SCREWED ON

OUT OF IT

GOD TOLD ME TO SKIN YOU ALIVE

bugs on the body: get them off me

if you want to be happy,
forget the past,
someone said.
and I was like,
not gonna happen, but
do you ever do that thing
where you're sitting in your car
and you think about something that you did,
something that you screwed up in life,
and you go NNNNYYAAAGGGHHHHNN,
and you, like, slam the steering wheel
and shake your head really hard
to, like, shake that thought,
to, like, get rid of it?

I do, I do. and it's really small things,
like this one time I wrote something stupid
and embarrassing on someone else's computer.
this was in, like, nineteen ninety-four,
so it's not like the machine was connected to the world
and it's not like there's a trace preserved of those dumb words,
except in my head. and maybe his?
anyway, somehow it got left on there so he could see it
and he made just the most slight and veiled reference to it the next day,
and I knew that he knew that I know
that I'm a pretty weird dude.

I want to forget it.
but I can't.
and now I'm reconnected with the guy,
well, virtually anyway,
so though there's no digital footprint,
I live under a cloud of terror
all out of proportion to the actual incident,
being all like, does he remember it too,
and would he ever bring it up.
he wouldn't, right? 
I mean I don't see him.
but then.
his tone IS a little mocking (isn't it??)
each rare time there's keyboarded interaction
between he and me.

this,
this,
THIS is why
we drink.
and things.