At Length

cried today looking at Halloween decorations Walked the aisles of Walgreens 
seeing myself in every mask Dracula Frankenstein Iron Man Pikachu  

thought of who I wanted to be tonight The streets filled with goblins and silly string 
My neighbors throwing a party filled with beautiful strangers  

Thought of both the time I went as a pumpkin because all babies go as pumpkins 
and going as a tropical depression Combination Hawaiian shirt

and eyeliner Remember when all that mattered was being clever I was never 
much good at that In the seventh grade when my friends had a “band” 

I was “manager” and we would have “practices” that were mostly just  
looking up stuff on 4chan Two Girls One Cup Blue Waffle that video of the girl 

who gets fucked by a horse I never had much subtlety A northern attitude 
I suppose I read all my Stephen King a little too early Spent my autumns

in graveyards looking for ghost stories I love the one I used to tell where I take 
a photo of the graves every hour on the hour and one gets developed of me

asleep in the arms of a statue I would tell my summer campers I had the photo 
somewhere at home like the irrefutable proof of the demonic afterlife

was scrapbooked to a mirror with a roll from a photo booth of Marcie Milgram  
who I haven’t thought about in years but was such a wonderful actress

She was in The Importance of Being Earnest and I remember wanting only  
to rip off her corset to toss her derby hat across the auditorium We dated

for a second in the tenth grade and her dad drove us to see Paranormal Activity  
Took us to Taco Bell after where the three of us sat in awkward silence  

like how I imagine the crew of the Titan submersible did realizing 
they’d all soon die But isn’t everyone’s childhood like that A crush

and being crushed One night in a photo booth with your tongue down  
someone’s throat The next watching WWE Smackdown Watching

a man from Toronto with luscious blonde hair fight an undead wizard  
Tonight I could be him Could stroll down the leaf littered streets

with my eyes rolled back The whites of them shining like the pools  
of water deer drink from in Twilight before a vampire sucks them dry

I don’t think that ever happened but I was always more Devil’s Kettle  
than Forks I don’t think I’ve looked up from my phone since 2012

since Kate Mara died in House of Cards and then in American Horror Story  
I watched her Craig Ferguson interviews like a new religion

like I was devout It was like I was on Rumspringa and found the tandem blessings 
of Svedka and Domino’s Lava Cakes I watched them like the lips

of the Brazilian exchange student who came my senior year  
and rolled every word out like she was making something gorgeous

from its entrails I did not grow up in a community well regarded  
for their baking Spent more than one dinner at the Sportsman Club

high off my ass trying not to make eye contact with the mounted deer  
Tried to forget I once raced toy boats down a rain gutter in the parking lot

Simultaneously won and lost the white trash Olympics  
I could wear a yellow rain jacket like I did then Spend my night

as Georgie the idiot kid brother I know the part well My ass often beat 
by my brother and his friends sipping Glacier Freeze Gatorades

Teabagging each other in Halo More than one of them kids who’d arrive 
in trench coats and fedoras One kid who’d bring his Xbox 360 around 

in a briefcase like a version of Pulp Fiction that reinforces the crisis of infinite worlds  
like a version of a school shooter who just kept a copy of GTA 

tucked into his waistband In a way I suppose this is a love letter 
to the edgelords My sympathies for the townies but also the scumfucks 

at Codi’s party who arrive with V for Vendetta masks,  
so unlike but not boy Cody who I grew up with Who knew only his dirt bike 

Made a motocross course inside the womb of our housing development 
I remember his dad drove an 18-wheeler and would park it in the yard

He’d throw rocks as I biked past and when he became a dad he apologized 
for all the bullshit  I apologized too then again to myself for apologizing

so much For once walking up on his little sister getting fingered 
out by the lake The pond with a government name like something out of

a David Berman poem Well’s Pond #2 with a flannel blanket set down  
Elbows propped up and the sun doing downward dog Could you believe

I spent the past year restraining myself from beauty? Like this statue  
in my hometown park of a dog desperately pulling away Its neck tight  

like a bundle of telephone wires At a distance all you see is resistance  
up close there is no leash I don’t remember when I decided I’d commit

to being unhappy I suppose it came on quietly like a storm at night 
the clouds turning dark somewhere behind the darkness My neurochemistry

rearranged from years of drinking from letting slip all these nights  
When I stopped I was amazed with all these extra hours These stupid new

possibilities Like tonight I could be a zombie or maybe Herk Harvey 
from Carnival of Souls who spends most of the movie just staring forward

tormenting Candice Hilligloss It wouldn’t be that hard to darken the eyes 
on my already sun forgotten face Buy a cheap suit Talk to no one 

But haven’t I been doing that already Sitting on my couch  
thinking about Selena Gomez and how unabashedly I love her 

despite feeling like she’s a bad singer and an even worse actress  
I ask a friend after the paparazzi catch her sunning on an expensive yacht

making comments about her lupus and her weight gain if I love her only 
out of sympathy Like Mark Leidner’s “The River” where the woman he loves

says the saddest thing imaginable and the speaker tells her he loves her 
for it well not exactly But something like that I think it’s most likely

a mirrored desire to perceive persistence That I too will struggle  
and be beautiful Maybe I could be her tonight A sparkly dress

like a disassembled disco ball or that girl from Under the Silver Lake  
who covers her pink leotard with balloons and lets strangers pop them

as the night progresses As I make a faux pas or forget someone’s name  
When I turn to a stranger and tell them I love them

mostly because of their costume but also the ingenuity to make it  
or the sheer will to get off the couch and go to the drug store

to pull one off a rack I want to tell them I love them for the playlists they make  
in the quiet of the evening The way their penmanship is surely bad

