in the midst of a historic crisis, i ride my bike to the river

 

the perfect amount of wine is 1-8 glasses

 

the government should give me millions of dollars

 

the inexorable seriousness of life and the detached hilarity of life

 

the hallway smells of tater tots

 

unregretfully i’ve written off entire years

 

everything happening outside my apartment is not happening

 

i stay in place for a while and it’s good

 

the weather is nice and my hangover is zen-like

 

my brain is thinking of itself as a beached fish

 

the louder the world gets, the quieter i want to be 

 

conflicting self-interests occur all the time

 

i’m tired of paying rent

 

i’ve become close friends with a park bench 

 

ironic detachment as an escape from routine

 

a sunday afternoon prolonged for months

 

mistook bacon sizzling for heavy rain

 

outside it’s cold and i don’t want to go to work

 

would like to be a college professor so i can have a little room in which to hide

 

my doubts are ferocious

 

i feel senile

 

i live in the united states

 

i drink wine with j. and a.

 

i read cioran on my off days

 

i think about money until i’m exhausted

 

i stare at the river

 

i think ooh la la at the river

 

just saw a puppy the size of a dinner roll

 

eating garlic knots naked at 2:30 am

 

insane coworker: ‘the moon is hollow, bro’

 

admiring some clouds from a park bench, trying not to think about anything

 

i’ve been tired for a while, but i still love the world

 

i use wine to activate my brain

 

i feel bad for people

 

i concoct succulent fragments in droll isolation

 

i nurture life-sustaining delusions

 

i don’t think about the government 

 

i go through the motions while thinking ‘rock n roll’ repetitively

 

stoner coworker: ‘i’m in love with my inflatable hot tub’

 

i make a habit of emitting dramatically prolonged sighs while staring at the river

 

a couple at the park instructs their baby to stop eating tree bark

 

watching a reality show where the winner wins a reality show

 

i accept the many disappointments of life

 

i drink wine and act gremlin-like

 

meanings accrue; questions arise; you laugh when you least expect to laugh

 

stimulus check doubled my net worth

 

i crave situations that don’t require thinking

 

necessity nudges me and i move through the world

 

a stranger: ‘i go out to the same bars over and over again’ 

 

sitting outside an empty bar, my unemployed friend explains various alt-coins to me

 

sat down on the toilet to pee in complete darkness

 

i get sweaty on my bike ride to work

 

i don’t think about the future too much

 

i give in to the noises of actual life

 

i pay my car insurance online

 

i nearly choke to death on fried rice

 

age softens disappointment

 

nostalgia and irony replace overt intensity

 

npr: ‘this has been a really rough time for babies’ 

 

i focus on the immediate, what’s in front of me 

 

i laugh at a frondless palm tree

 

lately i’ve been baffled that no one cares about aliens

 

can’t stop plucking out my eyebrows

 

we work so hard for such small things

 

my car breaks down

 

my uber driver is a 9/11 survivor 

 

that says god blesses him with everything he needs

 

then: ‘maybe i should start playing the lottery’

 

sartre: ‘man is what he wills himself to be’

 

sartre: ‘after i took mescaline, i started seeing crabs around me all the time. i would wake up in the morning and say ‘good morning, my little ones, how did you sleep?’’ 

 

e.m. cioran: ‘in the days when i set off on month-long bicycle trips across france, my greatest pleasure was to stop in country cemeteries, to stretch out between two graves, and to smoke for hours on end. i think of those days as the most active period of my life’

 

richard brautigan: ‘all of us have a place in history. mine is clouds’

 

vegan coworker: ‘my mom smokes dmt’ 

 

the grease-trap alarm screams  

 

people need alcohol

 

it’s almost unbelievable, everything 

 

i get my second vaccine shot

 

in what used to be a sears

 

in what is still designated the ‘ladies intimates’ section

 

i’m eating fried chicken in a dive bar

 

i spend $180 on an uber to central florida to crash with friends at a cabin near a spring

 

the uber driver blasts tool and yells about skydiving and guns

 

i’m singing jimmy buffet with the boys again

 

i suggest we empty out a milk jug and fill it with alcoholic seltzer water and bring it with us to a state park

 

z. eats mushrooms before we go tubing

 

while floating down the river he argues that we live in an anti-cumming society, then tries to catch a fish with his bare hands

 

an argument about subtitles ends with c. shaking his penis and balls at v. 

 

i alternate between the pool and the hot tub

 

c. is wearing his flashiest tracksuit

 

gradually december feels unreal, like it never happened

 

other people can have big thoughts about things

 

i’m happy just knowing what’s good in life, and holding onto it

 

i’m behaving irresponsibly with fireworks

 

e. holds up a tomahawk steak the size of his head next to his head

 

i’m boarding a plane to nyc with a. 

