Literature
The Jake I Chose to Remember
I want to humanize you,
Jake,
but you were
never very good
at letting people see
the human
past the poet.
You were too busy
setting your legs on fire,
and boy,
masturbation works for a while,
but then
the realization that you’re in
the same sheets
from yesterday
backhands you.
And you know, Jake,
they’re legalizing marijuana now.
Turns out it’s not
so illegal,
just the people
who did it were.
It’s funny,
or maybe it’s accurate;
you did always teach me to go
for the better word.
It’s accurate that
my first and only tattoo
I ever wanted will have been
written by me, revised by you
because
I am not