poem 1

for some reason, the petsmart guy opens up to me. he liked his life better last year. everything’s turned out bad. his mom suddenly got mean. his fish has started hiding out at the bottom of the tank, inside the treasure chest. he barely sees the little guy these days.

an ice cream truck drives by outside. i ask the guy when his shift ends. i give him my number. i tell him if he wants to, we can meet for dinner. he says that could be fun.

it’s hot and the air is wet. i don’t have a lot of money left. i don’t have a job. i haven’t had a job for a couple of months. i got two hundred dollars for cleaning out a lady’s garage. there’s always too much saliva in my mouth. i have to spit onto the sidewalk constantly. my arms are itchy and so are my feet. yesterday you looked at my feet and said yup that’s a rash. i asked what kind of rash. you said i don’t know the different kinds of rash. i said can we look it up? you said i don’t know what i would look up, i don’t know how to describe a rash really. i said i don’t either.

i remember last weekend when we found a pond by a gravel road while i was helping you doordash. we got out of the car and walked to the edge of the water. you took off your shoes and went in. i stayed on the grass. then you twisted and jerked. something brushed my leg, you said. i didn’t say anything at the time, but i actually saw it happen and i saw what it was. it was a watersnake.

now i’m dating the petsmart guy. his life is weird and depressing. most of his time is spent working at petsmart or playing video games. all the games he plays are completely incomprehensible. when i look at the tv my eyes slide right off. i try to get him to explain them to me, and he tries to. but he’s bad at explaining and i’m bad at understanding. we both get frustrated.

my days are filled with yellow light. in the morning i lie in bed and look backward out the window at an oak tree. there’s a framed photo of my dog above the window. i can see it’s pretty badly tilted to one side.

you and i walk under an overpass. together, we have about a hundred dollars. rent is due in ten days. we can probably wait another fifteen before our landlord tells us to pay it. that’s fine. i’ll get a job at the bookstore again. they never have enough people. we decide to hold hands. we lean against the concrete wall of the overpass. cars whiz by. the wall hums and hums.

the petsmart guy and i go to six flags. i think he can already tell it’s over. he’s already counting me as part of the bummer year. last year was better. we break up in line for the batman. we get on the batman. the petsmart guy rides the whole thing with his eyes closed. he’s screaming the whole time. when we get off, he almost trips over a railing. i try to help him stand upright, but he stops me. on the car ride home, he seems happy. he barely says anything, except when he makes a turn onto my street, he tells me he’s never had a red light at that intersection. but he has before, i remember it. but i don’t tell him that.