I am busy, very busy, sleeping and studying
and drinking and dressing up and down to
go up- and downtown. My head is full of
kisses, sambuca shots and grade boundaries.

I have no time for notebooks, for cafés, for
scribbles on the 9, 10 or 27. Poems are replaced
by lists. Time alone, once spent thinking, is now
time spent with him, time not spent thinking.
I have plans to make, a world to move across.

I have a dream where it’s dark and I am
alone and unsteady. I am tilting and
rocked back, violent

as if the century has taken me by the
shoulders and is shaking, Can you hear
me? Are you listening?

I am shook. I can hear you. I am listening.