Quick, Get Your Beret.

To answer the unasked questions, yes, this is 1998 and I am 21 and pretentiously drinking Earl Grey tea at Cafe Coco. This can only explain why I am subjecting you to poetry today. Poetry! What’s next? Panic at the Disco fan fiction? Apologies in advance. Emo stupidity today, continuation of 1,000 Christmases tomorrow.

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Smile, click.

In pictures from years ago
we all look so innocent.
People always look so happy in pictures, standing, smiling for the camera.

I was there.
We weren’t always happy. Some of us were miserable.
We just stopped being miserable
long enough to smile
and wait for the click.

Smile, click.
In a week, dad’s going to die.

Smile, click.
In six months, he’s going to kill me a little.

Smile, click.
They end up divorced.

Smile, click.
You two will stop speaking.
No one will remember why.

Smile, click.
Within a year, we’ll all be at his funeral.

Smile, click.
He’s going to shoot himself.

There are no time machines to save any of you.

Put on your costumes and smile, my darlings.
Years from now, we will remember being happy

even if we weren’t.

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To Your Soles

Dancing happily.
Dancing angrily.
Dancing eulogies.
Dancing to convince everyone we’re ok.
Dancing to convince ourselves we’re ok.
Dancing because it makes us feel less powerless.

If I can boss around a snare
it’s all okay.
Right?

Requests come for a reason.
Not because we want something
but because we need it.

This is how I celebrate.
This is how I fight, fuck and bury.
With my boots on.
Like I mean it.