Sometimes, I want to live until I’m old and my skin is like paper.
A breath later, I complain how I can’t hold every good thing
together at once. In college, I had a girlfriend whose breasts
spilled over the space of my hand and it was never upsetting.
I whine and moan when I’m home in Santa Barbara and see
pictures of Reims on Instagram. I talk shit while drinking
champagne in France and my friends are walking beaches
at sunset—beaches I never walk when I’m home, but then,
all at once, it’s the only thing I want. This happens all the time.
I want to sleep late and have a full day. Want to write code—
for money—but still have a mind and heart for poetry later.
I want my friends and their children with me in Paris, in Italy,
wherever I need to live to be happy—which is everywhere.
My father still likes to tell me: things can get worse. He also
likes to say: God is still on the throne. I wonder, quite often,
if things get worse because God makes them worse. Is there
some dimension where things can only get better? Maybe
a universe where we can drink all the champagne we want
but never get too drunk? A timeline where everyone we love
is in our life, together, and Paris is nestled between the ocean
and the Santa Ynez mountains, but somehow still affordable—
and we’re not constantly thinking about some additional thing,
or some other person we need to be happy and the world is
never on fire from war and I get to watch the children of my
friends grow up. A world where even I want to have children.
I could watch them play soccer in the neighborhood plazas.
Have as many beers as I’d like. Smoke all the cigarettes I want
without dying even a little. Do you see? Whatever god built
this world did a shit job. These ciggies are fucking killing me.
I’m drunk in Paris, not very happy, and I don’t want to get so
old my skin is like paper. Where you almost see through it,
see beneath it, in danger of it tearing all the time. I just want
to be old enough to die first. Listen, my love. Let me admit
this one thing. I can’t seem to live in this world on my own.