by Tommy Pico
Little Mermaid made me a packrat The whittling process A
training program in settling back into yr miracle What remains
criminally un-let-go-of Don’t worry abt Junk It literally doesn’t
worry abt you It can’t Excuse me? I was here on the first date I
am the pin slid thru the boutonniere I am the b&w strip of photo
booth first kiss I am the small stuffed leopard you held all the
way thru the Natural History museum Your time wd mean
nothing without me Nostalgia is the original second life It might
as well be a construct Living on an imagined construct over
the course of these pages I can understand how someone could
sustain faith in something (divinity) that literally doesn’t exist
And how less real is this I am the polaroid of just before you
pulled his pants down to the b&w tiled bathroom floor at the
album release party I am the pack of matches from the third
date first fuck when u thought Trophy Bar, remember this I am
the pumpkin tote bag you won together at Halloween trivia
night, after the tie-breaking walk-off to “Nasty” by Janet Jackson
I am I am I am Let’s blow this popsicle stand So the popsicle
stand leaned its head back and sighed like a house settling and
undid its pants The fight made a possibility of us ending
descend Summer shifting uncovered a fault line September 11
made us afraid But I’m from an NDN reservation, raised that
way The rest was aftershocks You pulling slowly away Pay
(attention [to me]) The pleasure of lifting yr shoulders Sit
down and push yr soles into the ground I’m the plane ticket
bookmark Jet Blue Portland 2014 trip I’m the business card from
the New York Times reporter on yr flight to Bogotá I’m the flyer
for the zine benefit show when you worked the merch table and
gave him a handy behind the bar Running into the poem like
cold waves in our fat Far Rockaways n thrash til homeostatic
Waves create a craving for Dr Pepper Somethin sweet to cut
the salty somersaults and deft kelp evasion and hrs n hrs
coaxing friends farther in, but they never want to go as far out
as us do they? Past the point of wave-beaten Past the point of
even being subject to waves Where the huddled ocean cups
you and blows, like soup Smooth pie crust like a desert island
Shots of expensive silver tequila reminiscent of beach sand
The proven psychological tide of butter Spectral dynamics n
guitar riffs Ambulance sirens Pretty much any guy over 6'2
who all eventually say move on Especially with tattoo pain and
nerve death before a root canal or calls from the rez A note to
say someone else is in the hospital or passed on Sudden 98
degree days Dash out to meet yr gentleman jetty n forget to
signal on the freeway The SUV next to you crashes into the
divider and rolls and you had summer school with him But to a
lesser extent, how abt kneelin close to shore or sitting down in
small sharp waves The breakers fill yr mouth like salty chocolates
They said we wouldn’t last, we had to prove them wrong
Suddenly we’re not 2gether 4ever It’s been almost 2 months
since I looked across a table in Union Square Park w/ the city
beginning, reluctantly, 2 shed its summer skin Low key pee
smell The table an odd bright green You started as a character
in a poem It felt sly, meeting you that first time, and only a little
silly falling into a ditch I mean a word that rhymes with glove
Almost two cranberry months since I said what you expected
Lychee martini Popping a boner in the ocean Sunscreen smell
on the morning sheets I wd be lying if I said I missed u Or that
I made the wrong choice I’m not sure I ever gloved you It was
wrong of me to say it To build a monolith of expectation They
called the club in Orlando “Pulse” bc the walls, painted white,
would pulse with whatever color the lights were that night
Imagine the splattered white walls In the silence that followed,
the only noise was cellphones Desperate family and friends
wailing praying against their bottomless suspicion It’s all I cd
think about that day You were a sanctuary for my grief The
words felt easy bobbing down the river of my voice A human
shaped mate of devastation A tether I may have believed my
glove for you was real but only really for that day All night I
watch headlights sweep across your ceiling The empire rises
Conspiring The sky is moody The land is not much better The
news is not looking good IT’s NOT lookiNg Good Brexit Le Pen
Duterte Putin The reasons to be afraid accumulate I’m thinkin
of a claw foot bathtub and cracked wallpaper in a scary movie
trailer A paper doll dress in the black vacuum of space Casually
google what wd happen to a body without a space suit Cold is
the currency of the universe Warm is the outlier, folks Deep
freeze in the ongoing bleak Beings of a pumping heart that, like
everything, goes cold How cd I not be obsessed with hugging
the core of this world and fisting engines of light Making fire
and swaddling ourselves in skins I don’t always use the most
vigorous verbs But I did go on a date tonight where at the end
we got frisky and he said (fingers on the seam of my ass crack)
that he actually has a boyfriend and they’re not open He just
still likes going on dates Dates! Literally the worst part of a
romantic enterprise Cold starship boldly blasting into new
lands and new civilizations powered by a crystal of the imagination
