FORTUNE COOKIES

lucky cats drawn into window sills made of mildew. accompanied by discarded clothing, done right discount flooring. spoiled (almond) milk and tea. make your own half and half like mom does or is it buttermilk. either way i’m the same. replacing me like the leftover rice that we got at the grocery store it tastes off. unlike a brand of rice i am not a choice to make. worry. at the kitchen counter that was already a year ago, more like three years ago. you have beautiful hands, like your grandmother who had long fingers. now there’s an unfamiliarity in my own maybe that’s why our handwriting looks the same, coincidentally. frozen cigarettes clouded in an ashtray the same shape of the blue jean sea that made me cry. people don’t change, you told me, they don’t change like the way the grooves in the land change with each movement of your fingers. i can feel the distance, the distaste, between you and i. this was confirmed when you asked me how the weather was in my town. we are separated by both minutes and miles, sunsets seen at different points in time. in the distance like the back of my mind is a memory from you, the clash like a geek you called me a star, red at night watching the lightning storm like it’s new mexico. i am engulfed, i succumb. do you think of her as much as she thinks of you.

i was going to write about my identity, but i have absolutely nothing to say. a westernized concept of fearlessness, surrender any feelings of regret. washing the color off, whether it’s marker or your skin. i am angry at the world but i am not angry with you. would i recognize your face if it was paper. your face is a map similar to ones i would draw to my best friends house at eleven years old. i wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. swirling my tongue around a rotten tooth on the side of my mouth the same as a bone folder lined up against a utensil tray. bone marrow. locked behind a glass cabinet is a collection of angels some of them shattered, some of them engraved. a heart in between the a and the s. consider myself lucky. you’re supposed to clean out your ears with olive oil it was never supposed to be a distraction.

poetry (back)