a date with "the great stuffed owl" whose title
garrison keillor coined so brilliantly effortlessly



coffee despite a weak stomach.
i feel compelled to reclaim addictions,
if only to draw a line between
who-i-was and who-i-am-without-

you, learn that your heart still breaks the same
ways it did at seventeen. perhaps a little wiser,
i've matured to the extent that i won't go
so far in methods of glamorous self-
destruction as to take up smoking

again. arm yourself with a book of poems,
go to a café and annotate furiously in the dark corner,
while all the beautiful people brush elbows
in spaces of sunlight sipping their handcrafted beers.

you start to scribble insane notes (narcissism dies hard) like this
one in the margins of the text:

lacan's mirror stage = illusion of
wholeness (a.k.a. "baby blob"). the recognition of a
FALSE ego constructed by language-lies causes traumatic
loss of unity; desire to fill [maternal] lack inevitably
leads to a never-ending chain of EMPTY signifiers
= love/hate binary!!!

are the words floating off the page now? another refill
and you think, i should have folded myself up neatly
this morning and hid in the drawer, alongside the moth-
eaten sweaters and the heavy, winter coats.

but then you remember it's spring— april in fact,
and a hipster version of t.s. eliot makes eyes at you from
the neighboring table, peering through round tortoise shell
frames that remind you about the consequences
of mixing memory and desire with your
sixth cup of coffee:

a sour aftertaste.
heartburn that lasts for days on
end.