weep ode #99

i love feelings.
can’t get enough of creatures who feel
                        & show it, who shimmer
                        a bit from it. i’m a fan
                                    of my own beaucoup states of sensitive moi.
            j’adore, am a whore for when feelings balloon
                                                & kazoo & we’re having

                                    a party on the moon, but where are the bathrooms?
                                    it’s hard to pee on the moon. it’s not hard to see

            there’s a gamut of galactic feelings
            felt on this planet—trillions
                        & trilling, while i especially love that wild species
of weepy: half sob, half snort, half snotbubbly
gigglysads. i am partial to sad,
                                    bad math

                        that’s also kinda hot. at parties i ask everyone
                        if they believe in the afterlife. then leave at midnight
            without one goodbye. i love midnight. loathe noon.
                                    though i revere irreverence at any hour. really
i should ask if everyone believes in life.

                                                do i?                  don’t i?

i hate when i love not feeling even how much i hate not feeling
            & all i can do is wait.

            wait to remember how my preferred category of party is a picnic
                                                            by myself.
            or with just one good friend
                        in russian novel form. anna karenina,

                        if you can take an afternoon off from the afterlife, let’s picnic.
spread our blanket beneath this flawless
                        flamboyance of tree, its classically
                        cooling feel. enjoy
                                    our cucumber-watercress tea sandwiches,
                                    their A+ soul feel. & then, why not, let’s get

weepy & paint watercolors about it.
                                    each painting will be titled “weep ode”
                                    plus a number. & “weep ode #99”

            will depict the last of 12th grade math, our little party, my big day,
            the way i led my trivia team
            to victory. mid-june in a stuffy classroom—i remember
                                    smelling not too great. i remember
                        the question was: what is the mare serenitatis?

see, anna, i remembered a factoid
            from a gay coming-of-age novel that i kept hoping would get steamier
            but just kept getting sadder
                        which ultimately, i loved.

            i loved & love the melancholy factoid i learned from that book:
                                    that one of the moon’s dark, waterless plains

            is called the sea of serenity.
& i was so happy to know this, so unserenely jubilant to win with this
i almost wept,
                        but held myself back
                        because what if they laughed, pointed & laughed,
                                                everyone, their mouths,

                                                every one wide & cold & far as the lunar mare—

            anna, do you see? the watercolor shows
what could’ve been: letting myself weep
& laugh. i could’ve been: good
laughweeping, grand snot bubble,
                                                            not afraid. if only i wasn’t
                                                right to be.