Two Truths and a Lie
Joni Mitchell doesn’t want to be called confessional
She thinks Anne Sexton was a dirty liar
Who couldn’t even be honest with her shrink
But I don’t think the point of poetry is to be honest
And I don’t think the point of life is to shrink
I don’t know if there’s even a point to honesty
Like if I change my mind five times in an hour
That doesn’t exactly make me sane
But it also doesn’t make me a liar
I don’t know why I said I had a process
I don’t have a process
I don’t even have a savings account
I don’t know where I’m going to be in five weeks
Let alone five years
And I can’t stop writing terrible poetry
And telling terrible lies
When another one of my favourite artists gets sober
I don’t think oh that’s great for them
Instead I think another one bites the dust
And then I pour myself another drink
I don’t believe in radical tenderness
I don’t believe in unabashed joy
I don’t believe in anything at all
I used to want to write beautifully
Now I just get called brave for saying fuck in all my poems
It’s pathetic that I’m writing
From this meta-confessional point of view
This poem is objectively bad
And it will be called out as such by the editors
But I can’t stop posting cringe
On the internet of life
It’s an addiction
Like irony-poisoned golf or infinite scroll
Expensively scented candles or autofictional masturbation
I’m not good at poetry
But I’m also not good at anything else
My therapist says there’s nothing wrong with me
But she’ll prescribe the antidepressants if I want them
Leaving 404
look me in the monitor and tell me I’m here
in your tie-dye shirt drenched in ultraviolet
you can’t see but I’m buffered and untethering
and I can’t do it on demand but I pretend I can
because simultaneity’s nice and you tell me that
you love me when you do. it was paradise really
in your supersonic home & now the Amazon
is just asphalt and dust but I guess we’ll always
have the Berkshires & Laurie Anderson &
Adam Duritz & everyone who thinks this poem
is about them it’s not but it’s fun to pretend
I’m not split or spectral or possibly incapable
of love. take a number on your way in.
we’ll call you when it’s your turn.
High Resolution
I drink enough so it feels good
or like nothing I can’t remember
can’t stop opening the orifice
the horned wound the pulpy rotten cavity
sometimes, pretend to be dead
lie there like you’re dead. doesn’t matter
if you’re dead they’ll do it anyway
dead girl is insatiable she’ll swallow herself
whole she’ll swallow you too she’ll drink every last drop
& say thank you for the privilege
I’ll dissociate like one of your French philosophers
right there in the shower on the bed on the floor
surrounded by wolves licking their lips stroking their
until the Censor blacks it out
Lately I’ve Been Crying
with gratitude at the small things
like when my Experian credit report
tells me I’m exceptional
& I almost believe it
christening new lashes with castor oil
& cradling the rice like someone’s baby
crawling up the stairs & kissing
your best friend in a dream
things happen
& I let them
driving perfectly straight
down American roads that go on &
on forever & ever amen
lying perfectly straight
on latex floors lacerating
my emptiness afterbirthing angels
in apostatic snow
lately I just think about
pearlescent pinks
cooked & unspooling
over me in the shower again
& again it’s a lot less effort
to close my eyes & think about
everything I’ve ever thought about
than actually having to try it for myself
& besides nothing feels good
except strip mall margaritas
& rum punch by the jukebox
bookmarking our delusion
bloodletting our thirst beneath the supermarket moon
hey I love you
I’m sorry about everything
