I'm Joking

Courtney Bush

Dark thoughts
the gagging yourself picture pose
sledgehammer
the backyard of Rosemont
is our cosmic burial ground
before you’re dead
the Beavis in me thinks it funny
when I see a sign reads
Evangelizing the Globe II
I believe he had no right
to not believe a word I said
with ten thousand we could have
arranged a splendid escape
I’ve spoken this word to you
your whole life
so if you want to talk to me
about something
please change the subject
if you don’t want me
to start taking things away
until I take away things
that weren’t even there
I can do that
you play the Beatles for little kids
we’re the kind of people we say we are
you show little kids flowers
the problem with character development
is nobody knows themselves
at all this morning
listening to Keith Jarrett
play piano and moan
wow to himself
about his own playing
because Ottessa Moshfegh
put it on a list of ten things
she likes I was hungover
then ran off down the street
hoping not to slide
on wet flowers
closed my eyes
loved piano
Charlie Jordan from college
nobody loved him
told me he didn’t believe
I was a moral relativist
well I never said I was
I never said what I was
because I’m not a complete idiot
I started to think
as I ran
is it laziness or masochism
that prevents me
Sappho had a fragment like this
from buying food
either way
it’s fine
I’m only not fine
with the unknown
I’m joking

Courtney Bush is a writer and filmmaker living in Brooklyn, New York.
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