Every morning I went
to the coffee shop across the street
from my house,
because I didn’t work.

For every resume I typed out,
I wrote a poem,
in order to keep me from
sending you a text marked with a white flag.

A skull was concealed in the flag,
as a watermark. The sun made
love to a cluster of clouds,
while I rolled a cigarette using strands of your brown hair.

I opened my wallet
and took out a photograph
of me and you from the booth
that one night when you made a fire out of caskets.

Your face had been glowing with warmth,
as if you had drained all the light out of the sun,
and had taken a shower in its yellow glow.
Your eyes were bright with a hopeful future.

Then you grew your hair longer,
and pulled it over your eyes,
like twin pirate eye-patches.
But you’d said you weren’t blind, just indifferent.

Today I wrote another poem on a countertop,
in the coffee shop,
and bandaged the wounds you gave me
when you told me you never cared about me.

One of the baristas wearing a brown apron
and a blue baseball cap, gave me poems
from James Tate. And as I read
“The Lost Pilot” it started to drizzle from the ceiling.

I wasn’t sure if it was rain pouring on my head,
and on my poems, or if it were melted ice-cream,
rich and thick in its texture,
Our first date we stole vanilla ice-cream from a Giant.

You stuffed it in your golden purse,
and ran through the doors, as a fat security guard
chased after you. Then, you hopped
into my blue Volkswagen and we sped off.

I was perfectly fine with being the getaway driver,
you dipped a bent spoon
into the plastic container and scooped out
the ice-cream. You ate it hungrily.

And after I took a bite,
we went to the park and swung on the swings,
coasting up and down in the air,
vanilla stained on the front of our black shirts.

Back at the coffee shop, I played the keyboard
in the bathroom because I was shy,
shy of you finding out,
because you love piano melodies.

And I guessed I wanted to play
for myself for a change. I played
“My Cherri Amour,” and drank gin
from a flask, until every key looked like a playing card.

After I played the song,
I left the coffee shop
,went home, and painted our last conversation,
using words from a newspaper.

“It’s over.”
“You were never right for me.”
“You’re not mature enough for a relationship.”
“I never want to see your face at Peets.”

Peets was the coffee shop we would always go to,
every morning, rain or shine,
rested or exhausted, and
I remember you would read my poems.

You read my poems as if they were
Daphne Loves Derby song-lyrics. Last night
you texted me that my poems
sounded like rushed and convoluted emails.

After that I blocked you on everything,
from social media to your number.
I hoped we would grow weak with joy,
and grey with age.

Words, whether from your lips,
or a text shattered the trust
I gave you, as if it were
my social security code.

In front of the bathroom mirror,
I took a pink eraser and rubbed it
against my foreheard,
to remove the wrinkles.

Each wrinkle represented a time
when you had failed me, or
when I had failed you. Our failures
were weights that I had balanced in my memory.

Kaufman would be pleased
of my progress. I wrote a sculpture
with glass and tears
at my desk, alone in my clean, well-lighted room.  

And then I took the sculpture,
and buried it
in my backyard, right next to the grave
of my old and weak self.

I smoked a cigarette using
sad memories as rolling papers.
As the paper burned slowly, I
let the smoke fill my heart.

Because my lungs were tired,
tired from breathing, tired from
living for you. Because you
are not the only thing that matters anymore.

Certain people see things
differently.
Now why do we do that?
Is it a lack of closeness?
Maybe communication?

I have questions
for the pastor/Pete Campbell clone
at Immanuel Bible Church.
Like,
why does your sermon feel derivative?

How often are songs played in-between the sermons?
Are these songs a necessary transition?
A slideshow?
A distraction?
I still don’t know how to sing,

or keep tempo with claps.
Pavlov’s dog is hated,
by you.
Do you hate the dog?
Or do you hate the results of the experiment?

Is science,
a deceitful ex-girlfriend to you?
Someone you don’t trust?
If so I can understand you.
But I don’t understand you.

