aayoung
They
will sell you
candy cigarettes,
insulin,
Camel Wides,
chemotherapy,
God,
nicotine patches,
life insurance,
and a bronze casket
all
in one lifetime.
I’ve done my share. Coast to coast.
I’ve done my share of poet husbands, too.
Do you think
Canadians feel like
they occupy
the spacious attic
of hell?
in the 1990’s
your flannel shirt
was a cultural ticket
that took you
greasy haired
through a graffiti pocked
bathroom stall door
to a grunge wünderland
where herpes came standard
with every tribal tattoo
nirvana whining
about your libido
a mosquito
&
girlfriends untrue
your dreams will be
dry humped
in a Geo Metro,
Generation X,
your so-called life…
high school interrupted
…eating Pearl Jam until
Zima vomit came to the house party too
with green apple jollyranchers
attended by
your skankiest girlfriend
who smoked Marlboro Reds
with the acumen
of a triple divorcee
her eyelids
the trashiest
ice blue
i suppose you could say
i’m one of those people
who has seen more than their
fair share of things
you will certainly find
me adept
in a broad range of topics
from culinary techniques
to obscure music
embalming
comic books
addictive substances
and
lesser know shitty diners
of the northeast
some of it owed to college
and my need
to join the rat race too soon
mostly it was my proclivities
my insistence on taking
a master class
in dating old fucks
what an education
a woman’s life
is too tenuous
delicate
billowy
spider web
close call on I-75
in preterm labor
on the way to the
Paris airport
in the rain
fragile
beautiful
precious
sacrosanct
finite
for bad friends
bad family
bad coffee
bad shoes
bad mattresses
bad jobs
bad husbands
bad debt
and bad dick
learn this by 30 for maximum
enjoyment
future
female
conquerors
of a dying planet
