ALT to be loved & not my poems’ me love me not my words love this person with this face & this name & this chin & this need & this upside-down wishful wistfulness & this memory & that pet fish & these Tuesdays & these moods & these tootsies & these shirts & those little embroidered flowers & these bits of hair on my shirt shoulders & my mother cutting my hair & my mother who cut my hair till I was fifteen & full of rage & both of us were & different reasons & similar rage & she was so lonely & I was so lonely & so those haircuts grew into memory & the snips & strands on the concrete what was it a sitting area outside our apartment & it was late summer late afternoon & later she would cut the watermelon too & all the juice on the counter & all the hurt she said & did & could’ve & didn’t & wept & did she did say sorry she is doing sorry can I be done hurting do you know how in one dream my hair was so long only she could cut it she said let me & I let her.

ALT Of Course It’s on FaceTime That Sam Calls Me a Monster to My Face Repeatedly, Then Asks “Has Anyone Ever Called You a Monster?” All because I said 3:30 p.m. is a bonkers time to FaceTime & 4 p.m.’s much more reasonable & why shouldn’t I talk about my elegant perm a bit every day for the rest of our lives & it’s July & I’ve been utterly behind since last July & I’m definitely still writing the wrong year sometimes month but I always ask if the day of the week is right though who the hell cares I do god do I care I mean I don’t give a shit if I’m deeply understood or genuinely likable but I need to be lovable I write to be lovable I write I rewrite I say Read my poems