Because you have your truth.
And I have my truth.
Peter said to me truth is an abstraction.
I’m telling you your truth is yours.
But,
cup your hand and press it against the wall of my truth,
listen and you will hear a man and a man talking to each other.

Their naked bodies are sealed by an anchor that you have never seen.
The first man leans forward
and
kisses the second man on the nape of his neck.
Then, the second man kisses the first man on the left part of his chest.

Should I stop?
Am I scaring you?
Do you want to watch a blonde girl stick her tongue down another blonde girl’s throat,
Until her breath cannot escape and float and trail off her lips.
Like the dove white spaceships that launch into the expanding horizon of darkness.

Am I making sense?
I want you to follow my words.
I want you to respect me.
The first man is talking. The second man has his arms folded behind his back like a
Korean man, and he’s looking out the window, gazing at the dove white spaceship
Propelling into the incredible shadow, the one that is swallowing up everything we love.

Pete Campbell is the shadow.
Do you care about POV?
Are you bothered when another person is talking about a person in the third person?
I consider your opinion,

Even when you don’t consider mine.
Does that make me weak?
“Television turn off the mind,”
that is a quote that shot out of your mouth,
like an arrow from the Green Arrow dressed in Cupid’s apparel.

Or is that the flesh?
Carnal.
I digress.
Tangents happen.
I was rude. I am sorry,

And I know sorry is a word,
And you do not value words.
But I am a poet.
Words are my salmon and red wine
Rewind the cassette.

A girl with flowing, brown locks
opens the novella of her world to you,
as you both lay on her bed, facing each other,
her elbows and your elbows touching,
her hands tucked beneath her cheek,
your hands tucked beneath your cheek,
as though she and you are about to
lick each other’s souls,
nibble each other’s hearts,
and fornicate each other’s minds.
Your eyes are targets.
Her eyes are targets.
This is the South and you both open carry.
She inserts the mag. You insert the mag.
She ***** the piece. You **** the piece.
She aims. You aim.
You look at her targets
You then see her face.
Green-eyed Hepburn
You close your eyes.
She’s your confidante,
your neighbor, your best friend.
You open your eyes.
Your hand shakes, your fingers sweat.
She itches the trigger.
You put the gun down.

This large square ceiling hanging above my body
is a blank canvass that needs to be painted
with bold strokes and bright colors,
with smooth orange and ocean blue,
rapid pummeling rhythms dictating tone and mood.

I have a pen in my hand that squirts out black bird ink,
but to me it’s a stone sculpting tool that carves deep inside my imagination,
and scoops up newborn thoughts before they disintegrate
when I wake up from my daydream.

So I climb on top of a cocktail chair with malleable
aluminum legs and I attempt to shape the dry whiteness
into something colorful and beautiful.

I want to create beauty because I don’t enjoy surfing the channels of Comcast digital entertainment
having to paddle through the brainwashing
and the ******* and seaweed that washes up
on my hometown shore.

The waves are all the same across the television screen, I am desensitized and numb to the upper class Anglo-Saxons,
who mind-****** my favorite poets and Hip Hop musicians in the mouth, so that they cannot speak with

honesty
and
compassion.

I don’t wonder anymore why some prominent media-figures choke on the microphone; it’s because they have been force-fed
chicken-****
and injected with
snake venom.

That’s why I don’t take all my time of leisure resting back on a tan cushioned boogie-board, riding a cable channel that will not take me anywhere except for an escape from the loneliness of living alone, away from close family and good friends.

That’s why I prefer to sit below a yellow and red pinwheel umbrella and stretch my toes in the wet sand, I don’t even need a beach towel to lie on, and sometimes I just want to sink into the grainy sand
and
forget about time,
forget about love,
and
forget about my reason for being here.

But back to molding a new form of living; that top white wall takes up the majority of my apartment and I think it deserves to be drawn on, painted on, spread with posters of voluptuous artists and cool brooding actors.

