Thank you, Aaron, for writing me this poem

Tourmaline Sunday night
Aaron Tieger


I am writing this because
I crave the tactile pleasure
of purple ink on blue paper
or my lost black pen on white paper
or a pencil in the margin of a book
for a class I’d skip
to stay in bed & read
another book

It is Sunday night
and I am scared to go to bed
because I am scared to wake up
and put on my clothes and creep
to work like all
the other creeps. I ate too
much sugar & tried
to distract myself from feeling
like shit by feeling
like shit but it
didn’t work & now I feel
like shit. This world
scares me because every time
I see the road my lights
go out & I wake
& am lost & wondering
about the car
but when I find the car my keys
don’t fit & I know I have to find
another car & it takes me so long
with cars & I want to just walk or
better stay home but you need
a car so I find a car I like
OK & I buy the car & get
my plates & get the bill
for the excise tax which
I never pay & now I have car
that’s new to me but old
enough that little things
like wipers
go wrong & if the wipers
go wrong what’s stopping the brakes
or lights from going just
when the road comes
up in the dark
tonight

I am writing this tonight
because my friend Dottie’s
in my head reading poems
very loudly. Dottie reads
loudly it is like a dagger
of soul driving into
your soul when she talks about flowers
& birds & yes
her breasts. My heart runs
the way DL writes & if
I could I would tell her to make
a poem in which I am a hot
little bird on a greenhouse roof
& inside the greenhouse a bucket
of ice melts with a bottle of ambition
floating amidst the plants & warming
up to the point of melting

I am writing this tonight
I am using a lot of words more
than is my wont I don’t
think I am saying much I could maybe
trim a bit down but I’m trying
to distract myself and meditate
on the scratch of ink on a page
like skin the thin skin over a heart
that knows not what it knows
more words
footsteps on the ceiling cat snores
there is an endless amount of objective
correlative in my apartment alone
I think I have written myself down & maybe
can boil this
all down:

Dottie,
It’s Sunday night.
I hate my job. I love
your book.

____________________________________________

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