strategy for the apocalypse

I've thought heavily
about the apocalypse
since I was eight years old but
I've never considered strategy except
to smoke cigarettes and wait


Morgan Parker

summertime*

Summertime and the living is
extraordinarily difficult. The sunset

seems unimportant. It becomes
a calm. Sunglasses, white

wine spritzers. Would you hate yourself
less if you picked your fruit from trees.

You prefer friends to remain
in train stations. What side the mountain

is home. You were not invited
into the orange groves.

Sometimes you go outside
and control is possible.

Everybody has an opinion.
Everything rolls off your shoulders.


Morgan Parker, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé

*Summertime, Nina Simone

quiet alcohol

(...)

I want quiet alcohol
untouched by light and fingertips,
settled safely under half-moon,
crests dilating with slow breath.
There are no feelings here
and I do not want to go home. Soon
we will be underwater, life forms
in air pockets. And I do not trust
this place to scoop us up, teach us
to move, hips following current,
arms like pillars expanding and stretching
under highway glow. You know
I always cry at holidays.


Morgan Parker

other people’s comfort keeps me up at night

Today darling I am rising
from the lavender bathtub
of self-loathing. I don’t take drugs
to shut up I take off
my pants when I get home
and I stay there, red cup full
of cigarettes from heaven, ghosts
of all my friends between my toes.
I imagine them pouring vodka all over
each other wearing glitter.
The vision is closing in like a tight dress.
Meanwhile the moon
fills gray-green. The shops in the village are
leaking bodies. Spilt oil rolls over
cash like hands, some glorious bullshit.
What bothers me is the weight
of clouds under your fire escape, your
hand strange lines I feel
and can’t, one shared breath
of all the bulldogs in the park,
how I don’t notice an inch below
something wriggling in dark warmth
as if love or hunger never counted
and I was never meant to last. The nervous
breakdown doesn’t end.
It was only sleeping. And comes
back good and rested
smearing its eye boogers all over.
Says you’re an arrogant prick.
I say fuck you nervous breakdown.
It says open the curtains and look
down at all the people or
you may only share your bed with me.
I accidentally say OK.
When I can’t sleep I smoke
a dark cigarette and keep the curtains closed
so I can lose track of where I am
and who is here with me. I cut the faces
out of magazines and pile them
in the middle of my hardwood floor.
In the distance, that good old
rock n roll. This isn’t simple
if you want it to be. What my country
does for me is enter
me like a room, becomes the furniture,
the wall, the painting on the wall,
the white spot where painting used to sing.
Singing enters me, becomes the window.
Baby think of my skin
as the best part of the song. Take me
by the ribs and lay me at the bottom
of a dirty creek where I can
get a good view.


Morgan Parker

haven be a xanax

When people say how are you
I say good
It is a rule no one can answer
Crying in The Gap by my therapist’s office
or I am still angry with my parents
for traumatizing me
through organized sports
Dangerous and satisfying body of water
I can almost remember heaven
or Still a woman slaughtered for wonder
or Unfortunately misplaced grip
I am not doing a good job waiting
When I get to heaven I’m going
to wear my good bra
so no one can stay mad at me
I won’t have any feelings to hurt just
cheeseburgers on cheeseburgers on
deep colored slumber
Just men offering their golden bodies
And I will take the offering on my tongue
And it will not be a vault
And someone will not invade me
And I will kneel to pray
And I will address the prayer to myself
And I will be allowed


Morgan Parker

let me handle my business, damn

Took me awhile to learn the good words
make the rain on my window grown
and sexy now I’m in the tub holding down
that on-sale Bordeaux pretending
to be well adjusted I am on that real
jazz shit sometimes I run the streets
sometimes they run me I’m the body
of the queen of my hood filled up
with bad wine bad drugs mu shu pork
sick beats what more can I say to you
I open my stylish legs I get my swagger
back let men with gold teeth bow to my tits
and the blisters on my feet I become electric
I’m a patch of grass the stringy roots
you call home or sister if you want
I could scratch your eyes make hip-hop die again
I’m on that grown woman shit before I break
the bottle’s neck I pour a little out: I am fallen


Morgan Parker