Junk Read online

  Frenching with a mouthful of M&M’s dunno if I feel polluted

  or into it—the lights go low across the multiplex Temple of

  canoodling and Junk food A collision of corn dog bites and

  chunky salsa to achieve a spiritual escape velocity Why am I in

  this cup holder? B/c yr bubbly, dummy But I feel squeeze cheese

  uneasy In Faggotland coupling is at best delicate precarious &

  rarefied Eggshells At worst, a snipe hunt Love in the time of

  climate change Should I be nervous? No, it’s too dark in here

  for that There’s light and a screen & our moon faces, reflecting

  This is an epic, dummy Get yr muse Hail Janet Jackson, patron

  saint of Eternal Utility but Selective Relevance I whisper Feedback,

  feedback into the bedding Usually when you gag it’s bc

  something needs to come out So it strikes me as funny ha ha

  funny to gag while trying to stuff someone’s whole Junk in

  Everything that can cross I am crossing: eyes arms shoulders

  Back to bed, come back here The air is heavy feathers in midsummer,

  literally and metaphorically in my foul apt above the

  chicken slaughterhouse where we wheeze awake Yr bangs look

  real perf n coiffed n strangely I smell like horror burgers n you

  smell like lavender doves and all the best stuff Yr comforting,

  like getting fucked on an empty stomach Funny but a lil obvious

  like a wrecking ball factory going out of business I feel held up,

  like yr examining my x-rays and nothing’s broken I’m like why

  does this meaty yuppie man want me to wake up in his arms

  but Janet says leave yr worries behind I’m trying to close my

  eyes I’m trying to close my eyes I’m tryin to close my Shudder

  yr forehead against mine tectonic San Andreas in the West

  Village karaoke piano gay bar whatever I still can’t close my

  eyes I just spent $13 dollars on this margarita Black Velvet is

  loud and extra theater kid in the world around us This is where

  you come to lose yrself and This is where I feel extra jagged

  Junk not immediately useful but I’m still someone I can’t stop

  lookin at ppl’s Junk generally so u can imagine how hard it is

  at the gym I try to keep eye contact but yr orbs soft n breathless

  glow their orblight all over me—we’re seeing subarctic

  farming in Alaska for the first time Green in the hazel country:

