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︎︎︎ Josh Crummer
︎ AUG 31, 2021
If
you think I’m wasting battery checking texts
or stroking keys, stale crumbs crushed between cap and circuit
like kids stomping plastic cups on the pavement
or another second wallflowering dive bars wishing
I was the amber glass redheads rest lips upon –
wasting one byte of data swiping right
on country music junkies and skydiving selfies,
on profiles listing two kids who are their globe emoji –
you’re wrong. I don’t comb those beaches anymore,
don’t stare at shoals pondering last apartment life,
faint bedroom scent of other men until seven months elapse;
and I certainly don’t miss walking tightropes
while her family bets on my longevity like raindrops racing
down a windowsill. I’m losing faith in these Tarot cards,
my stars misaligning no matter who’s drawing
so here’s my pledge to you:
I’ll wait on your Instagram stories like a starving
butler, gift every risqué coffee cup bathtub selfie
with a flame or some hearts; and I will drop fifteen,
thirty, a hundred dollars a month on premium access,
striptease cosplay, latticework colors inked across
your bareness; bends and poses ripped straight from
my baddest dreams. But most importantly,
I won’t envy the solo paparazzi camped in your home,
that lucky bastard or bastardess wielding camera,
lazily playing PlayStation 5 on a Sunday morning
as your wrist numbs from signing next week’s photos
in the other room as I watch for mailmen
like a Dean Martin ballad, or an army wife, or a teen
checking his texts every goddamn second.
or stroking keys, stale crumbs crushed between cap and circuit
like kids stomping plastic cups on the pavement
or another second wallflowering dive bars wishing
I was the amber glass redheads rest lips upon –
wasting one byte of data swiping right
on country music junkies and skydiving selfies,
on profiles listing two kids who are their globe emoji –
you’re wrong. I don’t comb those beaches anymore,
don’t stare at shoals pondering last apartment life,
faint bedroom scent of other men until seven months elapse;
and I certainly don’t miss walking tightropes
while her family bets on my longevity like raindrops racing
down a windowsill. I’m losing faith in these Tarot cards,
my stars misaligning no matter who’s drawing
so here’s my pledge to you:
I’ll wait on your Instagram stories like a starving
butler, gift every risqué coffee cup bathtub selfie
with a flame or some hearts; and I will drop fifteen,
thirty, a hundred dollars a month on premium access,
striptease cosplay, latticework colors inked across
your bareness; bends and poses ripped straight from
my baddest dreams. But most importantly,
I won’t envy the solo paparazzi camped in your home,
that lucky bastard or bastardess wielding camera,
lazily playing PlayStation 5 on a Sunday morning
as your wrist numbs from signing next week’s photos
in the other room as I watch for mailmen
like a Dean Martin ballad, or an army wife, or a teen
checking his texts every goddamn second.
Josh Crummer is a poet from Zilwaukee, Michigan. His work has most recently appeared in Book of Matches, Vita Brevis Press, Sky Island Journal, Alien Buddha Press, and more.