Shakespeare is better on Adderall, I learned,
and sometimes I catch myself spelling your name
a synonym for a romantic affair
but let me sterilize this poem for your health,
unzip it from heartstrings because you don’t like dramatic love
instead: do you ever think about how jelly fungus
is called witch’s butter, etymologically tied to women and natural magic?
or the yellow fungus called fairy cups?
imagine discovering miniature people
dining on moss-carpeted logs, sipping from those mugs
and did I tell you about the years-ago study
where ecologists placed scallops in seats, buckled them up
to answer the question: what are all those eyes looking at?
I didn’t mention the days-old missing man
how a passerby found him behind the Dairy Ranch,
body felled from the tree where he tied fabric,
where he hung himself
I didn’t mention this because we’ve already discussed
your dislike for dramatic love
and yes, I call this love—
For Jones so loved the world, he removed himself from it—
but you’d probably call it selfish
the scallops were staring at food particles, they found,
staring staring staring and only opening
up their vulnerable guts
after a certain particle-dense threshold was achieved
I told you about the website that ships exotic frogs live
I would send you an hourglass tree frog every day
if only to help you keep track of time on the weekends
where you disappear from the world’s eye
but are never far from my mind
my nose bled in the shower again
thinking about how you said,
Thanks for being my friend
I hadn’t heard from you in days and days
when they posted a job opening, I thought
Perhaps he’s killed himself,
like he said he would or wouldn’t do
receive me well, receive me not
but don’t receive me just to take it all back
since you are alive, imagine this with me:
a weekend, a tent, a forest of sugar maples
it’s morning, coffee over a fire brewing,
your hand in my lap, finger tracing the lines of your palm
sitting, we are, absorbing morning birdsong
and maybe you are humming along, thoughtful, calm
we finally escaped the city,
escaped the lights and sirens and chair lifts
face masks, patients, participants—
My Dear,
between alive and living,
let me show you the difference
.
buckle me up in a seat, too, and you’ll find
I’m not looking for food, for street signs, for what-have-you
I’m staring at you, staring at me, contemplating
all these things I’m not bold enough to say
but I will, exposing my vulnerabilities anyway
Just Thoughts 