cocaine

my head pounding cocaine cocaine

a bump in the back of the record shop

against the beatles and the stones all

their chins tilt simultaneous on the vinyl

to look at me until i put on my sunglasses

and go out the front door feeling looked

at by everything except the people

walking walking walking straight line street

not really hoping to meet anyone walking

down the pier the longest pier in america

did you know? i don’t know if it’s a fact

but someone told me it once in fact or

out of fact i guess do you ever feel manic?

sex in the public restroom at the end of the pier

everybody is sandled a petri dish of fish

and feet and people people always walking

in and out and feeling touch but always

something between our skins i don’t know what

looking up at the starfish no stars up there

but if you look down the seafoam looks kind of

kind of like love if you look down down down

and if you look at the poles the posts the what

are they called that hold up my footsteps that

hold up the pier you see crusted in a rich rust

of barnacles yes? eating itself it’s a barnacle wall

eating itself like me eating you with my words

and my looks and my touches that don’t touch

under starfish stars that are really seafoam clouds

that are really 

my head pounding cocaine cocaine

that are really nothing at all except 

my head pounding cocaine cocaine

that are really nothing at all except fantasies

my head pounding

that are really nothing

cocaine

—October 2021, Stanford, CA