 

we approach the runway

 

instead of taking off, the pilot drives the plane around aimlessly

 

i look out the window

 

we’re back at the gate

 

the pilot comes on the intercom and says the plane is broken: ‘there is a chance that one of the engines might kick the plane into reverse mid-air’

 

they kick us off the plane; we’re sitting in the airport chili’s, ordering airport chicken fingers on a's phone 

 

the reading starts at 7:30; the flight has been delayed until 4:00

 

i’m supposed to read at, and also host the thing 

 

we uber straight to kgb with all of our luggage

 

i drink five budweisers faster than i’ve ever drank five budweisers

 

i introduce a. as a poet and firefighter: ‘that uses water to put out fires and words to ignite the soul’

 

he reads ‘i wish the cats that fight outside of my window had guns’

 

and: ‘no one tells you to stop what you’re doing before you’ve been doing it for way too long’

 

g.g. reads about tying his penis in a knot and jizzing on a burglar

 

b. reads a poem about livermush and waffle house 

 

back at the airbnb, i have a hamburger in one hand and philly cheesesteak in the other

 

the sun comes out again and we get lost on the subway

 

eventually we make it to the 9/11 memorial museum

 

i sweat a lot inside of the 9/11 memorial museum

 

i sweat more than is okay and speed-walk toward the exit

 

some guy tells me to stop vaping while staring into the 9/11 hole 

 

to calm down we drink $20 dollar cocktails with h. and s. 

 

we stop at a bodega to pick up some beer on our way to p’s

 

the bodega looks like a storage unit that also sells beer

 

outside the bodega is a poorly-drawn joker mural; the joker is hanging out with biggie smalls

 

at p’s we sit on couches and watch a visual album he made during quarantine

 

the actor in ‘jonathan franzen’s assistant messaged me out of the blue’ is very convincing

 

i don’t know enough about what jonathan franzen looks like to know it’s not actually him

 

‘thicc wario’ is a beautiful work of art

 

i feel moved by ‘peter bd, bitch’ 

 

we climb a ladder inside of his bathtub up to his rooftop

 

a lawyer that loves cocaine yells about being confused that he’s a lawyer 

 

a guy with an awesome mustache asks a. if he’s really a firefighter, then tells us that we lie too much

 

i’m having trouble remembering the rest of the night

 

i’m out in the world again not remembering things

 

in the morning we take the subway to barney greengrass and eat delicious smoked fish then walk through central park, sweating heavily

 

we sit at the top of a long hill and watch bicyclists struggle up it

 

at moma i stare at les demoiselles d'avignon for fifteen minutes 

 

i’m in a crowded museum, feeling moved by priceless artwork again

 

we meet h. and s. at a restaurant called mexico 2000 because it was close to the airbnb and called mexico 2000

 

we drink tommy’s margs and sangria and presidentes and h. discusses deep fake porn in front of his fiance

 

it’s saturday night and we’re the only people in a restaurant called mexico 2000

 

we walk to a bar in williamsburg that used to be a pool supply store and meet h’s awkward improv friends

 

i’m wearing a tracksuit and drinking red wine from a water glass

 

it looks like i’m drinking eight ounces of fernet

 

some dude from the show i think you should leave is there and i fail to convince h. to whisper ‘i think you should leave’ in this ear

 

back at the airbnb, a., g.g., and i dance to songs we love and hug each other powerfully

 

‘seasons chaaange’ we sing

 

‘i’ve been waiting on you,’ we sing, and point in each other’s faces

 

the sun does it’s thing again and we walk to kellogg’s diner and i eat three onion rings and some egg that’s hanging off the side of my breakfast sandwich

 

a. and g.g. eat some mushrooms

 

g.g. goes to the bathroom to poop or throw up or something

 

i accidently gave k. the copy i was going to read from, the one with a lot of lines marked off 

 

we get in the uber to governors island to read at a poetry festival we know nothing about

 

there’s no air conditioning in the uber and i’m just in there hungover crossing out lines and ripping out pages from my book and it feels insane

 

a little kid tries to ride her bike onto the ferry and the ferry dude gets upset: ‘who’s kid is this?... you gotta be kiddin’ me... unbelievable’

 

we’re on a ferry; we’re taking pictures; some idiot looks just like ginsberg

 

at a little bier garden on the island i order three alcoholic seltzer waters and a boxed water, chug the boxed water, fill it with alcoholic seltzer water, and put the other two alcoholic seltzer waters in the inner pocket of my tracksuit

 

we walk to meet the publishers and an alcoholic seltzer water falls out of my tracksuit pocket and it’s funny, the way it plops and rolls

 

g.g. reads about the fascists at claire’s refusing to pierce his penis

 

i read ‘herring fish communicate with farts’ then make a farting noise into the microphone

 

there’s less than a dozen people in the crowd

 

we hangout with the publishers again and one publisher is wearing big cowboy boots and i ask him if i can trade all my future royalty checks for his cowboy boots and he tells me no (which was smart, i made like $50 from that book)

 

we go buy more alcoholic seltzer water at the bier garden thing

 

we shotgun alcoholic seltzer water together and g.g. screams ‘i love reading and writing poetry’ then throws his alcoholic seltzer water on the ground

 

near the manhattan ferry we’re at an outdoor bar that looks too idealyc to be real and g.g. pees in a stall with his entire ass out

 

i refuse a shot of tequila because it’s the middle of the day and i’m too drunk for how bright the sun is

 

back at the airbnb we make videos of g.g. ripping up/kicking our books on the sidewalk

 

we go upstairs and share my leftover breakfast sandwich and dance in our underwear

 

‘seasons change’ we sing

 

‘i’ve been waiting on you,’ we sing, and point at each other’s faces

 

but it’s time to go home again

 

at the jfk airport a janitor asks a. and i if we’re confused

 

we say that we are

 

‘where are you trying to go?’ he says

 

‘to the place where planes fly away’ a. says

 

outside the gate, there’s a small bird sitting on the chair across from us

 

a. asks me if i see it

 

i tell him i don’t

 

he stands two feet from the bird, points directly at it, and yells: ‘tell me you see it’

 

i say ‘there’s nothing there’