A Reflection on College as I have Known It, With Subtle Tones of Reminiscence
The sacrament of possibility
And the ritual of internal wars
And I didn’t say battles I said wars
Like a water color painting in the hands of an August thunder storm
Lightning dripping from your tongue and soggy colors down your throat
And speaking of drains who knew four girls could lose so much hair in one shower
And who knew you could find yourself six times in a day and still manage to stay lost
Like pouring holy water down a well
And who knew peanut butter on banana could be a staple
And who knew the blue ridge mountains were actually blue
Out on the horizon as we fucked against his fourth story window and the sun was rising
And man I swear I saw God’s silhouette in that 4am fog
Sundays have been like that for me
More hopeless haze than the silence of snow
The kind of storms we used to get back home but
There’s a different kind of white noise here
.
.
The smell a lake gets when it is too calm
And Christmas lights in April
Drinking $4 white wine from the bottle
On a rotting wood porch
Wicker furniture and bugs
Oh my god the bugs
I would’ve gotten malaria for you babe
Eaten alive for you babe
But it’s okay, by then we were already sicker than we thought
And I started drawing broken hearts on my Sociology notes instead of flowers and swirls
I couldn’t stand the swirls because they reminded me of my mind and that wasn’t fair
.
.
Beer Bongs & Bentleys
And that beer bong flamingo
That we named Freddy
Grew black mold in its throat
Much like us
But now Freddy lies
In the bottom of that swamp behind those apartments we always used to go to
To dance
And now we lie too
In our own rooms alone
Listening to the broken washing machine rattle
Like a fucking earthquake hit the American South
And we still argue about the thermostat and dance at those apartments
But we are also growing into more whole beings now
And we all might collapse and die one day from black mold poisoning
But that’ll be okay because really our souls are already lying
– six feet under, scum and decomposing leaves and murky water
With a plastic flamingo named Freddy
.
.
You learn a lot but mostly you learn it’s more simple than that
Like as simple as high heels gouging holes in our futon
While belting out “Bennie and the Jets”
Into our spatula microphones as the boys walked in
And Em thought it was “Jennie and the Jets” this whole time and we all laughed
