great gifts from great people with great timing.
I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, But Here I Am...
Like the main character
in Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer,
I am engaged in the search.
The search for what?
Truth. Meaning.
Some practical wisdom
for navigating this confusing thing
called cancer.
In his letters to Lucilius,
Seneca suggested that a good life
might be built by acquiring
one small piece of wisdom each day.
So I search every damn day.
I keep myself open to the universe,
to its strange logic,
its little revelations,
its occasional gifts.
I am willing to learn
whatever life is trying to teach me.
I just haven't learned
how to make peace with the possibility
that one day
I won't be here to learn anything else.
Poem
Every day is yesterday
& I have always
Existed…
like the loneliness
of rivers
that don't tribute.
“I” is forever
insatiable.
Don’t Meet Your Villains Without Their Wigs
[Verse 1]
Fear.
This is my midlife crisis.
Writing poems about pain
at midnight
while reruns of Seinfeld
play on Netflix.
I stare into the ceiling
like it owes me an answer.
I count all the things
I thought I'd have figured out
by now.
[Chorus]
I don't want to meet my villains
without their wigs.
I don't want to know
what they look like underneath.
I've spent my whole life
running from the monsters
only to find out
some of them look like me.
[Verse 2]
I battled a bad childhood.
Battled booze into my thirties.
And now I am battling
for my life
in my forties.
Different war.
Same dumb soldier.
Still dragging my body
through the smoke,
still trying to figure out
what the hell I'm fighting for.
[Chorus]
I don't want to meet my villains
without their wigs.
I don't want to know
what they look like underneath.
I've spent my whole life
running from the monsters
only to find out
some of them look like me.
[Bridge]
I relive my sins
like a half-drunk detective
solving a cold case.
Every clue
leads back to me.
Every dead end
has my fingerprints on it.
And somewhere in the wreckage
I am still looking
for a reason
to keep going.
[Final Chorus]
So let me meet my villains
with their wigs still on.
Let me believe
the worst is already gone.
I've spent my whole life
running from the monsters.
Maybe that's the trick.
Maybe the monster
was never the ending.
Maybe it's the part of me
that still wants
to see tomorrow.
Olives & Football
Fall is officially upon us.
Texas takes on Tennessee at noon tomorrow.
Then Ole Miss and Florida kick off at 3:30.
But I hate football.
Like olives,
I try to like football.
Every year I watch one game
to see if it sticks.
It never does.
I watch the men collide.
I watch the flags fly.
I watch a grown man
get extremely excited
about a ball moving
approximately twelve feet.
Maybe this is the year
I will like olives.
Maybe this is the fall
when I finally understand
what everyone is talking about.
Please Let Me Get Old.
This year I am turning 22.
For the second time.
When I was actually 22,
getting old felt like a threat.
Thirty.
Forty.
Jesus Christ.
Now I am grappling
with a future
that is coming on too fast
for anyone to comprehend,
let alone my dumbass.
How do we take control
of our future
instead of merely letting it
happen to us?
Maybe the great privilege
is simply getting to be there
when it happens.
My daughter turns 13
in 300 days.
I would like to see 14.
Then 15.
Then 22.
I would like to become
the old man
I was once so afraid of becoming.
Please Bleed
Barry always puts on the movie La Bamba
when he gets drunk and depressed.
His garbage Barbie chick
says she is tired of being “punk.”
The drugs don’t work,
they just make it all worse,
when he gets drunk and depressed.
His garbage Barbie chick
says she is tired of being “punk.”
The drugs don’t work,
they just make it all worse,
and I wonder if I will
ever see her face again.
“Haven’t had a a serving dream in a long time,”
ever see her face again.
“Haven’t had a a serving dream in a long time,”
I say, as if they are listening
“Maybe I’ll pick up a shift to bring back the fear.”
"Let’s be Proust," Charles says
with the smile of a drunkard
though he is sober and serious
about wanting to publish 100 books of poetry.
I leave to get a break
“Maybe I’ll pick up a shift to bring back the fear.”
