For You – Forrest Muelrath
September 22, 2021
INCANDESCENT BLOB
OF HELPLESS MALE MATTER
Booze and amphetamine molecules
traversing side by side,
firing keystrokes
to reify meatsticks —
glistening pink
cellphone photography,
flying forever
across the ever expanding
boundaries of the internet
He's addicted to you.
He's powerless over you.
This vacationing,
anguished, hot monster,
after hiking for hours,
standing at the edge
taking snapshots
of the syphilis volcanos
all for you,
forever and for you.
Becoming an Expat
Getting a cheap apartment
in Queens
and never leaving
is a noble thing to do,
so is leaving the country
with no plans to return.
Either way, you’re an expat
finding some other way
to get by,
while all else
goes to shit.
Maybe things will look better
for a while,
Mets got a Cy Young winner,
fool’s gold til August,
or fast cash
on some wild stocks,
but the roaches
will still be there,
starring back
through the putrid humidity
of a New York summer night.
Find stable health,
hummed to a steady drone
of zero balance –
sell the car to a friend,
sublet the apartment,
work for others
as little as possible, and
get out of town,
before the Mets start losing
again.
There’s peaceful equilibrium
between poverty’s wretched madness
and the euphoria of belief,
in an aeroplane
over Queens.
Say nothing to the landlord,
and I am gone.
Crossing the Bridge Again
Downtown Brooklyn is a hillhole
— a hole to pass between
hills and hell —
it's all root canals and court.
The best way out is always through.
Pledge your commitment to your dentist.
The ample hills are supple lies
as they drag your ass through the system
for no god damn good reason.
You look like an asshole, he says.
to her brother — a literal asshole,
with your lips puckered-up
in the middle of your
buttface.
— like this!*
How would you like a shake shack
to spill all over your civil suit?
A good idea for an app would be
to locate the nearest place to piss.
Thankfully, there are a plethora of public
restrooms downtown.
Among the dental offices
and broken families.