Basically, I listened to this song about fifty times in a row and started thinking in melancholy Sunset Boulevard cliches.

*

Holly Wood is poker-faced androgyny,

reality bound like double-ds flattened by

     emerald silk

all flash and wit,

smoke and mirror,

fools' gold chipped to reveal

the disappointment of granite.

Her dress is cut too low,

     her breasts:

On one side of the bathroom door in my parents’ bedroom. Sitting cross-legged facing the off-white paint that has scratched its way off from years of cat claws reaching under the door, trying to get in, please let me in, I want to come in, I won’t let you be alone.

She is crying on the other side of the door. Crying in this desolate corner of the house where she thinks that no one can hear her. Sobbing. Wailing. Like a child’s toy taken away. Like a child taken away from its mother. Sobbing. Wailing. She is crying.

He didn’t call me for a week. I took more hours at the shop, slogging through the summer, eager for classes to start. I wore headphones constantly. When I listened to my thoughts, I heard them in his voice. Felt him, defiant, in my fingertips as I prepared shitty coffee.

One day his mother came in for a latte, and the words fell out of my mouth. “He hasn’t been out of town or anything, has he?” My pride shriveled.

“This is my city,” he said, of the place where I was born and raised. “You’re lucky to be a guest.”

Then he snapped his fingers and made my heart stop. Only for a moment, but the moment said it all.

“I’ll try to go easy. I’m sure you’re not that used to power.”

That night I didn’t come. He didn’t know the difference.

People won’t understand what has come over you

I don't know
what it is—

you have magnets
in your hands
and

I wish I
wish I wish I

am not sure what
to wish for.

Placed next to a big bright star

My mediocrity shines,

The green giant takes me,

Calls itself envy,

And unstoppably combines

With a force that feeds temptation

And dares me to resign.

And when I look at myself in the mirror,

I get smaller than the previous glance.

And I hide my disgust

Between smiles and lust,

But I can feel my envy advance,

Much like your voice, your words are like honey,