Mixtapes

Side A starts
With a song we both like.
Strums, chords, a shaky voice,
John Darnielle blurts his thoughts, like us.
His album had a palm tree with a blue sky behind it.
I no longer see palm trees
Without everlasting blue
Lingering behind.
And the tape scrapes in the background.
The next few tracks brought me back to
Our only winter. The coldest I know.
Scraping ice off the windshield
With the case of The Neverending Story
We drove to Phoenix without heat.
Through the crack in the window
You dangled your cigarette over
The speeding highway. I turned the radio down,
Asking you something you’ve forgotten,
What do you plan to do in the future?
Your reply startled me – how uninterested,
Like the singer on the fourth track.
The fifth, like the night you didn’t pick up,
The night I was locked outside, my teeth chattering,
Holding me over until I heard the clicking flip.
Dead air scratched my chilled neck, like the air
Scratching your speakers, waiting for a flip.

I’m sorry I gave you the rusted tape deck,
But I hope you found it useful, at least once,
As you pulled it from your closet. You know
Why it’s there now, don’t you? Or are you pissed
You had to move your stacks of magazines?
Maybe you’ll notice you’re missing one. Maybe you can
Smell the smoke that clung to the cassette I gave you.
I’m sorry, but it burned green and fascinating.

Side B snaps
With a large squeal of an electric guitar.
Modest Mouse sings about Coca Cola,
And something else I hope you’ll find.
 I like it more when you want to listen.
Perhaps his voice appeals,
Drunk and raspy, like your father’s.
Carissa’s Wierd chose I before E,
Much like I drew from the album.
Sharing the same reason, making it blatant
They mean what they say, as I said what I meant.
You agreed, for the most part
About our time at the park, our conversations
About extinction and the cycle of fossils was
About as important as things could get.
How did you like the yawning ape
I put on the collage cover for the cassette?
Spewing his ideas out like vomit, over silvery
Backgrounds? I’m not saying you’re hairy,
You had the same face when things spilled out.
Over the summer concrete and over the phone
When you declined all of my calls. One of the last
Songs will hopefully remind you
That we were whirlwinds, blowing over lawns,
Picking up debris, spinning sporadically, happy
Once, like the lighthearted April March.
Just like the months. After that I messed up.
There is a really rough, long
Scratching section
By accident, but it fit.
The final song with the banjo is the best
Way to express how I felt at the start
With energy and confused string placement.
Her yodeling isn’t words, but the notes range
Like mountains and valleys and I hope

Without a track list, you’ll still feel the same
Relation. I also hope
When you go outside afterwards
And see your palm tree out front,
You’ll feel like I can be azure sky
Continuing behind.