A canvass needs to have flesh, just as a skeleton needs meat and skin. I stack my sandy tan sofa cushions one after the other on top of the cocktail chair and I reach up to brush long and wide strokes of bravery and euphoria.

The bristle-tips flicked up specks of green apple paint and sunk deep blotches of red heart into the ceiling.

I danced on top of the spongy sofa seats while they swayed to and fro, but I didn’t think of falling down, what is the point of thinking about

failure?

That will only impede progress and I’m not merely trying to fabricate an illusion to drape myself with a safety cloak. I wish I could have pranced and jumped on the wavering cushion tower,
but instead I begun to grow a look of seriousness and submerged myself into a pool of
focus
and
concentration.

Nonsensical imagery floated adrift from my mind and the energy pounced onto my fingertips and I started to write and draw, and draw and write. I popped a small remote from my pocket and made the stereo sing opera, followed by jazz, followed by something bluesy.

Those songs carried me into this calming state where nothing mattered except for the now kaleidoscopic landscapes and the spacemen with hypnotic eyes. I wasn’t jacked up on Columbian coffee beans, diet coca-cola caffeine, nor psychedelic highs and lows, I was just going with the current baby.

When the canoe is in in the river and you’re rowing with a chipped paddle and without a life-vest, don’t even try to make an adjustment when the water gets rocky and the water pushes you around like an elementary-school ***** bully.

You keep paddling and you don’t throw a rope onto a branch and feel the scene; go with the flow and travel down-stream,
because where you came from is long gone and there’s no point in wallowing and pleasuring yourself late at

night just

to feel better about your ****** life.

But, I don’t even want to think when I’m in an artsy mood, I just want peace, and if peace won’t come to my doorstep and will not call me back when I left five messages, then **** peace,
I’ll settle for a shot of cheap ***** and a scrunched-up cig.
I stop drawing and painting and writing
for a while and take a nice long gaze
at my chaotic collage and smile until the jester frowns.

In huge messy cursive were the words, “LOVE YOURSELF, DO NOT SHOW YOUR EMOTIONS AT A WHIM.”

I was now beginning to struggle to smile. This wasn’t easy to be so straight with yourself, I’m used to bending my back in the wrong way

                 and not accomplishing anything in the process.

You don’t want to be an Old Man
And think
Your problems will fly away
They might
For a day
An hour
A minute
A second
And then you’re alone.
I thought the pain would go away
But problems do not, they grow
Because each night
pills go through your mind
And you fly away instead.

Some years ago, on a Monday, I met Joyce at Whitlows.
I bonded with her over bourbon and cokes.
She wore a black dress; sloping V, open back
It clung to her thigh, as though her skin
Was coated in sweets: sugar, honey, syrup.
Her face shined under the light overhead:
Denim eyes, velvet lips, an upturned nose.
She went to G.W.; read Junot; rode thoroughbreds;
Spoke Arabic; ate okra; watched Kubrick.
At the foosball table, I touched her wrist. She touched my arm.
The next day, after coitus and coffee,
I went to my car and found a ticket.

You sit down at a desk, coffee in hand, and you try writing a joke for a humor magazine.

“Yesterday, my roommate Angie suggested that I should try being a male role model. And I totally would, but that would conflict with my dream of being a male fashion model. I have all the qualifications of being a model: I’m pretty tall, about 6 foot 3, I enjoy walking around with a constipated expression on my face, and since I’m Asian, I’ll look twenty-two years old for years to come. So ***** a 401 k and medical insurance, when my genetics will give me reliable job security.”

The sunlight hurts your eyes, the pencil point has dulled, and in the next room it reeks of boiled eggs and spoiled cream cheese. You won’t eat brunch for a month.

