Dear Pants,
I’m sorry I haven’t washed you lately. You smell sorta upset about it, but I swear I can fix this. There’s plenty of detergent just flopping around in the basement. It’s just, I’ve been busy lately. Ok, not busy really. Despondent perhaps. If only because I’m afraid I’m going to misspell depressed.
And I know there are a couple of pairs of perfectly clean pants downstairs beside the washing machine but it’s just, I haven’t felt like going downstairs. So I’ve been wearing you all week and it isn’t necessary to start nagging me about the underwear again because I know I should start wearing underwear again. I’ll totally start wearing underwear again. I even bought a new pair of silk boxers last week. They were on sale for $4. So maybe they aren’t actually made out of silk.
Forgive me, I’m unsophisticated. Anything that feels slippery I tend to write off as being bullshit or silk. They’re sitting there in the closet next to the front door but I’ve just been sorta too sad to deal with that closet lately. And besides that mornings can be the hardest–if you don’t count late mornings, mid afternoons, all goddamn evening, and the middle of the nights (darlin’ don’t even get me started about those middle of the nights)—and when you throw wearing underwear into the mix it just feels like I’m putting my pants on twice, which feels: exhausting. So I haven’t been wearing underwear. Ok? Sue me. Or please don’t. Because I don’t feel like being the guy who doesn’t wear any underwear in court………
But at least I bought some. (underwear).
Right?
Yes
Baby steps?
Fuck you.
I mean, I apologize.
I’ll do laundry soon. I promise. Just let me check my……….
Ahhhhhh!
We’re so alone.
But we knew that so what else is going on?
It’s snowing outside like a souvenir globe right now.
The TV is suggesting vigilance
This past week is suggesting the world
isn’t the world anymore
it’s something else
because Prince is dead
and in the space of this absence
things are appearing regularly
in their original form of unraveled
to the point where on my way home
earlier this evening I watched a dove
pick a fight with a Corvette
everyone’s fucking like angry guitar solos
Except me.
because I’m all alone
so I jerked off like I was playing
something really complicated
on trombone
and when I’m done doing that
I take my pants the rest of the way off
because they’re dirty
I mean you’re dirty
I mean everything’s dirty
He means “That ain’t Lake Minnetonka”
I mean that’s right
nothing’s gonna get washed tonight
because I’m watching
Purple Rain
on manual repeat
instead
Multiverse Johnson 