Of two minds… and sides of the couch.
So I fell off the wagon with regular updates again, but there’s a good reason this time, I swear: I moved in March, and, uh… I don’t have a desk at my new place. Typing at the dinner or coffee table is taxing! …Okay, still pretty weak. Well, in any case, I did get a few more poems out in the interim on my phone, on a notepad, or cobbled together from scraps thereupon–and here’s the first.
I’ve heard it said that being embarrassed by your past self is a net positive, because it means you know you’ve improved since then. If that’s the case, then I gotta admit I live a pretty positive life nowadays. Adulting can be stressful as all get-out, but while professional woes are one thing, I was in a pretty bad place personally during undergrad (as even the back archives of this site can attest). After seven-odd years, time has given me a healthier, more measured perspective on a lot of things, but dating in particular. I’ve not done much more these days than then, truth be told, but when I look back on how I approached it before, I shake my head at the desperate yet idealistic attitude which which I regarded romance, whether the subject was actual or imagined.
Hence, I thought it’d be an interesting wish-fulfillment to imagine directly discussing the matter with my past self. I even went so far as to pull lines from the all-purpose “poetry scraps” document I’ve kept on my computer for a decade, and use stray verses I’d previously drafted as topics of criticism instead of wholly earnest sentiments. It’s a trite exercise, perhaps, but a cathartic one as always. Hopefully I’ll be able to imagine an all-new exchange with the self that types these very words in, say, 2025! But, until then, all I’ve got is just some…
Advice to My Past Self on Dating
So, how does this work?
Well, first, don’t be a jerk,
but also don’t fall headfirst to please.
Too many white knights think they’re dark knights—
if you try to ‘win’ her, you’re already losing.
Unrequited love, isn’t.
Elliptical eye contact can’t count as conversation
you’re entitled to exchange for her
free time.
Okay, so, kinda contradictory.
But let’s just say I wait,
play it cool.
Who’s even gonna come by by graduation,
or whenever I figure it out?
Plenty.
Heather won’t last forever,
but God, you’ll learn so much.
Maggie’ll make a fool of you—
could take the one-night stand, but I advise against it.
Madi evaporated, so don’t worry about her.
Stevi isn’t even a student, but you’ll still lurk
by her office, clammy fist clenched.
You’ll think you heard her lurid timbre, but it was just
a door closing to your back.
And there’s a girl in black
with a snub nose and gamer tats
that’ll grab your heart like a rollercoaster shoulderbar
until you tell her so.
And that’s just undergrad.
Oh.
I was afraid
of that. At least I get a chance.
But in the meantime, I still just feel so
low.
Well, there you go.
Your first mistake
will be thinking a girlfriend will solve all your problems.
There’s no motherly lovers out there,
no manic pixie painkillers that’ll act
a Madame Advil and
distract you from every ill at their own sole expense.
Lovers are people, too.
Gotta give to get.
Shit. Well, fine. But it’s been a few months, and
I can’t seem to fit in
enough to make anyone notice me.
For a progressive paradise, this town
feels so damn diametric.
Who said you can’t wear a dress shirt
and also support free love and disestablishmentarianism?
Someone must’ve
whispered it into a tape recorder,
placed it as a secret track on one of those pop punk albums
I always miss because some stoner stock-boy
placed it between Jazz and New Wave
where it doesn’t belong.
Just as well. Those songs will be your downfall
if you don’t watch yourself—mere minutes
stretched into years of getting left on Read,
Fueled By Ramen’s finest amplifying your anxiety
like a mic to a speaker,
parting pleasantries ringing in your memories.
You’re better off a contradiction, kid, trust me—
That’ll attract in due time,
more than screeching along to your iPod in shotgun
while she already wonders when dinner’ll end.
What, then, I should hide
how I feel?
Maybe you’re right.
I’ve lost more friends to love than hate,
so sue me if I choose to wait
to lay it all out on the line
like linen sheets—I’ll say I’m fine.
Nice couplets, but it’s
more than just bottling or blowing up.
Don’t go full incel just to say it
makes you feel better about getting turned down,
but then don’t be the starry-eyed puppy praying for table scraps.
You of all people should understand that balance, man.
But I can’t stand this, just sitting in the middle..
It’s not like I’m ever thinking of a wedding—
No mints printed with our initials, a Tumblr’s worth of TWs.
I just want to believe
bad girls can do good
by me. That ladies like a spray-painted mansion,
elegant exiles,
can succeed under the wing of a humble geek.
Rock and roll will never die,
even if I have to perform CPR on it myself
through the mouth of a girl with safety pins for buttons
Uh, whatever you say.
God only knows
where you got that kink,
but you gotta remember the statistics
of what most likely drives
your average lacquered tomboy.
You could chase the dream, but you don’t want that
exhaustion, that whimsically privileged irresponsibility
of a genderless mistress pissed at cishets,
fishnet-swaddled, rattling on about how
heartbreak perpetuates the patriarchy.
Hold out for a more sensible individual
in clean jeans and modest brunette locks.
And you’ve got the gall to call me misogynistic.
Maybe I’ll just believe whatever helps
me get through another day of interminable midterms
and intersections like demilitarized zones
mid-route to overpriced groceries.
That they’re too good for me.
That I’m better off on my own.
That sex is like carpentry: screw too much
and you’re bound to strip.
I don’t have the luxury of courteous confidence
like you apparently do.
Oh,
dude, if only.
I know it must feel
like your heart is haunted,
a cold spot everyone steps around or screams at.
That’ll get better with age and experience,
I promise.
But the burning butterflies when the right blue eyes meet yours?
The dry tongue tasting out how best to linger
by the punch bowl to break ice?
The invisible walls you erect when you expect to encounter her,
mime-like barriers of the brain and bravado?
Those never really go away—
you just have to temper it, internally
pour cogent water on lava-hot infatuation
until it cools and coalesces
into an obsidian binary: hold or fold.
Maybe not the answer you wanted to hear,
but I’m here
to be honest, not awesome.
Ah, that’s… fine.
I don’t mind. How could I,
after everything I admitted?
Because I realize now
I’ve never been in love with anyone.
Any thing? Sure.
There’s nothing
my heart and mind can covet
like a lenticular Blu-Ray box set
or a collector’s edition Nintendo game,
nothing that captivates my wolf’s mind
and warrior’s spirit like plastic capitalism
and the promise of a shiny new tomorrow.
When you put it all like that, perhaps
I don’t deserve true companionship.
No one does. And that’s what makes it
so wonderful: Because you gotta go
out of your way to make it work.
Romance isn’t wondering and wailing, and it’s not waiting.
It’s walking out the door with your chin up, shoes clean, and eyes open,
and looking like who you want to be
when you consider the mirror between brushstrokes.
And even then, there’s no guarantees.
All the pickup artistry in the world won’t paint over
a canvas of bad timing and mismatched goals.
But opportunity arises best
when you don’t thrive on recycled air.
Fair enough.
I hope I can roll with that.
Guess I’ll see you in a few years?
Fewer than either of us
might like.
Reflection is directing a bullet into the past,
letting brutal clarity ricochet, deafening, around a chamber
of stagnant emotions.
But, it’s the least I could do.
I know you won’t remember it all,
and that’s fine.
Time makes scholars of us all, because
the only way to really learn
is to wish you already had.
Just have some fun while you’re back there, will ya?
For one.
I’ll try.
Make that for two.
—
Notes&Sketches 