> tapioca world tour

I don’t know what it means — your new set of knives,
the wide sky and the old sea soon to be below your window
which will remind you of how a city’s not supposed to be
but is: both full and empty, all at once.

Yet I remember the era of patterned socks and bugs
crawling around our kitchen. You must remember
the smell of the rooftop, wet streets and the sounds the train made,
warning of its approach the same way the future screams
before it attacks.

Now you’re a bloody mess and I’m worse.
Now you’re a kaiju monster, I’m on the bleachers with a camera.
I’m on Manni’s bicycle. Now you’re dancing to the same song and I’m
staring out my bedroom window to the dead fish in its
dying pond. Now it’s summer and we’re both unemployed.
You’re an almond croissant. I’m wine on the wall.
You’re a dead bum in the driveway.
I’m an ambulance.
I’m a quesadilla and you’re holding Jonah and we’re both
singing hip hop, hip hop, hip hop trying not to notice
how serious everything really is. You’re in a blue car.
I’m in a blue car. We’re finding the fort, finally, up a hill,
we’re finding a parking spot, we’re shouting a boy’s name
out the window with no idea that years later, he’ll hear.
I’m a mess. You’re a riot. We’re behind barred windows.
I’m a big yellow rose, you’re a red wall, we’re in
someone else’s living room in New York City and the whole place
smells like smoke and confusion but I call it freedom
and you giggle and we drive

all the way home the same way.