Let’s go to a venue from our college days and see a band we don’t know.
We’ll spend the night
talking about what has changed
and what little has changed.
We’ll tell the other attendees
that they’ve been robbed–This band
is better live.–and see if they get the reference.
We’ll regale the bartenders about
how we used to drink PBRs with our
fake IDs, and hold the cans up at a song’s end.
Now, it’s just phones raised up and
recording. We’ll start slapping them out
of their owners’ hands. We’ll scream
You don’t need proof you were
here. Enjoy the moment for your
self. No one gives a fuck anyway.
Maybe we’ll be bounced. Or maybe
we’ll reconcile over rounds of White Claw. Or maybe
we’ll find an excuse not to go in the first place.
*
Let’s scream at the waitstaff
and we’ll time how
long it takes for a
manager to appear at
Applebee’s vs. Alinea,
for someone to tell us to fuck
off and escort us
by squeezing our arms, above
our elbows. But we’ll wait
until our appetizer arrives,
one drink, so it’s not without
reason we forgot that
Kenneth or Alessandra or Kimi
has their own mouth to feed
and needs a Xanax before coming
to work and having us spit
out bullshit simply
because we can.
And it always comes as a surprise
that it takes so so long
for someone to intervene.
*
Christopher W. Smith is a poet from rural Georgia. His poems are forthcoming from North Dakota Quarterly and have appeared in Peanut Butter Shrimp. He is the founder of Quarter Press, and you can find out more on Instagram @quarterpresspics.