A Summer in Three Parts

I.

Today, I am working on a sunburn.

When I was younger, I had terrible skin  and uncontrollable hair.
It made me extremely self-conscious. A girl called me beautiful
for the first time two years ago. She had her hand on the back
of my neck and looked directly into my eyes as she said it.
Her earnestness was convincing, and she was beautiful too
so it seemed like she might have known what she was talking about.

I am still extremely self-conscious
but these days I feel more comfortable
taking off my shirt in front of the ocean
or the world. Hence the sunburn.

II.

I am considering writing letters to old friends.

It is a habit of mine to forget about the world beyond the city I inhabit.
As a consequence there exist many people who no longer hear from me,
though I consider each of them to be a constituent part of my clumsy heart.

I want to write them and tell them about the development of my character
and my promising situation, how I feel like a better man than I was when
they saw me last, and make plans to drive and meet them so we might bask
in the upward trajectories of one another’s lives. But I hardly know how
to express how little I believe in that sort of teleology now. The future
may be a map spread open but I anticipate every thoroughfare abandoned
and all because I can no longer rest my hand on a certain girl’s knee while I drive.

It’s stupid.

I have been a collector of beautiful moments for so long
that I shouldn’t need to hold them in my palm, and ask
“what do you think?” in order to make their meaning stick.

III.

All summer, I have been working on the bags under my eyes
while at the same time cultivating a terrible narcissism.

It makes me feel as if I am capable of anything during those same
evening hours in which I hate each word that escapes my lips.

Being genuine was one of the few things I truly believed in
before I realized it was just another way of manipulating people
into giving me what I wanted

before those three nights I thought I had convinced a certain girl
to follow her heart only to have her wake up to remember
she had forgotten herself

before another knocked on my door
at two thirty in the morning because she thought I was sweet
and sincere but also knew she could rely on me to be dishonest

before I tried to kiss the last one and she clutched
at my hand and brought it to her hair as if to say
“I understand the way your heart beats, but after
all this time I thought I could trust you not to make me
untrustworthy”

just like there were days in which I felt as if poetry was simply
everything you wish you could tell another person until
I realized there was nothing aesthetically valuable in saying
"I’m sorry for who I am. I am trying to get better. Will you please take
pity on me for just a second and pretend I am something you couldn’t live without?"

Hence the nights when I’d rather
drink cigarette ash out of almost empty
beer cans than say something true

hence the bags I’ve been cultivating under my eyes.