when you pulled up in that broken lawn chair like a gayer John Wayne,
I thought for a second that this might still be viable. But there is not enough
lukewarm beer or buzzy fumbles in the dark to make this work.
If we shout into the murk beyond the diamond-wire mesh, we will hear
the drunks next door shout back across the grainy night, so pleased
to be in the company of liars just like us.
I am afraid this night not because we are over but because
we don’t see stars in the city quite as bright, and my love for them
cannot become my love for you. The vast eternal of green-tipped streaks
and the half-dozen whizzing satellites that we mistake for temperate portents
cannot replace the things that fade, nor ever should. If someone would just please
turn off these lights a moment, we might see it for ourselves and spare
the ugly conversations that we covet at the end of crucial things.
Dip your feet in this dumb little pool with me. It’s not particularly clean,
but let the dust settle a moment. Sand, heavy, will fall to the bottom.
Do not disturb it, not just yet. Tomorrow, we will walk towards the other,
six thousand five hundred and eighty five miles,
then the same distance apart, wishing we were a little more perfectly wrong,
but we are not the artists we pretend to be in our imagination.
Tonight, mostly, I wish to sit in this dark with you,
drink the last Modelo in the icebox, and cry, if it comes to me.
I thought for a second that this might still be viable. But there is not enough
lukewarm beer or buzzy fumbles in the dark to make this work.
If we shout into the murk beyond the diamond-wire mesh, we will hear
the drunks next door shout back across the grainy night, so pleased
to be in the company of liars just like us.
I am afraid this night not because we are over but because
we don’t see stars in the city quite as bright, and my love for them
cannot become my love for you. The vast eternal of green-tipped streaks
and the half-dozen whizzing satellites that we mistake for temperate portents
cannot replace the things that fade, nor ever should. If someone would just please
turn off these lights a moment, we might see it for ourselves and spare
the ugly conversations that we covet at the end of crucial things.
Dip your feet in this dumb little pool with me. It’s not particularly clean,
but let the dust settle a moment. Sand, heavy, will fall to the bottom.
Do not disturb it, not just yet. Tomorrow, we will walk towards the other,
six thousand five hundred and eighty five miles,
then the same distance apart, wishing we were a little more perfectly wrong,
but we are not the artists we pretend to be in our imagination.
Tonight, mostly, I wish to sit in this dark with you,
drink the last Modelo in the icebox, and cry, if it comes to me.
Adrian Belmes is a trans, reasonably depressed, Jewish-Ukrainian poet and book artist residing currently in San Diego. He is editor in chief of Badlung Press, and his chapbook, "this town and everyone in it", was published by Ghost City Press. You can find him at adrianbelmes.com or @adrian_belmes.