At BPL the man besides you falls asleep, cruising slow-mo into his copy of The End
of White World Supremacy. Your best friend is dozing, too, nodding unattractively into the plastic bound paperback Jesus' Son. It's not about God or maybe it is but the prose is violent and lewd. Which is why you like it. Why you picked it out for her. Her dad is a preacher but she is a writer like I am, like you and we all want to be, in this city where even the sidewalks are made out of words, recycled and smashed up and churned out into The Hardest Material that Man Ever Made. Which isn't true, or I doubt it at least, And I doubt that you'll even look it up, knowing I know that you could if you cared to, on any of many screens in arms reach from your swiveling chair of adjustable height. Go ahead. Find out. Or intend to, like I will, but don't get around to it. Too many links, too many inked up arms to ever stand out in this city. Too much to know. To forget. All libraries feel the same. These books aren't even in English. I could live my entire life here and never be at home. That's why you catapult yourself across the sky, right? To be the strangeman on another blob of green smeared on this sphere. Mke the world feel new again like just being born. Fresh like a cut or a hit or a dunk in ice freezing water. Like crawling back in and then out of the womb one fucking more time. Your cousin kept hers, BTW, informs your mom via text. Her womb, that is. But she's still in surgery. Still got HPV, and cancer. So who'd you slap this weekend, half-blacked out from all the things you're "over with completely," like subject-verb agreement, long division. "If y'on't get it now you might as well quit!" and other things you'll never say. Have you, have you conceded yet that the world's just for a few? If y'aren't there yet you're like me but we'll get there evench. Keep cutting off the ends of words like phone calls to your mother and the portion of the day in which you give a shit. Don't try. It's like realizing you're fat. What is? Realizing you're ugly. Which is a lot like sitting in the Brooklyn Public Library next to a black dude reading The End of White Supremacy only now he's awake, and you're dozing.
of White World Supremacy. Your best friend is dozing, too, nodding unattractively into the plastic bound paperback Jesus' Son. It's not about God or maybe it is but the prose is violent and lewd. Which is why you like it. Why you picked it out for her. Her dad is a preacher but she is a writer like I am, like you and we all want to be, in this city where even the sidewalks are made out of words, recycled and smashed up and churned out into The Hardest Material that Man Ever Made. Which isn't true, or I doubt it at least, And I doubt that you'll even look it up, knowing I know that you could if you cared to, on any of many screens in arms reach from your swiveling chair of adjustable height. Go ahead. Find out. Or intend to, like I will, but don't get around to it. Too many links, too many inked up arms to ever stand out in this city. Too much to know. To forget. All libraries feel the same. These books aren't even in English. I could live my entire life here and never be at home. That's why you catapult yourself across the sky, right? To be the strangeman on another blob of green smeared on this sphere. Mke the world feel new again like just being born. Fresh like a cut or a hit or a dunk in ice freezing water. Like crawling back in and then out of the womb one fucking more time. Your cousin kept hers, BTW, informs your mom via text. Her womb, that is. But she's still in surgery. Still got HPV, and cancer. So who'd you slap this weekend, half-blacked out from all the things you're "over with completely," like subject-verb agreement, long division. "If y'on't get it now you might as well quit!" and other things you'll never say. Have you, have you conceded yet that the world's just for a few? If y'aren't there yet you're like me but we'll get there evench. Keep cutting off the ends of words like phone calls to your mother and the portion of the day in which you give a shit. Don't try. It's like realizing you're fat. What is? Realizing you're ugly. Which is a lot like sitting in the Brooklyn Public Library next to a black dude reading The End of White Supremacy only now he's awake, and you're dozing.
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