"Let’s be Proust," Charles says
with the smile of a drunkard
though he is sober and serious
about wanting to publish 100 books of poetry.
I leave to get a break
and get a pack of smokes,
say hi to the bodega guy,
and visit Moondog on the corner of
51st and 6th.
51st and 6th.
He recites me a viking poem,
I give him a smoke a a buck,
and we discuss the gang upstairs,
all folly and flare, as if our 20s were for wasting.
He asks me how I am holding up
in all his hobo wisdom,
and I say I would rather worry
about getting old.
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown,
I am just as weighed down by the present
as I am the forgotten future
and my unforgivable past.
Back up in the apartment,
Ritchie Valens sings on a VHS
and everyone has disappeared,
probably writing poetry about me dying.
washing your car in the rain
listening low to Olivia Rodrigo's honeybee,
and thinking about not thinking about
death.
but then again it is raining
on Yom Kippur.
Ay Diablo Mio
I deleted all my old voicemails
including hers.
That felt important.
Not because I am angry.
Not because I am healed.
Mostly because I am dying.
I deleted the photographs too.
The screenshots.
The little digital archaeology
of a relationship
that should probably
be left undiscovered.
Kendra Jean,
you were a beautiful mistake
with excellent timing
and terrible timing.
I will always give you
including hers.
That felt important.
Not because I am angry.
Not because I am healed.
Mostly because I am dying.
I deleted the photographs too.
The screenshots.
The little digital archaeology
of a relationship
that should probably
be left undiscovered.
Kendra Jean,
you were a beautiful mistake
with excellent timing
and terrible timing.
I will always give you
your flowers, but
I wish us both
the strange luxury
of becoming people
who no longer check
if the other one
is online.
And honestly,
I have other things
to worry about now.
Like where I put my keys.
I wish us both
the strange luxury
of becoming people
who no longer check
if the other one
is online.
And honestly,
I have other things
to worry about now.
Like where I put my keys.
Temptation Redeem?
the split in the timeline
came two Septembers ago
is this heaven, the future
or a Publix parking lot
at night
after a thunderstorm?
the little pieces of sky
caught in every puddle
came two Septembers ago
with a dagger deep
in Adam's rib.
I wade in the day
of that crevace,
an undecided railworker
at a boney crossroads
is this heaven, the future
or a Publix parking lot
at night
after a thunderstorm?
the little pieces of sky
caught in every puddle
like some cheap portal
to another dimension.
but I refuse
the blonde ghosts
who beckon me
from the light.
but I refuse
the blonde ghosts
who beckon me
from the light.
verecund
I went back in time
and found a younger me
leaving poems behind,
unpublished,
unread,
waiting in the dark.
I brought them forward
one by one,
like messages
from a life
I had forgotten living.
Different years.
Different loves.
Different wounds.
But somehow
the same voice
was waiting there.
So this book
is not new.
It is a door
I finally remembered
how to open.
I sat right in front of Brad Pitt at the US Open and I was self conscious the entire time
Every time I shifted
in my seat
I became aware
of my entire physical presence.
Was I sweating?
Was I sitting weird?
Was I taking up too much space?
Was I clapping too loud?
Ben Shelton was serving
like his life depended on it
and I was worried
about farting on an Oscar winner.
Did Brad Pitt hear that?
Did Brad Pitt smell that?
Is Brad Pitt looking at my back
or is he watching Ben Shelton?
Do I look like a man with cancer
or just a man who ate too much?
I wonder if Brad Pitt knows
I’m thinking about farting in front of him.
I wonder if this is what being alive is.
Watching tennis.
Having cancer.
Trying not to fart on Brad Pitt.
in my seat
I became aware
of my entire physical presence.
Was I sweating?
Was I sitting weird?
Was I taking up too much space?
Was I clapping too loud?
Ben Shelton was serving
like his life depended on it
and I was worried
about farting on an Oscar winner.
Did Brad Pitt hear that?
Did Brad Pitt smell that?
Is Brad Pitt looking at my back
or is he watching Ben Shelton?
Do I look like a man with cancer
or just a man who ate too much?
I wonder if Brad Pitt knows
I’m thinking about farting in front of him.
