I have a tree
that I talk to
sometimes,
and we had a
long discussion
today,
I told it
the whole story
about the girl
from last night,
and it nodded along
in just the right places,
and that was exactly
what I needed
in that moment,
and as the gentle breeze
got hold of the leaves,
it asked me
with a genial whisper
what operating system
my brain is running,
and I didn't know
what to say,
because I was
unaware of the fact
that I had one,
well, a brain,
that is.
And now I'm back home,
gurgling Dr Pepper
with phosphoric acid
over my kitchen sink,
right after
I've brushed my teeth,
and I do it
just to feel something.
If that's not punk,
then you tell me what is,
I'm not gonna conform
to whatever
my dentist says,
I need the pain,
it helps me see
the other place,
I need to redirect
the neural patterns
towards
something else,
just about anything
except the way
her eyes
shimmered
with cosmic dust
from another world,
even a hint
of Sichuan pepper
makes my tongue
go numb,
and I don't know
if I'm doing it
all wrong,
but I'd rather have it
numbing my brain
on a day like this,
so after all,
maybe it would help
knowing
what operating system
my brain is running,
and did you catch
the stress syllables
in that sentence?
I fry my burgers
in maple syrup,
what are you gonna
do about it?
Are you gonna
call the cops?
Yeah, hello!
This is the Maple Syrup
Police Department,
how can I help you?
Does that make
any sense
to you?
Okay, I'm sorry,
but I'm not trying
to make sense,
I'm trying
to make something
that's real,
Gödel numbering
in the Anthropocene,
we'll figure out
the boundaries
of Boolean algebra
before we figure out
the boundaries
of commodification,
I'm trying to
skip the act
and go straight
into
the Intermezzo,
and I capitalized
that word
for a reason
that only she knows,
it's not what you think,
I know it's a book,
what else it new?
You should know by now
that I carry
a cake shovel
wherever I go,
and I'm ready to fight
with all available
means,
with every force
we dare to wield,
but it doesn't
help me
the slightest
this time around,
because how can I
be expected
to go back to normal
after having stared
right into
a million suns?
I promised myself
to never perform
psychostasia
on a first date,
but what can I say?
It's our flaws
that make us
interesting.
Do you think
that would
hold up
as an excuse
in court?
Good,
because then
I'm going with that!
Don't get me wrong,
I enjoyed the way
my retina
blazed away
in an instant
by the dazzling light
emanating
from her
bewitching iris,
and I'm still
wondering
if my insurance
will cover
whatever procedure
I might need
after this.
Ironically though,
she's hotter
than a Minecraft
furnace,
and I'm not gonna
spell it out
fully,
but I can't
even picture
The Great Gatsby
in a fedora hat,
but she actually
met the man
who built that furnace
in the first place,
there's a looming
digital wanderlust
each time
our oscillating frequencies
align, spontaneously,
and the moment
that I realized
that her spiritual
ontology
carried the weight
of an entire cosmos,
you better believe
that everything I said
sounded
absolutely bland,
because how
do you bounce sound
off the cosmic web,
when all you have
at your disposal
is a condenser
microphone
and an apotropaic
spellbook?
I could feel
how the space-time
continuum
tried its best
to hang in there
every time she
flashed
her eyelids,
because the sheer
punch
of her enigmatic
persona
was tilting
the entire
architecture
that decides
whether or not
the wave function
will collapse,
don't ask me
how she does it,
I would just
mumble something
about the
Everett interpretation
sparkled with
whatever
was grated
on top of her
pasta,
actually,
I think it was truffles,
and I sure hope
she liked it,
because it looked delicious,
and I wish her
all the best,
and that includes
the best pasta,
but before
you know it,
it's the end
of the road,
and reality hits hard
when you see her
walking away,
disappearing
into the dark,
like a speck of dust
in the starry sky,
and the relentless
subway
is shaking out
the little life
that's left
in my mortal being,
and I'm expected
to switch gears,
throw on my Sennheisers,
take the train home,
and do whatever
normal people do
on a Sunday evening,
maybe make a sandwich,
watch the news,
and,
I don't know,
vacuum the floor
or something.
Do people actually
do that?
Out of all the things
they could do
in this situation,
how the hell
can they do that?
Have they not heard
of a million suns?
I have stared into
a million suns.