The sky darkens far too early, the sudden death
of a robust animal. I hate New Jersey.
I love New Jersey. I’m avoiding art like it’s some guy
in town who my dad sometimes drinks IPAs with
whose kid used to call me a dyke in the halls.
I sell those kinds of guys coffee and Skoal at the QuickChek
by my high school. At work I get compliments on my weird name
from people who think I’m a boy.
Give the nice young man your hot chocolate.
That’ll be two twenty-three, same price as a coffee.
I hate touching money because it’s dirty but
I like counting change because I’m good at simple math.
When the kids from the wrestling team come in
for lunch they eye me like I’m a bad cut of meat
like the ones on the sub sandwiches they’re ordering.
I guess I must not really be from New Jersey
because I’ve never liked those. I went un-vegetarian for a day
at Christmas Eve for Seven Fishes with the Italians
on my dad’s side of the family in Middletown
near where Springsteen grew up
but there weren’t even seven fishes,
we only had five and two of them were shrimp,
my uncle’s garlic ones and my grandma’s fried ones,
and I felt like a fraud in more ways than one which
is not unusual. Sometimes I feel like I’m lying
even though I’m not. Like when my mom comes into my room
and asks if I’ve been smoking in here like high school
and I tell her no because I really do think weed is boring now.
I try to find boring things interesting like the flat
white skies of Ohio or the year a quarter is minted
and sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t
and then I don’t write anything or make anything
for weeks or even months. I have a photographic memory
so I remember people’s birthdays if they write them down for me
and every detail of that one picture on my wall
in my childhood bedroom of my dead dog
with my aunt’s dog who’s still alive and sometimes
I bring it to mind just to test myself. At work today
I thought about that one picture of my college friends
and I where we’re all crammed onto a twin bed talking
about something stupid, and then I thought maybe
being alive isn’t all just getting yelled at by Real Housewives
type ladies over Powerball tickets at the register. But being in
New Jersey is mostly just like that.