water,
Growling softly, then it stopped and purred.
Dark green paint like a deep flavor,
Like hard, sour-apple candy catching in my throat.
A hint of his blond swoop, the red button of his cigarette.
Smoke out the window. Sterling:
His name like a sword reflecting light in a dark room.
Iâm the sword swallower.
And the grass licked my shoes.
2. Please, Please, Please
Now the picture had him in it
Up the red path
To my house
In his coal tux
Slicked like a wet cat.
I did my best in a lime-green dress.
All his gang from school:
Inside they each had some from his flask;
And Sterling smiled a toothy smile, yellow and sharp.
And then we danced.
Not to one song, but ten songs.
It was the scene where the audience came over to my side,
Because I got what I wanted.
I was in love with a cliché.
Boys his age have bodies like knives.
I was holding one by the blade.
3. Ask
I used to think about playing guitar,
Now I just listen.
With girls,
Just push and it gets there.
As soon as you hit puberty, go.
Take what comes, ugly is okay too.
With Erica, you were on someoneâs brotherâs bed;
Pothead Mormonsâlistenâ
A flower-covered comforter, blue ground;
A drum kit in the corner of the room,
Bass drum like a bulldog and a couple of sleeping flamingo cymbals.
Gentle, but you werenât.
Love cameâlike viscosity filling a tubeâ
And you killed it with a bunch of thrusts.
Right in the middle she had to leave.
The second time she was better. Boring.
â¢
In the bathroom I sat naked on the floor.
Blood blooming.
âScience and fiction.
This is the rite of passage.
I am the vessel.
He is the instrument.
4. Stop Me If You Think That Youâve Heard This One Before
When I was in seventh grade I put kids in three categories:
Sports kids, smart kids, and social kids.
Some kids played football well and were dumb and ugly;
Some kids got great grades and their only friends were their parents;
There were others that danced among us
And made us all look like the kids we were.
They were big, daring, and sexual.
I wasnât much in any of the categories.
But in high school I met Sterling and I had something.
At this one party I was drunk and so was everyone else.
The sofas and chairs were floating,
And the people were shifting in their spheres,
I sat on a couch and took a ride.
Through a door to the kitchen, I saw a circus.
Plenty of colors: red and yellow and white.
There were a few ringmasters barking out things
And some lions in green letterman jackets
And this huge black seal, bonking down on this one guy, Ivan.
Bouncing him like he was a ball of air.
Until Ivan was slouched halfway to the linoleum.
One of the others hit him on the crown with a frying pan,
Like a cartoon, Ivan went all the way down and lay flat.
Sterling was on the side of it all.
Pouring foamy, piss-colored beer
Over Ivanâs bloody pale face,
Laughing his electric eel grin.
His sharp dogteeth.
On the car ride home,
He drove us drunk through the dark
Like a boat
On a flat, starless sea.
5. Girlfriend in a Coma
Megan McKenna had a skinhead boyfriend,
He crashed his car into a pole.
The paramedics lifted her out of the crumpled car,
And laid her on the cement. They cut away her jeans.
Sterling and I fought all the time,
Driving around in his rotten green Mustang.
I was the sweetest sixteen,
And when we hit the other car
Darkness met me at the windshield.
My father kept Sterling from the room.
I was plastered and sutured and puffed up.
When I go to heaven,
Iâll think of Sterling.
Iâll think that I loved him.
Iâll think that he was human.
That he was a poor little brain in a dangerous body.
III.
Acting Tips
When I played Saul
In Pineapple Express
I said, fuck it,
Acting should be fun.
No more twisted
Self-centered
James Dean demons.
There was one thing
That was important:
Saul should love Dale.
That was the secret
That made
Growling softly, then it stopped and purred.
Dark green paint like a deep flavor,
Like hard, sour-apple candy catching in my throat.
A hint of his blond swoop, the red button of his cigarette.
Smoke out the window. Sterling:
His name like a sword reflecting light in a dark room.
Iâm the sword swallower.
And the grass licked my shoes.
2. Please, Please, Please
Now the picture had him in it
Up the red path
To my house
In his coal tux
Slicked like a wet cat.
I did my best in a lime-green dress.
All his gang from school:
Inside they each had some from his flask;
And Sterling smiled a toothy smile, yellow and sharp.
And then we danced.
Not to one song, but ten songs.
It was the scene where the audience came over to my side,
Because I got what I wanted.
I was in love with a cliché.
Boys his age have bodies like knives.
I was holding one by the blade.
3. Ask
I used to think about playing guitar,
Now I just listen.
With girls,
Just push and it gets there.
As soon as you hit puberty, go.
Take what comes, ugly is okay too.
With Erica, you were on someoneâs brotherâs bed;
Pothead Mormonsâlistenâ
A flower-covered comforter, blue ground;
A drum kit in the corner of the room,
Bass drum like a bulldog and a couple of sleeping flamingo cymbals.
Gentle, but you werenât.
Love cameâlike viscosity filling a tubeâ
And you killed it with a bunch of thrusts.
Right in the middle she had to leave.
The second time she was better. Boring.
â¢
In the bathroom I sat naked on the floor.
Blood blooming.
âScience and fiction.
This is the rite of passage.
I am the vessel.
He is the instrument.
4. Stop Me If You Think That Youâve Heard This One Before
When I was in seventh grade I put kids in three categories:
Sports kids, smart kids, and social kids.
Some kids played football well and were dumb and ugly;
Some kids got great grades and their only friends were their parents;
There were others that danced among us
And made us all look like the kids we were.
They were big, daring, and sexual.
I wasnât much in any of the categories.
But in high school I met Sterling and I had something.
At this one party I was drunk and so was everyone else.
The sofas and chairs were floating,
And the people were shifting in their spheres,
I sat on a couch and took a ride.
Through a door to the kitchen, I saw a circus.
Plenty of colors: red and yellow and white.
There were a few ringmasters barking out things
And some lions in green letterman jackets
And this huge black seal, bonking down on this one guy, Ivan.
Bouncing him like he was a ball of air.
Until Ivan was slouched halfway to the linoleum.
One of the others hit him on the crown with a frying pan,
Like a cartoon, Ivan went all the way down and lay flat.
Sterling was on the side of it all.
Pouring foamy, piss-colored beer
Over Ivanâs bloody pale face,
Laughing his electric eel grin.
His sharp dogteeth.
On the car ride home,
He drove us drunk through the dark
Like a boat
On a flat, starless sea.
5. Girlfriend in a Coma
Megan McKenna had a skinhead boyfriend,
He crashed his car into a pole.
The paramedics lifted her out of the crumpled car,
And laid her on the cement. They cut away her jeans.
Sterling and I fought all the time,
Driving around in his rotten green Mustang.
I was the sweetest sixteen,
And when we hit the other car
Darkness met me at the windshield.
My father kept Sterling from the room.
I was plastered and sutured and puffed up.
When I go to heaven,
Iâll think of Sterling.
Iâll think that I loved him.
Iâll think that he was human.
That he was a poor little brain in a dangerous body.
III.
Acting Tips
When I played Saul
In Pineapple Express
I said, fuck it,
Acting should be fun.
No more twisted
Self-centered
James Dean demons.
There was one thing
That was important:
Saul should love Dale.
That was the secret
That made
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