by gem luxemburg
art: Reddit
untitled
it’s side quests to a game you don’t know the rules to
& didn’t ask to play
it’s completing tasks blindly until you get killed
and still
continuing like a second specter
while the carnage continues
i come to & it’s to this
you spit paper into my hand again
you destroy what you love
again
as i make a list i read to you every day
of what you had and lost
and wonder why you can’t get back
& it goes on
false and
relentless as time
and we adapt
that one time at meditation group when d. saw me
i ask you if that chairlift
had always been there
you joke:
you should be more mindful
after, someone comments on the new light they
put on the chairlift
without thinking i turn to you
and say, see, i am observant
you say, you know i like you, right?
Having LaCroix With You
After Frank O’Hara
is even more fun than going to house shows, gathering of the vibes, tattooed mom
or getting sick to my stomach in the wake of a hurricane
partly because in our flesh sacks we are softer wetter more corruptible versions of St. Rita
partly because of my love for oblivion
partly because of your love for church basements
partly because of the way we share needles when we mainline reality
it is hard to believe when I’m with you
that reality can be anything as grating as brutal as utterly intolerable as we tell ourselves
when right in the face of it
in the tepid air of uncertainty
we are laughing and trading war stories
like survivors stumbling from a shipwreck
Garnet Oak Magazine 