Abstract infused by an image and a refusal to explain
a fuel source No wonder they were post money in TNG
Wherever we go, needs feed and I find it harder and harder to
believe benevolence is the thing Thousands of Yazidi girls
missing and plastic fills the ocean’s mouth and the cursive of
yr name still occupies the canopy of my throat Fuel, the underpinning
What fires your gd engine Rigor, mortis Cold as
unmoving or unmoved The opposite of music Warm in the
cold universe Molten, forming A rock becoming magma
becoming lava becoming land Land, the trauma of lava Lava
the lamp of the ancestors and later a cheeky find in the Junk
shop and rising in our living room Living groom Just bc nothin
cares doesn’t mean it lacks meaning What is the point of
curiosity but a train rolling past the spot where the Donner
party feasted n then go on a four hour Wikipedia downward
spiral I’m the closest thing to a mime parade I whisper, home
late tiptoeing down the creaky hallway tryin not to wake my
roommates Nice chicken parm, sluts, I say to my fingers at
lunch Dissociation is evacuating from the inside I just know
we’ll have a good time Junk: a relief map of yr traumas Dipping
yr whole arm into the bin of sunflower seeds I’m in my Shonda
Rhimes Year of Yes and so far it’s pretty freak Gave a beej to a
logger in town for a football game at his hostel Almost wrote
hostile The old-fashioned way, as in I met him at a bar after
lingering eye contact No apps Told him I was writing this poem
Flush wit
h success after only eating half the cheeseburger for
dinner For the first time in my life it wasn’t no burger or four
burgers Full on Rocky situation He said he was flattered every
time his gf’s gay friends grabbed his beer can Bacon-wrapped-date
flavored Doritos The artifice of order Predictability,
measured time, present wrapping Order, Order, Pockets of
Order Or, Durham I dumped a boy from Raleigh today The
baton of Junk The dance whirls Whorls War Tortle So what if I
doggy-paddled into the ocean to crap Whales shit in the ocean
all the time Cut to mall dressing room thousand outfits montage
Ignorance as a tool to revive the feeling of doing somethin
new Junk has 2 b the poem of our time Pointless accumulation
Clinging to a million denials Why do you need an assault rifle?
What if radioactive bears Buying in bulk Afraid of forgetting
that party in 2007 when Chantal shouted JAMIROQUAI IS
HOLDING THIS PARTY TOGETHER!!!! Junk is the garbage ppl
keep Didn’t they tell you I’m a meteorologist but for people
What’s that called? Psychic? Psychic side chick In maths,
“arbitrary” is a thing without specific value Quite the Junkery
The world, all of its rock formations and space missions and
presidents and religious phobias and fashions fossils All of it
has always seemed so arbitrary to me, bc to survive this long
into an occupation feels sometimes so arbitrary to be And
then sometimes so divine Who else cd survive but my line It’s
true, your Junk won’t save you from a tsunami, but I’m descended
from a group whose culture history language gods
cosmology calendar stories government gait was capital O
Obliterated I’ll stop writing this when it stops happening So
when I “get” anything it’s hard to let go Resisting death for
generations, I want to make the opposite of death No excuse
for a vanilla bean tapioca ball attitude Ever bought a McFlurry
n shouted YR DEAD INSIDE but yew were pointing a finger at
yrself and, horrified, yew screamed Ran home but halfway
home yew forgot what yew were doing and bought a pair of
sneaker boots at DSW or just me? That’s what I thought Could
this be flip The whole body of it Could this mean nothing Have I
led you out here just to leave you howling at the moon What
I’m trying to say is this is a poem of vibrant inconsequence
Picture it: Sicily, 1923 Whoops I mean Thanksgiving dinner w/
family in town from the rez at a midtown resto, blackberries
in the whipped cream while the Washington Redskins blaze on
TV behind us Or last month when police clashed with water
protectors Tore down encampments and elders and children
On the same day milk-toned Oregonian militiamen r acquitted
after armed occupation of land On the same day the Cleveland
Indians r in the World Series during American Indian Heritage
Month Before, in the past, this world discovered war Berlin
Afghanistan Terracotta Slob War War War on the front of every
newspaper In the back of every noggin Sludgy nympho gummy
bear humps the Haribo package—Body monuments and light
cigarettes Diet Cherry Dr Pepper and a bag of Hot Cheetos
Cholera epidemic in Haiti where there is no immunity because
Cholera was like the only thing that never befell Hispaniola
Rasp is sassy but Junk is punk Static in its intention Static in
its emotional release Static in the city Buzz of disbelief White-
house domes every convo We are a part of the rhythm nation I
get this teaching gig and being an authority figure, let me tell u,
is such an emperor-has-no-clothes situation Like being onstage
Very, “I’m more afraid of you than you are of me” Sharon Jones
glides on about being an injured prison guard on Rikers Island
Terry Gross asks, “How were you able to convince the prisoners
that you were strong enough and focused enough to do the job
and keep them in line?” Sharon says “It’s the look in my eyes . . .
