& I’m not going to start now
the only kind of films I like are where a woman in a wig
tries to produce a male heir for her stoic husband
the only kind of music I like
is where a man with a long beard
whispers near a tree
oh no the handsome guy is trying to do comedy
oh no the polyamorous couple is taking a cooking class
the older I get the more I find
instagram to be an amazing place to watch
your camp friend’s fiancé wakeboard
poem I wrote after I realized no one talks about that time the lululemon employee murdered her coworker in the store
I don’t want to be your girlfriend
I just want to be a student of english literature
wandering home late drunk in autumn
and anyways I’m an awful roommate
I don’t recycle don’t repeat that
the other day
I was dry-swallowing my birth control pill
as I citi biked up the williamsburg bridge
and I was like okay…
I guess I am the voice of my generation
poem I wrote after I decided something was going on with the moon
a guy on the street
said I looked like I was studying
audio engineering in school
he told me he liked my outfit
he told me to have a cool day
I am googling how long a stroke lasts
poem I wrote after you ordered fried shrimp at the diner and I was like “gross” but really I was like “dang that sounds good”
I’m always horny
& looking for somewhere to charge my phone
The Paris Review came in the mail today
and I performed reading it
I can’t write if no one is watching
I can’t stop checking my pussy for weird bumps
one time I went to the doctor
and when she told me I’d gained 15 lbs
I was like that’s a lot and she was just like yeah…
modern love poem
I should think more about the government
but I just want you to tell me
that fucking me
is the end of the world
poem I wrote last night when I couldn’t go to sleep because there are no sheets on my bed because I perioded on my other sheets and cannot be bothered to put new ones on
I’m sorry I friended your fiancé on facebook
I just meant to look at his profile pictures
I was on my phone
I haven’t spoken to you in at least seven years
but you can’t get engaged to your personal trainer
and not have me stalk him
poem I wrote after I did the dishes in my apartment and was like…okay I’m in a play
my favorite sex position is
I’m splayed out on a canopy bed
silk sheets, it is raining
& my lover has just popped out
(braving the storm vibes)
to grab 2 kit kats
& a black cherry seltzer
people are addicted to being how they are
the first time I got fingered
was on a lawn chair
by a guy who said his favorite band
was Jason Mraz
*~life isn’t about the breaths you take but the moments that take your breath away~*
poem I wrote after experiencing an amazing hangover
scientists are still trying to figure out
what childhood event
caused me to be attracted to men
who wear baseball hats that are barely
on top of their head
one time my ex-boyfriend broke up with me and
when we got back together
we made out next to a fountain and he said
“you’ve gotten better at that” and I said “at kissing?”
and he said “yeah”
and I laughed and felt very bad
bodies are hard and mine is soft and often in the way
you can tell me you like it a million times
some days I will believe you
and some days I will not I think the worst thing
is when you think someone is your friend
and then they tell you
they love jogging
poem I wrote after I told you about my joie de vivre
I’m sorry I never saw your play
theatre is yelling at people to leave rooms and/or
begging people to stay in rooms
New York is cool because you get to wait in line
to walk over a puddle
poem I wrote after I got scolded at the whole foods for stealing a meatball from the salad bar
I used to get mad at my ex-boyfriend
whenever it took him too long
to plug in my iphone charger
turns out if you listen to Lovefool by the Cardigans
for three days on repeat
you will actually get my personality
I just overheard a guy in my uber pool admit to having
“low-key misogyny issues”
over the phone. at least
I can make myself cum with my hand
Lifehack!
poem I wrote after we enjoyed crying about how we can’t be together
no one’s ever been sad to leave Los Angeles
and I refuse to learn how to parallel park
one time I lied & said I wasn’t going to date anymore &
went to a definitely cool roof party &
had seven beers & ran around asking everyone
“who is that tall person and what is his deal?”
you can’t love someone else
until you love yourself JK
poem I wrote after calling someone a “darling of the scene”
I’m sorry I bailed
on the yoga booty ballet class we signed up for
I did not sleep well last night
and am still reeling from the time
I slept with someone who didn’t know
who Greta Gerwig is
poem I wrote after seeing that guy from project runway at the whole foods AGAIN
I’m sorry I didn’t text you back
about borrowing my adult-size tutu
for your sketch comedy show
I was on the L train trying to remember
how I knew the guy sitting
across from me turns out
it was from sex
poem I wrote after I read an article on why it is so hard to go up stairs
I just made eye contact with a stranger
while I burped
so loud for so long
while crossing the street like Frogger
the only video game I ever played was called
Mary Kate and Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall
it was fun to play because I could be thin
and blonde for a while
it would be nice to be thinner but
I have all the working parts
I don’t want to get hit by a car at all
poem I wrote after I called myself the taylor swift of comedy
I am listening to a spotify playlist called “indie brunch”
while brow
sing the wikipedia page for “murder”
one time I drank so much I woke up in the hospital
and I still had to go to spanish class
poem I wrote after a stranger on youtube said he wouldn’t fuck me with someone else’s cock
I just turned 25 yesterday
so now I am ¼ done with my life
I can’t decide if I should get a $20 cheeseburger
or save up to buy a microwave
I would eat anything for more twitter followers
I went to the opening day of whole foods williamsburg
they let me throw the first pitch
I slung an organic leek into the soft paw
of a gray-haired tween
it is amazing that things
are not constantly falling on our heads
especially in Brooklyn, New York,
where everyone in the world lives
poem I wrote after I ordered a waffle as a side dish
I think about the girls my boyfriend kissed
before he knew I existed more
than I think about my friends and family and
I can’t do a cartwheel
yesterday at rehearsal I told everyone
I could do the splits
and then ripped my urban outfitters pants in half
it was funny in a TV way but no one laughed
you say it is okay to be anxious
you say love is like a long worm
I think
I have a yeast infection
poem I wrote after I asked my personal trainer if he believed in god
last night I went to a concert
and a girl younger than me
was wearing a t-shirt that said
“suck my ass” and I felt old
I know I’m not actually old
but it’s fun to be like
haha I’m old
whenever I think someone looks cool I realize
they are just thin
jealousy is cool because it is like swallowing a house
that you just set on fire
poem I wrote after my therapist told me to have a drink
one time I misplaced a block
of cheddar cheese in my apartment
I wrote a facebook status about it
and it almost got a hundred likes
I found the block of cheese
45 minutes later on my bookshelf
I would read more if it were easier to hold a book up
while lying down they are too heavy
poem I wrote after I told you I was free bleeding at the improv show
I’m watching that catfish show on MTV
the host just told all the girls with eyeliner
that the person they have been sexting is fat
and now everyone is sad
one time I thought I was in love
because I was sad all the time
what if I wrote a poem about what love was lol
poem I wrote after you helped me assemble my new couch and then broke up with me on it
the body is elastic
and I don’t think it’s embarrassing
that you bought a hat.
