It’s 1994 and I’m at a party and I Swear by All 4 One is playing.

And I keep saying that I hate it,

but really I love it.

And I keep saying that it’s a metaphor

but it’s not a metaphor.

It’s a Rorschach / an inkblot on my extra-large

Maxi pad with wings /

the wings are a metaphor for freedom.

I wanted to be a size zero.

I wanted to not exist at all.

Selfie in the Event of Time Still Rapidly Passing.

You could come over.

It could be the 90s.

We could lie outside w/ Sun In in our hair.

Plastic Easter egg w/ a twenty in it.

Woke up stoked then killed it.

Running outside listening to Monster Ballads playlist

J texts me at the exact first second of Every Rose Has its Thorn.

*

I have a two-part ring he gave to me

when I was seventeen.

Flip it around. The bottom part is me now.

Lacy changed what she actually dressed like

in the 90s to be more girly for the 90s party.

My locker combo did this to me.

Ask not why you weren’t in a band in high school

but why you don’t start a band right now.

If I surround myself with all the most positive people it

will be as though I started a band in high school metaphorically.

Sister / Resister / Cape Cod / Colonial

I’m obsessed with the past and

you’re obsessed with the present.

It’s so boring. I saw a ghost.

I was always looking for things that were

the perfect blend of us together.

Us us us us us us us. You you you you me me me me.

Jean-Luc Godard book & Jackie O sunglasses.

Corner next to the post office.

John & Yoko. Ross & Rachel.

Texting you I’m sorry.

Burning my diary.

Making you a copy

on CD.

*

My nose is bleeding should I go see my Sex and the City doctor.

She’d be like, did you move here for a man or a job.

I’m walking in Midtown,

I’m like, good for you in your colorful outfit.

Sad for a sea of black.

I went to California with a youthful aching in my heart

and I left it there / didn’t.

My sister’s and my text relationship is so I do this, I do that.

I text her, I washed my new bra and it’s so tight

I keep gasping for air in my cubicle.

She writes back, I fell asleep on the train

and when I woke up a spider was dangling in front of my eyes.

My cartoon world where I live with you.

Where I float across the ocean.

Where I miss my stop every day

but it doesn’t matter / girl power.

Sometimes I post the things in my head

onto the Internet for a certain few.

For those to whom I’m like “good for you”

your pastel dress in a sea of black

Maybe I’m like, hungry.

Gluten free Oreos. Can’t hear myself think.

I’m listening to Free Fallin’ on my Walkman.

I go into the grocery store and they’re playing it too.

Cause I forgot the line & Tom Petty reminded me.

I wanna fly down over Mulholland /

wanna collapse on the grocery store floor.

The universe told me to go into the grocery store

and buy just cookies and milk.

D would’ve called it a “heroic purchase.”

My therapist was like, maybe you’re not over it.

The taste of the milk bored my tongue.

I’m walking around the grocery store.

Epic by Faith No More.

I’m running on the treadmill listening to

Lady Gaga and thinking about my sister.

And my sister calls and leaves a message

that she was listening to Lady Gaga on the treadmill and thinking of me.

I send her two girls and two crystal ball emojis.

What if C dies.

And I’m like, how could you not need poetry?

Walking home w/ my grocery bag on my arm,

it feels like a tourniquet.

Use my computer as an extension cord.

Exercise or sleep.

You emptied the laundry all over the bed

and I screamed like a bomb exploded.

All the things that I’m interested in.

Will I take a selfie at the end of the world.

Marisa Crawford is the author of the poetry collections Reversible and The Haunted House from Switchback Books, and co-editor, with Megan Milks, of We Are The Baby-Sitters Club: Essays & Artwork from Grown-Up Readers (Chicago Review Press, 2021). Marisa is the founder of the feminist literary website Weird Sister, and co-host with Seth Landman of the 90s rock podcast All Our Pretty Songs. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.