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SOCIAL STUDIES

Pt. 1

 

            *

 

All my friends

are so depressed.

 

And I’m the other thing

they have in common.

 

            *

 

I trust charisma

in none of its forms.

 

            *

 

I would never have considered

that I was an asshole

if people hadn’t kept telling me

that I was an asshole.

 

For that, perhaps,

I am grateful.

 

            *

 

In the end, we all become

whoever was nice to us

when we were fifteen.

 

            *

 

All my friends hate

small talk. But me,

good God, I love it.

 

That hesitant tango,

its electric potentials.

 

How a gesture,

barely there,

could become the fulcrum

on which the everything

between us wobbles.

 

With someone who loves you,

there’s nothing at stake.

 

The talk can not

get small enough

for me.

 

            *

 

The final frontier

is another person.

                                                        

            *

 

It is narcissism, I suppose,

to see so many ghosts.

 

Just because I miss them

doesn’t mean they’re dead.

 

            *

 

To all my pseudo-friends,

my semi-friends,

the friends with one foot

            out the door:

 

Keep up the act.

It’s working wonders

in ways you can’t imagine.

            *

 

Pt. 2

            *

 

Secret deals are made

on the fire escape.

 

            *

 

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.

 

            *

 

Don’t bring up dictators.

Nobody wants to talk about dictators.

There is no such thing

as a “fun fact” about Stalin.

 

            *

 

I am too old and disordered

for these marathon drugs.

 

I sicken too easily.

 

I am half a life away

from waking on the hardwood

 

of people who hate me.

 

            *

 

My least favorite sound

is everyone else sleeping.

 

            *

 

I am willing to make

so many concessions.

 

But yes, it would kill me

to put some gel in my hair.

 

Shoes are for walking.

What good is a pair

I can’t get dirty?

 

It took me decades to learn

I don’t have to be beautiful.

 

God forbid

I forget that now.

 

            *

 

In retrospect, much

of what I blamed

on my T-shirts

 

was, after all,

my torso’s fault.

 

            *

 

If the ten people in this room

were the last alive on earth,

 

eight of us would drink

deep and dance close

 

and the two remaining wallflowers

would disappear early,

the last of our kind

in separate apartments.

This poem was originally published in Issue 15 of Grist,

© 2024 by Anthony Immergluck. Created with Wix.com

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