Gateway
Drug
When
I asked him over beers one night
what
the meaning of life was
my
friend Jon replied, We
all think we’re ugly,
but
we’re not.
And for once
I
agreed with him—how seductive, the idea
that
arbitrary cruelty might evaporate
if
everyone felt beautiful
in
their own skins.
I went to talk
to
the local eleventh grade class
about
writing poetry, was reminded
how
everyone is asymmetrical then,
heads
huge and ungainly, limbs restless and taut;
the
kid in the back row hiding behind a curtain of hair
carving
swear words into his arm with the staple remover,
the
girl in the second row sizing me up
with
her jeweler’s eye.
In high school
they
showed us films once a year
to
boost our self-esteem, keep us
off
drugs—lavish multi-screened productions
with
titles like The Prize, soundtracks singing,
My
future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.
We
are what we think we are, and one thing
inevitably
leads to another—drugs to sex, sex
to
cigarettes. A
head leaning on a shoulder
and
suddenly you’re naked, I’m naked,
air
conditioner washing over us like ocean,
moon
shining off the brick wall in the back
of
a Tribeca art gallery, the detritus
of
the party around us, trance music spinning
on
a turntable, making out high like high-schoolers
in
front of someone else’s locker.
Remember
being
the kid who had to get your lunch or math book, ask
the
lip-locked couple in front of your locker to move?
Did
you say, Excuse me, tap them gently?
I
never had that courage, shared
a
neighbor’s book, bought hot lunch.
But tonight
we
are as cool as our daydreams were then,
magazine
pages and mirrors, straight-edge skaters,
drama
queens, hair gods and punk princesses
smoking
in the back row, the health teacher’s nightmare,
impossibly
drugged, and when I touch
your
clay lips with my iron fingers,
trace
your beveled collarbone
with
my fluted mouth, the tune I play
pushes
hallway lockers open with gale force.
Uneaten
lunches and uncovered books fly,
everything
slams, and blinded
we
all get a good, fluorescent look at each other.