the body is elastic
and I like to run when that
brian eno song plays
if it’s cold out
and I see the shape
of your name
on my phone.
the body is elastic
and love is boring but sex
is more of it and
your friend just
got one of those dogs that can’t breathe
but they keep making them
even though it’s like
a genetic thing?
anyways the point is I still love you
because I don’t know what you’re thinking
and because we refuse to talk about it
I remain in a good mood
because the performance hasn’t
ended and I’m an incredible actress
because I think so
and feel so much all the time
and when I tire of this
there will be more of it
you’re not the first
to give me a book
they haven’t read
love poem for my british lover
in a past life I was a tycoon smoking
a cigar and you were my wife. I’m sorry
I never took you to Paris. But tonight
at the casino you promise me we’ll stay
till 4 a.m. There’s an old man
in the corner sipping noodle soup
and you ask me what I love
about that. Back in New York
I eat and sleep fine. I’m sad
about many different colored things
I turn into a paste. If I’m honest
I felt more in love that time
the Orthodox Jew I was dating
ran away from me when we saw his friend
in line to see the Gatsby remake at the Garden Theater.
Do you know a bunch of people
paid hundreds of dollars to watch a man
read the entirety of the Great Gatsby
out loud onstage?
Do you know I’ve never been
laughed out of a room for saying my favorite book
is Catcher in the Rye?
Do you know why I keep telling everyone
we’re getting married in Paris
as a joke
in the spring?
every good song is named “dreams”
I wanted something to happen to me. My mouth
was so dry and running about some drummer
I spoke to for six minutes at a theater
on 54th street three weeks ago.
We were walking down Atlantic Avenue and
some kind of street zamboni was blowing litter
at my shins, whirring loud enough that when it stopped
I realized I was screaming
poem I wrote after you told me “I don’t think you’re as amazing as you think you are”
That summer I was so close to the city
there was no easy way to get in the water
I bruised my shins falling out of the canoe
I’d pulled to the center of the world
I’d have to muck through the slip
at the bottom of the pond
to let myself take time off
Nothing as a respite from nothing. How young
I felt so serious spelling out I Love You.
(and putting a period at the end)
so you would know I really meant it
I only meant it because I was lonely
but I don’t see at all why that wouldn’t count
Life is in the spaces between sex with you
at the bodega on Nostrand
I can see the reflection
of the shop behind me as
I look out the window
through aisles of potato chips,
variations on Cholula
over the radio a man croons
“Jazz Club: if you found us, you’re in”
when it happens, poems are
poem-ier. songs are song-ier. heartbreak,
when it comes, and it will come,
is always new
oh god
it rained for six days straight in new york city
and I started telling everyone I want a boyfriend
the rain made me think I wanted a boyfriend
so what if I do
I accept I can’t change you, I accept you’re in rome,
I accept I’ve romanticized
your knowledge of music theory—
for all my talk of songs I’m much better at calculus,
geometry, noticing the way
you pull your sleeves up in the park.
all my fantasies revolve around a screen door,
red wine, the dirty projectors, stew in the summer,
rain as an excuse to do everything in excess,
sex that makes you hungry
for stew in the summer. I am
not the one who noticed
I only reveal what I really want in song—
a man in flannel with one hand
on the steering wheel
telling me something I won’t remember
because it isn’t memorable
it’s worse than I thought
street signs don’t know about you
the woman from belgium putting her hair up
in a ponytail doesn’t know about you
the new starbucks on 15th and 9th sells pizza
sorry, flatbreads, beanies, tumblers?
there’s an espresso station, a full-service bar,
gender-neutral bathrooms with slanted
fuck-me sinks that don’t
know about you
and everyone in this starbucks
is acting like my being in this starbucks
isn’t the craziest thing in the world,
acting like today has anything to do
with not being the day you leave
I call you, wine-drunk and humid
glowing night-bright and wanting
you to respect my time
telling myself I’m telling not begging
I’m a communicator, I’m mature,
God I Feel Modern Tonight Page 2