“John Waters Trailer” & “Im Sorry Ok?”
by Lexi McCoy-Caso
John Waters Trailer
ryan came over to feed
my 30 year old boyfriend’s 22 year old cat
all 3 of them older than me
and lived more life than i have
i moved in last month
two boxes
clothes, records, guitar, skateboard
eternal teenage bedroom torn corner sonic youth goo poster
and a misfits lightswitch cover
he says i keep him young
we duct taped cardboard up
over where his ghost friend with the sharp teeth got so angry he slid his wrist
right thru the drywall
his fist took flight and landed in the rosemary bush outside
soft like a hot air balloon landing on dry grass in new mexico
and smelled nice
then he drove to oregon with your dad’s machete and never came back
now at parties we all reminisce and say “poor keegan, how sad”
i would call the landlord
but i think im starting to like cold showers
and the moldy ceiling kind of looks like
a dalmatian or
101
all cuddled up
if you squint just right and hard enough
“how could you not notice the gas leak?”
well joseph, it’s because i feel like shit
all the time
already
look at me
ryan came to feed the cat
the smell of death hanging on his fur
weeks before he dragged himself out to the bushes on christmas
and died
the most gruesome death ive ever seen
without so much as goodbye
(that fucking asshole)
four years later
casually
you laughed and said “remember when you went to santa cruz and i fed your exes cat? were
you ok? what the fuck was that?
it was like a john waters movie
without the kitsch or camp”
and ryan
you were the only one to ever ask
Im Sorry Ok?
walk around the block
higher than i knew existed
nineteen
at your parents house in a desert suburb
a cookie cutter
kind of perfect
and now i know what you mean about arizona sunsets
each little tan house lined up
on a little tan patch of earth
like they were sitting on the shelves of a grocery store
walk back
into the wrong house
to a family of five and
just sighed
walked out like it was a circle k
and said fuck calm down im sorry ok?
nineteen days since ive eaten more
than a few bites of whatevers on my plate
since i stole your dad’s dollar store skeleton gloves
and his dog named freedom
and all the whiskey from that party
and since i used little pieces of wonderbread to fill all the cracks in the ceiling
while laughing and crying
i can do that at my age
but im sorry anyway
when youre nineteen
you can have sex on an air mattress
even after all the air has sauntered out
and ask
would you please go sleep in the car
i need a moment to myself
or at least speak to me using big words
the grown up kind
the spelling test kind?
and pretend im someone else
tonight