  that’s what I’d call the color of yr eyes Squeeze an hour before

  my weekend in Philly just to chill n make out wink-wink and

  get yelled at by a jerk squad cruising past us in a royal blue rust

  bucket in Queens n thinkin about you brings a rush of warmth

  like a stiff drink Settles over my rocky butte Interest sparked

  like a neon pink band sweatshirt A tabby-fat heart I’m a brick

  in stadium lights like so fantastically broken but I’m gummy-

  peachy keen Junk gets a bad rap because capitalism Junk isn’t

  garbage It’s not outlived its purpose—Junk awaits its next life

  Google viral vs bacterial, then try to sleep I had a tweet once

  called “Netflix & Pills” that went sort of viral and you said you

  were in a viral video dancing on a patio with a group of gay

  norms (of course) on Fire Island (of course) in a thong (of

  course) and it made me want to punch a pigeon Ppl buck like

  fuck when they feel their self-esteem is under siege Shame is

  isolating I write “very specific baths” What kind of grey scrutiny

  do you cast into the mirror? And if being pinned down by light,

  the squirming My roommate found an unused juicer at his job

  Two story thrift store between a methadone clinic and wild

  mushroom truffle oil chicken tikka masala pizza In common

  thrift store parlance, black leather vegans—as in the verb to

  become vegan—if it’s a gift My first question is “can you put ice

  cream in that and still call it juice?” I unzip yr pants with my

  teeth in the denim jacket afternoon and I’m as surprised as you

  Hoover maneuvers The benefit of sober knob-slobbing Bottom

  lip only bleeds a little bit and it’s hard to imagine zippers do

  much else but reveal yr Junk Cookie dough brownie vanilla

  frozen yogurt swirl wipe Whenever we finish n I stare directly

  at you, you act like I spilled something Jump up as if to get a

  paper towel and hang in the kitchen evading my peepers Is this

  what you’d call “Hart Crane-ing” Is saying “goose flesh” instead

  of “goose bumps” evil incarnate Is it wrong 2 call yr partner a

  mirror in the sense that when we’re together I’m with myself

  in a way I can’t escape A train whistles in the distance I court

  containment An octopus hugged in a box but you say being seen

  is a prison We’re buffering pretty hard all over each other I am

  face 2 face with the perfectly tweezed eyebrows of anxiety You

  can’t curate yrself with abandon Read: to look at carefully The

  covers up to our shoulders we lie in the couchbed of our

  preconceptions, separating I steady walk back to the land

  where I dunno u Took you long fuckin enough Now I’m stupid

  and sugar-free and frothing The only thing harder than writing

  is quitting candy And the only thing harder than quitting candy

  is walking all day and buttering into bed in my body Now that

  I’m fully inhabiting my cement maybe I’m closer to the sacral

  joy of thinking into my ribcage? Convention says a book shd be

  this long but I’m only interested in writing as long as you want

  to read in one sitting My aura is a strawberry shortcake dessert

  bar and the popular American corn snack Funyuns My safe

  word is Go to hell Katy Perry pronounced “Catty” I’m writing a

  sitcom about butts and counting called Number Two The tagline

  is “turn the other cheek” Most times I’m a maniac, other

  times losing an arm wrestling match Sitting for longer and

  longer but paying less and less attention, evolutionarily Is a

  load easier to swallow with a “we” We’ve known for centuries

  that time is a bossy bird curdler Protrude from the green and

  calling it “bud” Sometimes you need to read something more

  than once My co-pilot is Mary Jane The theme is harmony of

  a gradient Let’s hold hands and walk to the water taxi in

  matching tank tops but we call the tank tops “wedges” and the

  wedges are a Chipwich and our Cherry Cokes are a summer

  afternoon where we can’t do anything but lean into the grass

  at that carousel park in Dumbo with the lap of the river and

  the dollhouse of lower Manhattan face-fucking us while we

  neck and, later, face-fuck The days are burnt packets of fake

  sugar in Faggotland and Sundays are the blurry worst I’m

  takin notes in therapy like “be more in the moment” Everyone,

  they say, is trying to quiet the buzz but here in the white waves

  in the ring of yr absence I chafe to chatter Leap into a scream

  of swans rubbing their swan cocks against the water’s ass

  Starving Junk in the sticky soda of my boy me
at Spit on that

  rock hard narrative make it glisten fuck oh fuck My head a

  rabid Sega frantic 16-bit divination My hands huge Venn

  diagrams: the middle is where I miss you filling me Honey, in

  the raw It’s odd to feel someone slip away drilling their Junk

  inside you The sky is still and shy and surfing News Flash—

  Predictions are insecure but here r the rainbow road’s possible

  paths: Cum delta Choke my loneliness daddy More graphics

  more resolution more jagged chin cliffs more anarchist sex

  dolls more jewel teeth more tears on the pizza more hungry

  boy somewhere in the noise machine The fat Junk wags against

  my throat Junk is charming in the hallows Dude leans into me

  like cigs half asleep you know how some ppl are workaholics

  Well I’m an alcoholic Today’s jaw lick click clocks sops the

  syrup leaking from my mores I mean pores One more time

  plz can I ride plz just one more time I have the tightest pinkest

  purse Sorry clutch Let’s play a game called sociopath, or

  gay man Let’s bottomless brunch Let’s Let’s Let’s petal bagel

  w/ strawberry tofu cream cheese toasted snickerdoodle

  smoothie fuchsia purée adrenaline hole bellinis I’ll eat it daddy

  baby I’m the opposite of a foodie I’m like a junkie Don’t blame

  the Junk for being discarded Hey do you do you remember in

  the free-from-winter but not-quite-spring after poet’s brunch

  with Molly Amy Chelsea and Sarah Jean we went traipsing thru

  slushy Williamsburg and wound up at that store Junk where u

  bought all those old matchbooks for a “living room conversation

  piece” I grabbed a June Jordan near the door as we entered the

  labyrinth and read random gripping lines while you lifted dusty

  old china wiry broken radios n hopeful cassettes We got to the

  counter you took the book from me tossed it with the matches

  and said “my treat” Well I told u I’d write it into something I am

  in the Junk shop of my 30s A weird thing happens when u enter:

