Kelly Schirmann

HOW TO PRODUCE THE RIGHT LANGUAGE

Think hard about the last time
you said you were in love
without simultaneously thinking about death
I’ve smoked enough weed
to know what’s deeply wrong with me
& who got fixed in my blood
though most of those were accidents
It’s funny that Ronald Reagan invented grunge
& that grunge was just powerpop
without the pastels
I admit, I do have fantasies
about a long-haired man
telling me something I don’t know
but I don’t know
People in Texas are sad
People in California are sad
I sit in between them & drink water
trying to fix how I feel
onto a memory
that someone else already wrote down
I don’t mind the sun sometimes
The images it shows
I can taste you on my lips
& smell you in my clothes