SIX POEMS by LUCAS RESTIVO
THESE POEMS ARE FROM LUCAS'S CHAPBOOK, 'FUCKO' (BULLSHIT, 2022)fuck
what the fuck is up
what the fuck
is up
what the fuck
i got the mic
you all gotta listen to me fuck yeah
awesome
things have actually been pretty difficult for me lately
i just got out of a relationship
and i'm working this shit job
and i'm approaching thirty so i'm wondering if i am going to die alone
due to the whole not having any prospects in life or money thing
so the other night i got high so i was thinking very logically
in that an A to B kind of way that's so boring and true
i just have to think about everything and then i'll figure it out
so i was thinking about how my sexuality is a lot more fluid than i realize
and that got me thinking about my gender
and it dawned on me that i can’t be a man because i was born from a woman
like she's a part of me
and how can i even be one person when i'm born from two people
fuck fuck we should be watching documentaries shouldn’t we
or workaholics fuck yeah
and fuck trains too
they're so loud
next time one of those fucks pops off i'm gonna show em how we do it in boston*
*drink 16 bud heavies and call my stepdad a bitch
a little something for the ______ in the back
one time i knew i'd be missing valentine's day so a random night i decorated my apartment in pink and red streamers and cooked a homemade brown butter sage gnocchi with roasted asparagus and merlot out of these tacky valentine's day glasses i got at the dollar store and then I gave my then girlfriend five selfless orgasms
so think about that
absolute dawg
absolute sicko
yeah! you know it
in my zone
you cannot touch me in my zone
(no really you can't
i have a rare skin disorder
from being too hard
and eating too many gushers
as a kid and it's wicked contagious)
my sunglasses are on
the sides look like they're made of flannel -
perfect for the dog park with my neighbor’s dog
when he's at work
there's not a care in the world
though i'd be very warranted
to be pissed off
(my 14 year old cousin just got promoted
and now he’s my manager???
i only did whippets twice with the whipped cream
and once was after hours
so it shouldn't matter that i forgot the car was running
and i passed out from carbon monoxide
and the ambulance took up the whole parking lot)
good god i am so lonely
and swagalicious
and fuck it if everyone hates me
then at least i have haters
Charting The Emotional Density Of The Last Thing To Make Me Cry
10/20/2021
Maybe now is needed most. Brad Phillips' Letters From The Battlefield. Like rolling a huge stone from a cave opening. A cave that holds an ancient cup, or provides shelter from a huge storm in a deep forest. Both of which are, of course, myself believing again. The faint flicker. The first in six months. God bless.
10/20/2021 - Three Hours Later
Ok so the boulder may have only moved a little. Maybe a foot, if I'm feeling lucky. Feeling lucky, or a suspicion of luck, at the very least feels like an indication of movement. An emotional Jenga at -1000 speed. This is good. I would not want a radical shift. Do not trust radical shifts. Goodness moves slowly, like a shark stalking dinner. Feeling less feels more. I will read it again and suck the juice from its bones like the desperate hurt crow I still am.
10/21/2021
I do not want to fall in love again. Belief is gone. Feeling is gone, if I am not actively thinking against it. In the wrong end of the tide pool. Gravity's bitch. For now at least, which is where all, if any, progress stalls.
10/27/2021
Letters From The Battlefield making table conversation. I think about it about 1-3 times a day. I do not feel it, necessarily. I don’t know if I trust people again. I don’t know if people are generally good (which is how I carry my self-conception through the world). Back to normal. I feel fundamentally unnormal. Listened to my mother cry this morning because I’m afraid she will drop dead of a heart attack if she doesn’t cry more. I don’t think it’s helpful to remind her suffering never ends, but I do it anyways. She calls me floundering. She isn’t wrong, but she isn’t right either. Her new pool doesn’t make her happy. She lost a son. I’ve lost stuff too but that doesn’t matter right now. I think books that make me cry are steps to becoming a better version of myself. Steps thick as potato chips.
10/27/2021 - Four Hours Later
Fulfilled my promise. Cried again but not really. A testament to the elixir quality of words. An infinite monkey with a typewriter yadda yadda yadda triggers humanity. The best I could ask for. A feeling so pure I search for it again. I tell myself I’d end up here, in this exact spot, regardless. I resist because that is logically impossible, everything changes everything. This unfortunately will not be enough to prevent the argument from mutating into another avenue of my crowish life, wreaking havoc on the same faint glimmer this story sparked in the first place
The Internet Miscalibrated Religion
If miscommunication
is expected
is it no longer
a miss?
The Bible did not account
for the internet.
My friend received this
as opportunity
for theory.
I think he hates women.
Something image
and innate fallibility.
I was making a joke.
The Bible was sort of
an internet.
He thinks I’m dumb.
He’s probably right.
I found a footprint
in the cement
meaningful
Walk Home
a child runs a bulldozer
up the glass deli case
i was raised
to be beside myself
i walk home
it starts to rain
warm enough
not to stop
at the bar
will the water
break my phone
it's hard to write
a covered bench
big money
no hellos
to the others
in my predicament
i wait
then leave
a squirrel chases
a squirrel
down a tree trunk
this is mating
or worse
i cross the pavement
between them
the chased runs
into a brush
the chaser freezes
in my shadow
i am perfect
cover
a giant
cop
in a second
a whole day
saved
ruined
Soup poem
I watched my coworker transfer soup from the big pot into the smaller pot using a ladle
It was like a metaphor for death
which all the metaphors are turning out to be
which was a bummer for me
I was in the middle of slicing a dead pig into mild leisure
I couldn't write down what I was seeing and thinking
I felt like nobody
I told myself
it's not important
It sounded like “I'm definitely gonna forget this”
and “The time would bastardize it anyways”
Anyways I'm on break now and wanted to tell you about it
You're the big pot, steaming, bubbling, everything together
Then your scooped out into a body and born
This a kind of death
The kind that can can dribble and burn your hand
You, the soup, also inevitably cool off
and you die again poured into that second pot
Or maybe it's like getting poured into a second pot that’s actually the first pot all along
I am no Soup God
This is why metaphors are dumb
Lucas Restivo is a writer from Massachusetts. One time when he was a kid, he was riding a bicycle to his friend John's house to swim in his pool and he put his bathing suit over his helmet and yelled "I'm bathing suit man!" over and over until the bathing suit slipped off and got stuck in his back tire, which sent him flying over the handlebars. John's dad had to come and take apart his bike. He remembered this because Facebook just told him that John just got out of prison. His Instagram is @louielibrary. His Twitter is @louielibrary.