that was the year...

that was the year that I didn’t want to read because I didn’t want to know.

that was the year that my neck got warm and my stomach got fat.

the was the year of later on, of new addresses, backbeats, country guitars and embracing cliches.
yeah, the cliches wouldn’t let us go, they must have thought it was night.

that was the year I found a piece of your hair in the spiral of my spiral notebook so I went and found all your friends. we sang the same songs. we went to places like cleveland. they all had these great young american breasts. like me none of them belonged.

that was the year we all retired. our lives then had nothing to do with our lives.
“why do you always see old people at plays and museums and parks” she asked me in the park.

that was the year my sex was always in the air. we acted like old friends even though I was nervous. still I opened, I always do. like some girl you just met leaning into her boyfriend.

that was the year we enacted the master plan but it just made us guilty. we named all the girls “allie”. we couldn’t think of any names for the boys. but the pressure of the pen hitting the paper felt like streetlights coming on.