Anindya Arif
Look, by now,
I have spent all my money,
On sending angry voice recordings
Of Letters to Milena
to someone now dead.
And have crumbled to past traumas so many times now that there are no more places left in my body to injure.
Everyone I know by now has now grown tired of me stuffing my mouth with Aprils’ reeking of insomnia and self-pity.
Instead, you complain about why I do not produce pretty poems about violinists who wear orange too much and cover Iron & Wine and are sentimental.
I cannot explain to you how I’m on borrowed ink and have grown too fixated on writing my fatalities on upper thighs of people who don’t text me back and with drunk Irish poets with answering machines that play an apology for not being there and congratulate you on how you still have not killed yourself.
Now, listen, I am running out of words, and these clumsy recollections of how I offered myself to scraped knees on long sofas and imploding over other people’s wounds are returning to me. Look, we’re all inconsolable and I have wasted far too many hours trying to shrug off my loneliness and on Gregory Isakov.
And if I could, someday I’ll write about false optimism and about an alternate reality where you have knots in your hair while playing the violin and reading Joyce to me. But for now, I will settle for your absence and some more Gregory.
Anindya eats music, fiction, and reality — all for breakfast. Send him fresh recipes at [email protected]