  nothing You look up to a sea of button ups and cuffed jeans and

  casual pomade flip-dos Objectively, my father is a tribal chairman

  and I’m his speech writer I started one on the back of a bill

  for therapy where Dr. John tells me Go with the first glass pearl

  or arrowhead or whatever Says I can’t be wrong I like to read

  poems one at a time Word for word at first Try to strip them

  and see their bones before, eventually dressing them in my

  clothes Smellin of my orange Hermes toilet water and then

  BOOM June Jordan reminds me to call my mother Receive the

  beached bottle Crash it against some pop rocks So dizzy I swear

  to god I’d smash my face against the mirror if I wasn’t on my

  way to Shake Shack again OK so then finally I write my version

  of the poem Replacing the unimportant gods w/ peanut butter

  cookies and “Apollo” with “Shake Shack” or “fracking” which

  my mom says caused another earthquake in Oklahoma n nearly

  reaches the end of her sentence b4 breaking into the chorus

  from “New York, New York” Apollo is just a cracked statue &

  we’re moving on to the wildfires in Indonesia Bobby Flay’s

  rum punch Whoever thought up heaven must also think we’re

  really gullible These days no one can stand up in a movie

  theater w/o me thinkin it’s all over White men open fire My

  brain is a kiddie pool filled with pinwheels & Oreo dust Ppl are

  too busy callin themselves “poets” to notice the canary died I

  have only ever gotten better at being my color, w/ the banded

  lines and the tremors and the blues The smell of pumpkin pie

  cooling Chomping thru a whole baked brie wheel We go deep

  & we don’t get no sleep Everyone is reading The Life-Changing

  Magic of Tidying Up—basically an anti-junk manifesto but it

  has a point You should be accountable to what you touch The

  sound of Styrofoam rubbing on Styrofoam Is it possible to

  manifest desire I mean to consider yrself fly as fuck without

  another’s recognition Touch all this Junk Are hands made for

  anything but touchin yr body, is a ponder for almost every

  Janet jam Consumed with being “acceptable” Dummy, that’s

  never been in yr vocabulary Yr thinking of “exceptional,” duh It’s

  cool, they sound similar The older I get the more people move

  to the city turn 26 fascinated by the wacky G train Holy shit,

  the birthday boy just puked The JMZ grinds its wheel teeth

  behind you Embarrassment is so scalding sometimes in a

  February freeze I remember the night you vomited on me after

  we’d made out just to warm up Self-hatred is a sweltering

  disease not cured by living in the pathogens at a mustache

  party The chunks dribble down yr glued-on Fu Manchu There

  is a kind of waltz to being that drunk But I’m getting into hero

  territory Everything new is just something to forget unless you

  still have the mustache to prove it San Loco’s “surprisingly

  addictive” sangria Terracotta breaking The engine of capitalism:

  dope, dicks, misc bullshit Junk is its accumulation Not as

  indistinct as “thing” not as dramatic as “trash” It’s important

  to value the Junk, Junk has the best stories Custard is like the

  most disgusting word I thought the point of seeing each other

  was to see each other How is being seen by me a bad thing?

  Dudes shd talk less generally and def talk less about music Yr

  reputation recedes you I call it aggressive mediocrity “Comfort”

  food is a perky euphemism “Oblivion” food may be a touch too

  negs Why aren’t more things horchata I can’t see exactly where

  the binder clips begin and the half used Best Buy gift cards end

  Is it that sight is possessive? The way “to see” is also to

  apprehend? It can’t be that sight is isolating It’s like taking a dip

  With the water on all ends you are suddenly your whole entire

  skin The only thing funner than a Junk shop is wig shopping

  Wigs are possibly the only thing I’d find suspect at the Junk

  shop It’s hard to trust an old wig Day 17: I found freshwater

  and food The water was in a fountain at the gym The food was

  in a protein shake container, also at the gym Sadness makes me

  punchy, but I’m a lover A boy w/ the clear skin of a plant-based

  diet and whose sharp edges put the pro in protein has started

  saying what’s up to me in the locker room I’ve always wondered

  why ppl use religion to justify their prejudices cos shouldn’t yr

  religion be challenging you to undo them? And then I meet gym

  ppl and I’m like eyeroll Maybe religion is just a place where ppl

  fortify their fears I look at him then look at me in disbelief He’s

  like the morning and I’m like crud underneath a toenail My

  stupid waterbed body Shame is such a shutdown sucking feta

  from an olive’s soul Oh he def has an edible butt says someone

  out of the void which means some butts are edible and some

  butts are inedible Incredible Do I have an edible butt Edible

  butt Edible butt That’s pardon the expression bullshit Edible is

  the birthright of all butts I hat
e gay guys so much There’s this

  idea that only some bodies are worthy of desire and the others

  don’t even exist And from the guts of my anger, this glowing I

  dunno I’ve stopped counting the days The anger snowdrifts So

  many ways of seeing that reveal and when the anger gets

  replaced by empathy and I feel you, it’s almost sad—letting go

  of our hazel country The impotence of Junk Birthday cake

  scented candle The bartender getting too drunk on 5 dollar

  margarita cheeseburger happy hour Sirens call attention

  toward tragedy Land is the trauma of lava The islands

  squeezing from the deep Fall came quick Beirut Baghdad Paris

  Mizzou Yemen Turkey Niger Calais Allepo Egypt Chicago

  Indonesia Radiation from Fukushima is in fact all over the

  Pacific Open carry men show up at protests An Arab guy in

  Astoria beaten in his bodega by white ppl tellin him Go Home