Angie watches TV on the couch in the living room, pours ***** into her glass of orange juice, spills a little bit of it on her jeans. Her sunglasses are black and make her look like John Lennon. Of course, she’s wearing a stone’s Tee, so you don’t bother to tell her what you think. Telecommuting has been her life for the past six months. She works as a consultant for Accenture and has traveled to Austin, San Diego, Brooklyn, even Miami. You’ve never been outside of Virginia.

Upstairs in your bedroom, you dress in a button-up: pretend you’re a 20’s something professional, instead of a 25-year-old going through a pseudo-quarter life crisis. Getting fired from the dealership wasn’t as big of a deal as losing out on seeing your coworker’s smile when you give them a donut from Krispy Kreme. When you’re in the bathroom, taking a number two, sometimes, you catch a glimpse of your old manager’s enthusiastic smile, and you feel like you’ve let him down.

Go out to the coffee shop on Main Street, sit by the window, scribble hearts on the margins of your notebook. Try writing another joke.

“Honestly any job is fine with me, but I'm a little afraid of going back into the workforce. The last couple of jobs I worked, happened to be with co-workers who ended up becoming my sister's boyfriends. My sister is in a pretty serious relationship now with a guy I used to work with at a tennis camp. So if I get hired and start working again, there's a very good chance that my sister could end up dating a guy who walks around in his underwear for a living,”

Google: starving artist. Consider the picture for the starving artist: straight, white, male. Ask yourself: why are the envelopes in the mail box, also always: straight, white mail. Golf-clap for the correlation created by your inner poet. Contemplate drinking wine during the day; red. Look for jobs on Indeed.com to pass the time.

“And if modeling doesn't work out and he ends up in a deep and dark depression. No worries, just make sure he eats excessively, and he'll be ready new career path as a sumo wrestler.”

Ask for a job application from the barista with the puppy-dog eyes. When you finish the app, intentionally smudge your handwriting to prevent employers from seeing your professional references. Your last six jobs ended in you getting kicked out; a world class record right? No one inside gives the impression that they want to talk to you. Crack your knuckles. Crack your back. As you casually take a drag from your cigarette next to the “NO-SMOKING” sign, wonder if it life would be different if you were Korean; Japanese; Chinese. Puppy-dog eyed barista bangs on the storefront window, mouths: put the cig out dude. Follow the instruction and feel guilt momentarily.

While you wait for the Wi-Fi homepage to load up, resist the urge to text Angie: how’s your day? Or: “Wanna read a joke I wrote?” Cold beads of water drip down the contour of your thumb; incidentally, nobody gives a **** about mundane detail like the one you just mentioned.

Ask the blue-scarf wearing girl if you can keep an eye out on your computer. She asks: sure, how long will you be gone? Don’t tell her you’re going to the bathroom to throw up last night’s combination of supreme pizza and several shots of Johnny Walker. Tell her: I need to wash my face. She nods and noticeably grins, as though she’s caught you doing something incredibly embarrassing.

Once in the bathroom, look into the mirror. Breathe: once, twice. Your hand starts shaking like saltshakers in a Ying-Yang twin’s music video. Stand over the toilet. Close your eyes before you dip your finger into your mouth. Refrain from thinking about her.

“The worst thing about driving in DC is having people call you out on slow driving. And then they see my face and they're like it’s an Asian thing. And I'm like no it's a speed camera thing. I tell my friends I don't think I'm a bad driver. And they tell me Mario kart doesn't count. I tell them I've never gotten a speeding ticket. And they say but you've been in four accidents. I say yeah but I'm golden in Mario Kart.”

You park your car in the driveway. Angie is sitting on a rocking chair and smoking a cigar. Radiohead plays from laptop speakers. Her eyes are puffy red and you wonder how long has she been sobbing for. Would laughter dry up her tears better than a box of Kleenex?  The grass sways. Cars pass by. And Angie pulls up a chair for you. Sit, ask her what’s wrong, and listen to her story. Wait for her to explain the situation, detail by detail, then tell her your best joke, and watch her face break out into a smile, as the smoke from her cigar vanishes into the air, a space opening up now between you and her.