Journal Sixty-Two Is Only a Number

Now that Josh is back, we're eating and walking and watching movies and talking about our deepest desires for the future. It's like this every Saturday. It's like this and this usually tastes like curry.

I'll be twenty-five soon, less than a week. I'm going to tell you a secret; I've been pretending I've already turned twenty-five since at least February, maybe even earlier. It seems like a good number. It seems like a serious number. At twenty-five, I feel like I can allow myself nostalgia for things that happened during college without feeling lame or guilty about it. I miss going to QT in the middle of the night to buy fruity alcohol. I miss hiding other people's expensive things. I miss pacing the senior attic and freaking out about what comes next. I miss wondering, "What comes next?" It's like I already know now. There are no more surprises. But sometimes, there are maggots from I don't know where.

Like Birds

I keep a pack of cigarettes
in a cupboard
and I take them out
and smell them like markers,
to get a rise, psychosomatic,
of course, before I do anything
summery. I go outside,
after, and I see some birds
pecking the road.
This is where, if I smoked,
I would draw a deep drag,
ash in the grass,
(all cool and confident,
all relaxed inquisition)
and then check on the birds.

What are they pecking?
Are they eating
the filthy road, little bits
of loose asphalt like seeds?

I shadow over them,
but they don't go anywhere,
it's too good, too fruitful,
to ever leave this patch of street.
They are picking at tiny white things,
snips of yarn, I think, but no,
it turns out
the yarn is maggots.

Again, if I smoked, I would
light another cigarette,
the one sitting behind my ear
this whole time, the one threatening
to fall into pecking range
of hungry starlings,
yellow beaks like feeding tongs,
dotted coats like astronaut pajamas.

But I just run my hands
all through my hair instead,
worry that the sky is raining maggots.
And it is, if only for these birds
and if only in this swath of squirmy hell
in the shadow of a man
sniffing cigarettes like a fetish.

Here are worms
for the purpose
of being worms.
Here are starlings
for the sake of starlings.