Anthony Immergluck
Social Studies
*
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All my friends
are so depressed.
And I’m the other thing
they have in common.
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*
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In retrospect, much
of what I blamed
on my t-shirts
was, after all,
my torso’s fault.
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*
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I trust charisma
in none of its forms.
​
*
I am too old and disordered
for these marathon drugs.
​
I sicken too easily.
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I am half a life away
from waking on the hardwood
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of people who hate me.
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*
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In the end, we all become
whoever was nice to us
when we were fifteen.
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*
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All my friends hate
small talk. But me,
good God, I love it.
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That hesitant tango,
with its many tender
and dreadful potentials.
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How a gesture,
barely there,
could become the fulcrum
on which the everything
between us wobbles.
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The talk can not
get small enough
for me.
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*
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Secret deals are made
on the fire escape.
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*
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The final frontier
is another person.
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*
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I would never have considered
that I was an asshole
if people hadn’t kept telling me
that I was an asshole.
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For that, perhaps,
I am grateful.
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*
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I wish I had a tag
that said, “I’m sick”
and I wish I had a tag
that said, “I’m healthy”
and I wish these tags
were sacred to all
you comely minglers.
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*
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I am willing to make
so many concessions.
​
But yes, it would kill me
to put some gel in my hair.
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Shoes are for walking.
What good is a pair
I can’t get dirty?
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It took me decades to learn
I don’t have to be beautiful.
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God forbid
I forget that now.
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*
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It is narcissism, I suppose,
to see so many ghosts.
​
Just because I miss them
doesn’t mean they’re dead.
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*
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If the ten people in this room
were the last alive on earth,
​
eight of us would drink
deep and dance close
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and the two remaining wallflowers
would disappear early,
the last of our kind
in separate apartments.
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*
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To all my pseudo-friends,
my semi-friends,
the friends with one foot
out the door:
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Keep up the act.
It’s working wonders
in ways you can’t imagine.
This poem was originally published in Issue 15 of Grist,