but i at least try to be a little more open—if i have learned anything
in my life,
it’s that there’s always something i don’t know waiting behind a corner.

until one day
in a year
or two
when I am scrolling through my notes
and i see one
titled
’note to self’.

opened out of curiosity,
naturally.

what’s written makes me chuckle,
or makes me nostalgic,
or I furrow my brow,
thinking “what the fuck was I talking about,”
hating that I can’t remember.

i move on quickly,
the note to self fading back into the distance,
until one day
in a week
or a month
or two
when I am scrolling through my notes
and I see one titled
’note to self’'.

i don’t know what I was looking for
when i typed your name into my gmail search bar.

a playlist you sent me,
scans from when you cleaned out
your grandmother’s attic,

me begging for closure.

i’m usually better at preserving
a digital footprint,
a memory

i must’ve gotten rid of it
whatever i was looking for
in a haze of desperation.

desperation to forget
to ‘forgive’
(or feigning to forgive)
to release this chapter.

but now, longing for
some connection
a distant artifact
a reminder of what was,

but i typed your name in my gmail search bar
and i was relieved when nothing came up,
when i typed your name in my gmail search bar.

i do not rhyme
(i guess unless i do)
i do not pine
(i guess unless it’s you).

i am not on the verge of heartbreak
i am not filled with endless hope
my pride is not yours to take
even at the bottom of my rope.

i am not internal conflict
waiting for what i don’t possess
i refuse to follow that script
i refuse to settle for less.

i am not a love song
dreaming of sunsets of pink and red and orange,
i am not a love song
unless—
no, wait
until—
oh no.

i am swirling and i am falling
and i am pining and yearning
and waiting and thinking
and
and
shit.

i am still not a love song
even though i’ve fallen in love,
giving up structure
and the rules i have for myself,
letting the walls fall and crash down,
like an explosion we couldn’t prepare for,
the turmoil has hit
and my stomach in knots,
and i had been doing so well until i stopped doing so well.

how did this happen?

clinging to order
really an act of self-preservation,
because you can’t get hurt if you don’t love in the first place,
and if you don’t get hurt there is no reason for that love song,
and so i ignore the cracks in my foundation,
and keep going,
until it catches up with me.

i am not a love song—
though, maybe in some ways i am.

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she never wore them (this feels like an important detail)
but rather I found them in her closet
wrapped in plastic
tags included.

i paused while cleaning out her closet
taking some sweaters and tops
a bag
a pair of sweatpants to sleep in
a wool coat (with some moth holes)

but underwear?
cotton bikini briefs?
is this the type of thing
one should take from
their late grandmother’s closet?

if not me then who?

i took six pairs
one white
two beige
two black
and one in lilac.

they’re not a brand I’ve ever heard of
but they’ve become my favorite.
maybe, partially at least, because they did belong
to my late grandmother

but i’m not sure that i’m that sentimental
and they are good underwear
on their own.

though they belonged
to my late grandmother
they show enough skin
that you wouldn’t mistake them for granny panties
if
you didn’t already know
they belonged to my late grandmother.

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a large GMC pickup truck drives by
though I do not know which type—
i do not know my pickup trucks.

the truck maroon,
the tires huge,
and purple lights near the wheels,

you say to me, “custom job”.

the truck blasting country music
(which is, admittedly, a bit too cliché for our tastes),
the bass heavy,
louder than we thought possible—
this seems to confirm your hypothesis that this is in fact a custom job.

“i didn’t know country music had bass like that,” i said.

“it makes me want to outlaw country music,” you replied.

i chuckled, agreeing, though feeling guilty for that
as i’m not one to yuck someone’s yum
(or whatever the saying is).

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an act an adult might look at too practically
to a child though,
it feels like an impossible task,
one santa may not even be worthy of.

the perception, a metaphor on its own—
what’s here one day may be gone another
before you know it.

but the metaphor is lost;
too naïve for an adult to see it that way,
subway station posters change, after all.
and a child unable to see the metaphor
perhaps because they are the metaphor?

the posters change,
the days move on,
one day, you realize this is just someone’s job and not an act of magic.

gone is the magic,
gone is the belly button in the american beauty poster,
gone is the metaphor,
gone is the wonder.

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and it feels meta to write about writing
(though i’ve done it before)
but i can attempt to answer.

when i speak,
my thoughts move faster than my mouth
while at the same time,
my mouth moves faster than my thoughts.

if that doesn’t make sense, i know, it doesn’t, i agree
but it happens, and it means i sometimes
come up with great ideas
while having a chat;
ideas i didn’t know i had in me.

and sometimes
it means i put my foot in my mouth
or say something i didn’t quite mean.

and sometimes
i lose my train of thought
and i need to take a pause i don’t want to take,
which often leads me to say something i didn’t mean to or want to say.

and sometimes
i can’t find the words,
only to think of them later when replaying a conversation back in my head—
for better or worse.

when i write, the same thing happens.
my fingers move faster than my thoughts
and my thoughts move faster
than my fingers.

but when i write, it’s something that makes sense
it’s something that works,
my fingers and thoughts catching each other like a net at the bottom of a trapeze.

working beautifully together, intertwining at the exact right moments.

if i come up with a great idea i write it down,
and if i say write something that would put my proverbial foot in my mouth
i delete it
(or at least i save it somewhere, a thought for myself, and no one else)

and if i lose my train of thought
or when i can’t find the words
i can sit and think
or
i can keep writing until the thought comes out
or i find the words, eventually.

and sometimes the words that precede have an impact
i couldn’t have imagined
or written myself
until i wrote them myself.

so i write.

i can’t get away without speaking
from a practical sense, at least.

and while in a practical sense
i can get away without writing,
i can’t get away without writing
or else i fear
i’d never quite find the words
never understand
my thoughts,
this world,
my self.

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i waved and walked up to her
getting closer to the smell of smoke
that reminded me of being in my 20s
standing against a brick wall
cigarette in hand—
a different time

leather jacket, doc martens
and a bauhaus tee
the band, not the school

"gropius fan?" i remarked,
mistaking her shirt for the school
not the band

she stared at me blankly
and then smiled
"oh i don't listen to them, i thrifted this"

Thanks for stopping by. To continue to support my work, you can read more of my poetry, subscribe to my newsletter, buy me a coffee or leave me a tip.

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