Molly snuck a blunt in &
we drank tall boys outside before
even though it wasn’t that kind of show, i guess, wasn’t
supposed to be a blur like that, someone said,
but we did, & i kissed sloppy in the coliseum, darkness like ocean water, inky runoff, so high up we were part of the sticky summer night waiting just above,
strobes, when they came, exposing our hands &
our smoke to mothers & children, & we went wild
when she did “Problems,” revivalist metallic glory, her
lioness strut, face painted
like JonBenet, like funeral glow,
& i church hollered when
she did the old ones, the ones from when i
first found her bird-whistle music, relics i looped like porn,
back before i was dead, fat, drunk—
just high on the internet late at night, chasing her
cartoon mouth, untouchable everything, yet somehow
mine mine mine.
chugged more beer
during “Break Free”:
i lost it
not because i
broke free at
all, ever, but
because i was somewhere
not at home, not dozing,
pushing, only two alive on the planet, syrupy tongues heavy
& i hoped we’d never be sober again,
& it ended & the lights were too white & Brooklyn was heinous, mortal
in the afterglow, ancient gothic monoliths looming
like gods, overlords, & she didn’t invite me back
to bunk with her & her
alcoholic boyfriend who always tried
to fuck me in my sleep, & who cried when i woke up, don’t tell, don’t,
like i’d ever, like i even talk to people,
so i didn’t get on the 2;
i took the Q to Coney Island & walked &
the water was black out on the Sound & i
drank clear liquor through a straw & got sick with
the white-haired girl who was always there, by the water,
who had the fiancée, she said, but no ring, no name.
i woke up panicked &
looked out her window
at a street i didn’t know
that i still don’t know
& i did not feel dead,
first morning in forever
i didn’t care about my soul. didn’t think of it,
god bless her, whoever.
& now i’m here & it’s a memory &
Molly has a kid & we don’t talk anymore, & i’ll never see Ariana again,
& this is one of those things
i want to tell my girlfriend about
when she’s my wife
but words will ruin all of it
& anyway, no one cares
about what we did & when we did it
& who we did it all to, & who saw us do it
& all that. we have to care because otherwise
these things fall, flatten, become like dreams and other things that never happened.
***
Cash Compson lives in the northeast with his dog, who hails from Arkansas, and his girlfriend, who will hopefully be his fiancee by this time this is published. If not, he will write sad poetry about the rejection and submit it, of course, to Rejection Letters.
***
image: MM Kaufman
Rejection Letters 