How they don’t know cursive I want to love them like I loved my first girlfriend  
The one who showed me breasts for the first time in her Subaru after field hockey practice

I want the perfect sentence to explain my northern vernacular  
To explain witch windows and Ruth Stone Maple sugaring and apples

The beautiful men from Barbados who spend the autumn picking them 
and smoking Cubanos outside Hannafords The one that was once an Ames

and to this day my parents still sing Eli James we bought you at Ames  
I even love boy Cody the way I love all the townies Gorgeous as they walk 

the halls of the high school making ATV sounds as they crank 
the restroom pass like a throttle The townies who’d miss first period

bagging a deer and arrive blood splattered to trigonometry Who’d  
snowmobile to school and check their rifles in at the front office 

Maybe I’ll dress like them All camouflage and Carhartt 
like my old neighbor who once got so drunk he drove his ATV 

into an above ground pool The plastic kind you find in poor places  
He spent his days chopping wood in the front yard blaring Tool

guzzling Molson’s Labatt’s It’s such a shame I never learned 
his name just the initials The only complicated thing about him 

Unlike the girls who live next door to me now Who I’m pretty sure 
hate me but still invited me out Social anxiety is such a bitch

But I bet their feelings would be validated if they read this  
This account of me debating a costume Perusing the tabloids

for some piece of mind For the perfect costume that announces 
I am trying to take you home but also let’s see where the night

takes us To the barcade where we drape scarves of tickets over our shoulders 
Two stepping at the Broken Spoke Headbanging at the Mohawk

After cheating on his wife my uncle lived in a tent before 
moving upstate, before living in a trailer near the Akwesasne

Mohawk Casino Before spending his Saturday nights hitting 
the slots with his new wife Maybe we could buy tickets

to ride across the desert in a hot air balloon or shoot elk 
out of a helicopter with Sarah Palin I’m bad at this romance thing

Great at sitting in the dark watching movies The day after 
Hurricane Irene I remember getting high with the class president

Driving around the backwoods I remember being 
too attracted to her to say anything Obsessed with the way

her mouth met the cold glass of the bong How her O’s 
were perfect and she never missed a homework assignment

I remember her friend being into me Remember once 
in the seventh grade giving her the puck at a Middlebury College game

after it went into the stands She blushed like the shell nightlight  
my mom kept in the bathroom I remember

getting high and getting dropped off Walking back through 
the neighborhood trying not to look conspicuous Immediately

sitting down in front of the couch with my dad and watching 
all of To Kill a Mockingbird I remember Jem and Atticus

Tom Robinson and Mayella Ewell I remember us getting up 
and walking out after it was over Never talking to my dad

about it How he must have known How all parents know 
I remember Tony Soprano saying the lowest form of conversation

is sitting around and saying I remember And so I want to apologize 
for dragging you into this You who expected more You

who must imagine me going to Spirit Halloween and being equally 
distraught But in a different way Me who an hour before

grabbed a yellow sweater and went as Arthur As low effort 
Me who walked into a room full of strangers and saw someone

I remembered Someone I omitted from my Harper Lee lineup 
like Moonrise Kingdom when I saw her she was dressed

as a raven Her plumage immaculate! Iridescent! She looked 
like a gasoline rainbow But one I could kiss Talked like a stick of licorice 

come to life Bitter but in that way that makes you love it 
I said remember when And she did I said take that Tony Soprano 

She took me home to where a map of the United States 
lay across her bedroom walls The disassembled pages 

of a road atlas transfigured by the nausea of data 
the city names replaced with words spoken by people

desperately trying to find love Words used in dating profiles 
to sell themselves Words like Virgin or Republican

like Lasso or Methadone like Guitar or Ballet like Sycamore 
or Sicko Mode I found where we grew up Quickly the words

arrived Maybe I have always seen myself best as a series 
of data points A constellation of unmitigated desire

In the upper left corner the title A MORE PERFECT UNION  
I grew up between Snowshoe and Steeple Just down the road

from Noetic and up from Velveeta Summered near Putter 
and Hump Colleged on the twin forks of Folk and Freemasonry

between Relevancy and Disengaged the word Thrush 
circled in red ink A decision she made about herself

about Home about the ways the song of a state bird 
comes to roost in your ribs not pick at the liver left behind 

When she threw me on the bed and pulled off this stupid costume 
She drew a different map of my life I paid attention 

to the words that leaked from my lips The yes pleases 
The always The way her speakers always seemed 

to play This Must Be the Place when I was around 
It was so easy to drown out the noise to lose sight 

and gain clarity The vertigo subsiding suddenly 
The night turning cool and crisp as we open the windows

The doubt and fear dressing us up like the animals 
in Snow White In the most precious garments they donned us