NO BAD WAVES

When I made the decision I called my parents house. Beep boop beep we’re sorry. You have reached a number that is no longer in service.

Move towards love like a plant bends towards light. Some gnarly scars in the stems.

Sergio says tell her that’s how you feel. She’s sure to think it’s hot.  

One wound big enough to swallow the others.

I didn’t mean to hurt you I howl into the pillow in the night. 

Paddle towards the jetty and let the current take me. 

I miss you so much I howl into the pillow. The pink skin tag on your right breast. The smoke of a scar. 

The waves come and don’t stop coming. I duck dive until my arms are limp. Made it out somehow but can’t imagine ever  doing it again.  

I don’t want to go on. It’s not what I want. 

One wound to rule them all.

One giant gash quivering like a Mr. Katz cartoon. 

Drew says write about your breakup but don’t show it to anyone because it will be bad and no one needs to hear it. 

So hard to turn the page without tearing. 

Walking wound. Ground beef. Clump of multicolored melted wires. 

My opening line on dates is the last time I was dating there were no dating apps yet because there were no apps because there were no smartphones. This is a thing you said during one of our last couples therapy sessions. 

The white noise and vaguely floral smell. Hand sanitizer. Umbrella bucket. I remember the feeling of it. Goodbye Doctor Tanja. We all did our best. 

The high of the decision wears off and now raw meat style pain. 

But then the flavor of yesterday was incredible. 

When Sara touched her wet pussy and then streaked it across my cheek. 

I said, No one has ever done that.

She said, Don’t compare me to others.

She said you attach your dreams to a place. But then she’s not allowed to stay. She sounded flat.

It’s incredible. The volume of sadness and joy in a day. 

I painted giant straight letters in blue Rust-Oleum with a white Kilz outline on a rusty boxcar. HARD TIMES. The two words hardly fit on the panel. You can’t have one without the other.

The first time I said I love you was in hand gestures. Pointed to my eyes and then heart and made a U out of my hands. In the vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant on Valencia. You said you love me…in uptalk. Or was it a question? 

Look at what the light did now.  

Before smartphones. Before Obama. 

It’s peeling off my heart like a wheat-pasted poster from plywood. The remaining white jagged strips.

Nothing ever really like fully disappears you know. Bonds break energy moves but waves don’t die you know. I keep saying shit like this. I’ll love you forever. I’m sick of your fucking platitudes. 

You attach dreams to a person. You aren’t allowed to stay.

My best friend died and then my BEST friend DIED. 

You were supposed to be my sweetie forever but then you put his whole tiny dick in your mean mean mouth. 

I said it was OK but it wasn’t. 

To get what you want and then give it away. 

I remember your ex reading that line eighteen years ago and I knew it was about you. 

I put a song on your playlist. Everything I asked for I got everything I wanted. I lost. Everything I asked for I got everything I wanted I lost. And who won.

You said I didn’t know what it means with a look of panic.

Freud said we grieve by letting go memory by memory. Each time we turn a page we choose life over death.

Rebecca says, Damn bro…attachment…and then sighs.  

We can wear black forever if we want to. Carry the dead with us as little dolls. 

Smoke a ciggy. One final breath. I like how fucked up the burning filter makes me feel.

A socially acceptable way to punch yourself in the head.

You screamed in my face that we should be screaming because this is a fucking catastrophe.  

Divorce is death. An out breath. A conversation ending. 

I wrote into a note for six months and accidentally deleted it. Goodbye forever. 

Her pussy juice on my cheek. Absorbed. 

Woke up next to you for seventeen years. Deleted it. 

Petting my back while I wrench the vine loose from the soil. 

 Remember me. 

The things you can’t write about.

Good Bye. 

I’m forty-two. I have three masters degrees and charge a high hourly rate. 

I’m the victim/villain. When you feel that way with a client who has suffered terrible abuse, you call it countertransference. What now? Who won?

The tender spot in my chest glows white when I sit outside a circle of talking people. 

I lie on the floor and cry like a wounded dog between clients then put on a wrinkle-resistant shirt with vertical stripes. Wear a calm and friendly face and hold the space. Where do you feel like getting started today?

This year I read twelve books. This year I wrote a record. This year I made many nice new friends. This year I lost thirty pounds. This year I got the best tube of my life. 

Hope like the ash of a spent incense stick. 

You say I left you but you left me first. 

What are we babies?

Yes. We are all babies.

Waves crest when they feel the bottom. 

I haven’t slept in one place for more than a few days in eight months.

I lay down my bags and weep.

Wander into a bedroom, wander out. In the night, I never know which way to the bathroom.

The good object. The bad object. 

I run a successful business. 

I wash my armpits and dick in the sink there at night. 

I stick and poke a sad face onto my leg to join the group of people who have tattoos. To make myself a part of their web. 

I did mushrooms and looked at my leg. Was filled with regret for ruining my perfectly pure body, and then remembered I’m going to die so it’s actually OK. 

You thought the Silver Jews song where with the tan line on the ring finger was so sad. It only took four weeks for mine to fade away. 

I remember Anthony’s soft hand on his deathbed. The tattoos on his hairy forearm. SEA YOU SOON and a small wave. You were with me then. You touched the small of my back while we watched him gasp. While I squeezed his warm fingers. 

We had just come back from a hike and you had said this is going to be the best summer ever. I took a photo of you nestled into a blueberry bush with one million white flowers

Matt L. Roar is a writer and musician from San Francisco currently living in Philadelphia. He makes music under the moniker Golden West Service and does editorial work with TOTAL JOY and EMOCEAN. He's the author of MY WAR from Spork Press and has published work in JENKEM, Skate Jawn, The Poetry Foundation, The Brooklyn Poets' Anthology, etc.