You could not show fear, and that’s one thing I didn’t show” Try
it on Saying “pilfer is a fun word” enough times makes it true,
like petticoat coffee cakes and the invention of blue raspberry
Dummy, stay on message I never intended to be a professional
NDN but this time of year every1 wants to know do I celebrate
Thanksgiving? Janet is still with us, despite the retreat of
common sense, the retreat of fall, the retreat of Sharon Jones
and David Bowie and Prince and Vanity and Leonard Cohen
Phife Dawg and George Michael Do you remember what it was
like to feel warmth from the sun? It’s odd, right? For light to
only be light and not also heat The sun conceals things too, in
its glare There’s nothing but me and you in this book even tho
sometimes I have B.O. and my credit card gets stolen and I
need a new pair of gloves It makes sense that it took me the
whole year before I could entertain talking to u again Back in
our crystalline season I was right 2 suspect worth in yr grace
You aren’t evil for not loving me Maybe it’s a retrograde sitch
Look into the sky in yearning to be someplace else When you
gobble gobble so fast it’s like dinner never happened & even
now conjuring you feels like a diversion but yr the reason I
started writing this in the first place Michelle Tea says when
you write about someone, you have to be able to look them in
the face Your faces are many Your shoulders are different
colors Sometimes yr EXTREMELY tall and sometimes only very
tall Sometimes yr face is golden smooth and cut like an English
garden Sometimes yr face is lunar, bright chalk white n
cratered Sometimes we were together for six weeks Sometimes
eight months Sometimes I don’t know yet We sit still in our
gurgle sacks waiting for each other to change Waiting for our
stomachs 2 glow pink again in the gallery night But we dimmed
Each time we dimmed differently but we dimmed we did The
Metro Link light rail SEPTA MTBA Amtrak Bolt Bus Megabus
the Peter Pan the MAX Metro North MARC Train Charm City
Circulator The opposite of escape A firming in the firmament
The couch An airbed Yoga mat and sometimes just the floor I
just want to close a door I’m masturbating in the bathroom like
a common teen Man punches woman at bar Man screams at
woman in diner Man yells at woman in a hijab in Queens “Man,
man, menace” is like a weird game of “duck, duck, goose” The
hollow taste on the inside of yr mouth when you haven’t eaten
all day Make out with boys named Patrick n Gerald n Martin n
David and suck on his finger at the bar with the empty blue fish
tank and rando lotto ball cage Drink Shiners in his backyard
Threesomes are awkward af mostly bc everyone is wasted so
it feels like heavy turbulence on the twin bed in this liver I
mean sliver of apartment Double stuffed and hating it Last
Resort Lagunitas Goose Island The shot special Two more
packages of Reese’s Old-Fashioned Narragansett and Jameson
on the rocks Whatever insulates you from the calving face of
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this gd world When has sympathy for the oppressor ever
worked for us? The poem and reading the poem become each
other Echolocation The sound of a shape Fog is a dopey metaphor
The news leaps through me like a talking dog—unreal,
no? I don’t know where the feeling is or what to do with it n
spent most of the day w/ my eyes squeezed shut but then I
went for a run to force feed myself some endorphins Wrote a
few couplets and texted all my friends and went to the rally
and marched bc it felt restorative to blast night with my voice
box and stomp the sidewalks and the streets with friends for
twenty blocks in all directions Whole blocks of avenues in all
directions swell w/ peeps shouting MUSLIM RIGHTS ARE
HUMAN RIGHTS and MY BODY MY CHOICE and BLACK LIVES