Maui Sunset or reality is whatever you believe 


The online celebrity and I meet 

in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton 

Her dad rents a room there 

She says I have nice skin  I don’t have nice skin 

She says she doesn’t want to be successful    she wants to burn 

Her rental car trunk is filled with broken corona bottles 

She pees behind a trashcan in the parking lot
 of the resort 

lined by palms

I stand guard
counting down the minutes 

before a tourist family walks by and stares 

at the stream running down the hot pavement 

A little girl with a pink noodle 

Mom has let herself go I’ve let myself go too 

My mom asks in text
what does it mean when your new friend says, 

“She wants to burn”

You know that Neil Young song,

Hey hey, my my
out of the blue and into the black 

They give you this but you pay for that 

It’s better to burn out then to fade away 

My mom used to stalk Neil Young
at this bar 

in Half Moon Bay he was said to frequent 

She looked for him but never saw him


*

 

My Instagram friend is better in real life 

I can see the brown liner 

drawn around her lips 

undetectable in photos 

She tells me about Miracle Berry parties 

(Pills that turn sour foods sweet) 

and how she got sick from a basement full of caged animals

She shows me her texts with an autistic vampire 

He refers to her only as 

Mistress of the Dark 

The warm island weather makes her horny 

My friend Elliott is single I tell her

He’s so small   I’d crush him   if I sat on him  

A woman at the resort yells at us
for stealing chairs and reclining in the ocean 

I read your poem Destruction 

“I can’t wait to burn into the ether forever” 

You read my poem I’m Wet II 

You show me pics of your 14-year-old
 slinkster skater boys 

you pretend to have sex with 

with Jello colored glasses and breath of stolen liquor 

I used Mario as a lure to get you here with me but don’t feel guilty 

We eat shrooms with a bellboy 

our faces melt off in his shattered bathroom mirror 

like an amateur chemical peel in the 90s 

Freddy Krueger recovers in Maui 

Typical trip shit she says 

to be an artist
 performing on the Internet 

In Memory of Myself she says 


* 


All turtles are becoming extinct

sleeping dinosaurs the last ties to the ancient 

No one goes unshaven,

waxed to strut the sandy shores 

and snap pics of the last ties to the ancient asleep on the beach 

What is there to do when you’re on a detox 

work out at Equinox on an island 

Should we go to
amateur hour at Saigon Karaoke Lounge 

neon lit and faded
is the new trip to Mecca 

Devoted children of the sugarcane 

You sureeeee this has alcohol 

she asks the resort bartender

long nails and black boots in the sand 

Yes, it’s expertly blended with fruit and ice 

so you can’t detect the taste of alcohol 

My dad told me he’s the reincarnation of the first Roman Emperor 

He abused his power that’s why this lifetime 

he isn’t rewarded as an artist 

the way he wants to be 


*


Did you know some people still believe the world is flat? 

Flat earther’s and Morgellon’s disease 

You think DNA strands are coming out the tips of your fingers 

Joni Mitchell has it, poor Joni

picking at invisible bugs crawling on her skin 

If I could drink a case of you 

I want to burn a car with you 

and everything I’ve lived for until now 

Beer coffee monogamous sex
  climbing the corporate ladder   proud parents 

Burn a car like the poet Kevin Killian

in his poem “The Willow Tree” 

He makes love to his second cousin, covers his breasts with moss 

in touch with 

the primordial order of the world 

a faint glimmer in the leatherback sea turtles 

One opens a weary eye
to see a white boy smeared in sunscreen 

taking a photo to post online

I’m dreaming of a time that never even existed 

Drop me off at the nail salon 

vacation nails for burning 

Does burning have a sound


* 


They’re shooting normative daggers

Everyone is depressed and jaded 

reading signals in the dark

Are we a part of the solution or the problem 

I ask as we watch 

the bikini blonde on the black rock 

ceremoniously dive 

into the dark waters 

The reclining nude is ill 

lit on the beach 

wearing a bathing suit 

covered in illustrated vegetation 

Does she remember the ferns 

the sound of burning