This Will Be On the Test

Over a month in nothing

but rocks and sand

and shivering then

sweating, fever dreams

for people who wouldn’t

stick around and no one

came looking, it was a long trip,

people had families

and this was his thing,

training, practice

for the final: abandonment

and thirst.   

Books I Read in Highschool

I read a book with

hell as sprawl

like suburbs or

Houston expanding

like space and everyone

moved further and further away

they complained

about public transit

there were no conversations

except self-talk

arguments about neighbors

who lived out-of-sight

and I thought it was clever

and creative but

now I have coffee dates

scheduled a month in advance

with college friends

who will be moving soon to

states with reasonable

property values to

buy homes and

have kids whose names

I’ll forget with faces

seen occasionally

on screens flickering

in a dark but affordable

studio apartment that
isn’t a metaphor.

All Grown-Up

No one ever told me,

that’s a lie (probably),

but it allows some anger

to disturb the lethargy.

People were always droning

on about growing-up.

Warnings I didn’t hear.

I listened to myself, and ska.

I didn’t envision: crying bored,

staring over plain oatmeal

at ugly house-plants, hour-long

walks looping around

gentrifying neighborhoods

waiting for the sun to finish,

an early bedtime and another bowl
of oatmeal to start it again.  

-->

Sahara

David Attenborough tells me

the Sahara is expanding. There

used to be giraffes and elephants.

Red paintings now. David thumbs

through a thesaurus, desolate:

bleak, empty, forsaken, lonely,

bare. But there is life. Spiders.

A snake. Ants on stilts.

They only come out at night.

Satellite pictures. David flips

to the back, vast: immense,

expansive, massive, endless.

Wind hisses over blank dunes.

Now David tells me about climate change.

The futility of action, drying up of hope,
play lullaby as I slip into an afternoon nap.

Malaise: Jimmy Carter Was Right

A Hyundai—best in class,

used, some version of

off-white, mostly dependable

but starting to rattle.

Kraft dinner with basil

and oregano, microwaved

broccoli, and beer leftover 

from a party left early.

A beta fish named

Joe--for the gorilla,

an inside joke with

a friend who move away.

A Moleskine notebook filling 

with doodles of robots, sad 

thoughts dressed in Sunday

best, and unread reminders:

call Mom,

change oil,

book appointment
with counselor.