first of all

he wouldn’t dance around anyone’s question
or make anyone smile
and everybody would hate him

he wouldn’t have made friends with the ­exacto knife he used to cut his grip tape
and she wouldn’t have carved up her arm with a safety pin on new year’s when she was drunk and he broke up with her

and i wouldn’t want to kill overdramatic girls and space-invading boys
i would just want them not
to be alive
anymore

i would
capture the neon red sign in a bar
and make it my favorite color

there would be no feelings of
“the band has a singer, they don’t need me”

freedom and socialist democracy would be
easier done
than said

there’d be an awful lot of
“but either way, man, i’m glad you came.”

girls wouldn’t sit by the toilet and erase everything they ate that day

and he would come back to visit and say
“in some ways, kansas city is more real than clearwater”

we would get to go make brownies at his house on a tuesday
we would “escape our simple lives” and play

that night, you would have watched the stars instead of the people
you wouldn’t care if they all knew your name

your bottle of kahlua and your “best” friends wouldn’t be the only thing you had
at the end of the day

people would lie on their trampolines and watch the sunset
which was painted blood orange

he would buy me a bag of cherries from apple market and we would walk to the price chopper and change in 3,000 pennies for $28
that would be something i’d make happen again

when you and your boyfriend walk in the rain
and your makeup comes off
he’d say
“you look pretty”

good-byes would be easier
because we would always be able to say hello again

people would be proud of what they
are
instead of desperately trying to fit into ­something they
are not

summer would last forever
and we would always smell like chlorine and green grass and sun and cherry popsicles
and be happy

people would all have the ability to
find the simplistic beauty
in an ugly and complex world

i’d be your sunshine
your only sunshine
i’d make you happy
when skies are gray