Jump On Stage With a Blast From the Orchestra

“I’m having a bad night and don’t want to talk to anyone,” was my response when I got a Gchat message from an address I didn’t recognize. Then the video chat box opened, and there was a naked woman eating pistachio ice cream. The night was bad because I’d gone to a park where my first girlfriend took me once, and I noticed all the hedges were shaped like hearts. I’d always thought she took me there so no one would see us—to have known the shapes of those stupid hedges would have changed everything. “I want you to watch me eat this whole thing while you fuck yourself,” said the woman on the screen. She was eating ice cream with one hand while the other moved steadily between her thighs, which looked soft. She was about half way through the ice cream when I came, and the video box disappeared abruptly. Staring at the space where she had been, my pants around my knees, I remembered how my grandpa used to tell me to “Jump on stage with a blast from the orchestra.” I always thought he meant “Look for the silver lining,” but knew better than to use words like “look” or “for” or “silver lining.”

The Bead Store

I think the dread I feel waiting for girls
to call me is a dread of the bead store.
I’m afraid of the thing that makes
everyone there alike.

What if my number in her
phone looks like the number of
someone who spent 30 dollars on rocks
with holes in them?

I don’t want to actually blow up
a car, but I hope that’s what people imagine
me doing when they see my
number in their phones.
I long for dancing
to feel like conversation.