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napowrimo poem 21: new york school poem

write a new york school poem.

fuck.
i can’t remember and you can’t forget.
Marta – it was an accident!
whatever heat we shared was injurious
for all parties, trust me, trust trust…
so…what did you see with your perfect gaze –
my mouth on his? on him in so many ways?
on that steaming roof off 10th and first avenue?
it was the sort of touching turkish bathers do!
of nakedness, rich, swinging and stiff,
of being so young and awakened! if
we did these things you claimed to see
forgive us, at least…at least forgive me.
what was it, april seventh? was it april at all?
i was overstudied, certainly too high to recall

(that was the year i failed everything)

oh it wasn’t a crisis of life and death my dear
it wasn’t tupac flatlining our freshman year
that virgin night when i first swallowed down
three distinct things that burn faster than sound
blur the holy world to fringes and fright
carmen hall nearly went up in flames that night
no, i embellish, it was just the ninth floor
james had sworn he had only white neighbors
so yes, i yelled, ‘white people – fire!! get out
white people, fire, a fire! get out!!’
burning bush, i found a burning trash lit
i saved us all with that ignorant shit

but this lesser crisis i’m sure you dreamed
fueled by that common purple haze, which seemed
so exotic in handsome David’s nimble glow
if offered, i am pretty sure we said no
to everything Roger spread out before us
the granules and lines of his bright yellow bus
or was it hot pink? was he into the pills yet?
i shouldn’t speak on it, i know, i know…but

Marta i didn’t love him, i’ve loved no one but you!
but love never knows what the body must do
not with my breasts filling his eager mouth
not with his strong fingers spreading me out
i swear if it happened, if your suspicion grows
it was to embody Bartok’s empty concertos
it was to blossom nightshades in lowly concrete
it was as temporary as any lucid dream state

think about the children we were that night really
hitting high Cs, stumbling, shouting out Biggie
‘he’s a slut, he’s a ho, he’s a freak!’ on our tongues
at the top of our nubile Camel infused lungs
back when Big Poppa was newly forsaken
in those days, march ninth was just barely sacred.
we gifted each other every single thing in sight
even crusts off our slices, so massive in lamplight.
and he was a simple gift, from and unto himself
you ask me why him, why share our sweet wealth
he was ripe, demanded nothing close to my heart
i was only this honest those days in my art
he was a lost puppy, remember those eyes?
i promise, i only pet his thick roman thighs
if i pet him at all
which i can’t recall…