I AM NOT 1989 by Alina Gregorian I am not Lancaster, PA. I am not a rubber band. I am not your nation’s capital. I am not fiscally responsible. Nor am I delighted to meet you. But I’d like to start flossing. I’d like to throw arrows at Utah. I’d like to sign my name here. I’d like to tell an ant colony to pack up and go home. I’d like to sew your mouth shut....
At the gas station store I saw a guy wearing shoes four sizes too big. I said, “Guy, why didn’t you buy those shoes in your size?” He ran out the store, down the road, into the river, “Guy no more,” I said, “Guy no more.” Bought a book called Neoplatonism: Pine Cones Are Our Friends. Read the first chapter then fed the fish with its pages. Wondered if the pines out back needed coats....
We adore the american chaperones. Articles of american madness. Chaperone americans drive caravans to bowling alleys. They say, “darling pistol” and “lunch on the rocks.” We throw toothpicks at them behind fake shrubbery. We critique the way they wax their caravans how they drink their beer how they choose mauve seat cushions. We do this until foam hammers stick out of their mouths and their hair. Still they drink their beer....