I wonder if this is what being alive is.
Watching tennis.
Having cancer.
Trying not to fart on Brad Pitt.
The News
The scan showed
more of it.
A few new places
where the cancer
had decided to live.
The doctor talked
about lungs
and treatment
and next steps.
I nodded.
Then I went home
and watched baseball.
Funny thing
about the body.
It can betray you
and still expect you
to get up tomorrow.
more of it.
A few new places
where the cancer
had decided to live.
The doctor talked
about lungs
and treatment
and next steps.
I nodded.
Then I went home
and watched baseball.
Funny thing
about the body.
It can betray you
and still expect you
to get up tomorrow.
Perovich
What’s with the new last name
on LinkedIn?
Did you get hitched?
I can’t find anything about it
anywhere on the internet.
Did you add an old family name?
That’s what I’m hoping for.
I guess I can’t be mad
if you did get married.
After all, you’re a catch.
It’s just the final nail
in the coffin
of us.
I hope you’re happy.
And I hope he (or she)
treats you perfectly,
because you deserve it
after everything
I put you through.
I really love
the revelation/overdose poem.
Keep writing.
Keep in touch,
somehow.
on LinkedIn?
Did you get hitched?
I can’t find anything about it
anywhere on the internet.
Did you add an old family name?
That’s what I’m hoping for.
I guess I can’t be mad
if you did get married.
After all, you’re a catch.
It’s just the final nail
in the coffin
of us.
I hope you’re happy.
And I hope he (or she)
treats you perfectly,
because you deserve it
after everything
I put you through.
I really love
the revelation/overdose poem.
Keep writing.
Keep in touch,
somehow.
No Gods, Just Molecules
There are parts of me
the universe
will never know.
The small humiliations.
The private griefs.
The thoughts I never said
out loud.
But the trees know.
They have watched me
standing beneath them,
saying nothing.
And the trees
are the universe.
So maybe
the universe has been listening
the whole time.
Maybe every molecule
I have carried through this life
belongs to the same old machinery:
carbon,
salt,
water,
stardust,
briefly arranged
into a man
who thinks he is separate.
What a strange comfort,
to realize
I have never been hidden
from anything.
I am not known
because someone
is watching me.
I am known
because I am made
of the same thing
as everything else.
LAMBORGHINI SYNDROME
After the beach
gimme a good western
like Tombstone
to fall asleep to.
Something with
bad men,
clean motives,
and a gun
that always works.
I dream of making
stuffed bell peppers
in a naturally well-lit kitchen.
Not a penthouse.
Just counter space,
a sharp knife,
and enough energy
to stand until dinner.
I have nothing to offer
right now
except pain.
It isn't noble.
It doesn't make me
interesting.
It just hurts.
I went to get gas
and had to come home
and rest for two hours.
There was a time
I would've called that
a waste of a day.
Now I call it
the day.
I used to hate naps.
Now I take them
with a heating pad
pressed against my back,
like some washed-up outlaw
who finally figured out
the hardest part
of being a bad guy
is getting old enough
to need a classic ugly recliner.
One Armpit Is Stinkier Than the Other
One armpit
is stinkier
than the other.
This feels unfair.
Both have received
the same soap,
the same deodorant,
the same opportunity
to behave.
Yet one
has chosen violence.
I will not name
the guilty party.
But we know.
Mixed Playlist
1. Just West of Nicollet by Lambchop
2. The Laugh is in the Eyes by Julia Holter
3. Kick Stones (The Boys) by Westside Cowboy
4. A Round of Applause at the End of the World by Wild Pink
The Last Treatment
Today
I walked into radiation
for the last time.
Same room.
Same machine.
Same strange blue light
humming above me.
But something was different.
I knew
I was leaving.
For months
I lay beneath that machine
and tried not to think
about what it was doing
to the thing inside me.
Today
I thought about tomorrow.
No appointment.
No waiting room.
No gown.
No countdown.
Just the door
opening,
and me
walking through it.
I don't know
what comes next.
But for the first time
in a long time,
next
sounds pretty good.
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