this poem is a product of anxiety as a result

you believe in garbage heaps
sinking into sinuses from
bus windows, transfer at 7

you believe in your mother
calling your back, tights
and corduroy skirt
to the car just to tell you
not to slam the door
when she sees the people
with cigarettes you don't
want to talk to but will talk
to anyway

this is your town, and you
don't understand it anymore
even the weather is playing
gin rummy and kicking your
ass, sopping wet tennis shoes
squelch on the patina floor

you work at a movie theater
and you feel a sense of
impending doom as this
summer's animated hero
stares into the floor adjacent
to the torn left curtain
while you sweep kernels
under the chairs
and ignore the hollister models
you work with

there is a boy whose sister
was hit by a train in Arizona
you think he maybe quit school
justifiably unlike you
and feel like you maybe
have held his hand at some
point but can't even remember
anymore

you only believe in girls
you will never talk to
anymore

and when you don't take your
stupid fucking pills
you feel stupid but fucking free
on the fourth of fucking july