i will learn how to love a person and then i will teach you and then we will know
seen from a great enough distance i cannot be seen
i feel this as an extremely distinct sensation
of feeling like shit; the effect of small children
is that they use declarative sentences and then look at your face
with an expression that says, 'you will never do enough
for the people you love'; i can feel the universe expanding
and it feels like no one is trying hard enough
the effect of this is an extremely shitty sensation
of being the only person alive; i have been alone for a very long time
it will take an extreme person to make me feel less alone
the effect of being alone for a very long time
is that i have been thinking very hard and learning about existence, mortality,
loneliness, people, society, and love; i am afraid
that i am not learning fast enough; i can feel the universe expanding
and it feels like no one has ever tried hard enough; when i cried in your room
it was the effect of an extremely distinct sensation that 'i am the only person
alive,' 'i have not learned enough,' and 'i can feel the universe expanding
and making things be further apart
and it feels like a declarative sentence
whose message is that we must try harder'
today is tuesday; email me on saturday
the secret of life is decisiveness
and to describe something
i see the distance and move immediately into it
now i am really alone
from here i know these things: that i feel like a lonely fist,
that my poems exist to dispel irrational angers, that i want to hold your face
with my face
like a hand;
the secret of life is that i miss you, and this describes life
tonight my heart feels shiny and calm as a soft wet star
i describe it from a distance, then move quickly away
when i leave this place
the distances i have described in my poems
will expand to find me
but they will never find me
when my head touches your head
your face hits my face at the speed of light
holding it a little
i want to cross an enormous distance with you to learn
the wisdom of lonely animals with low IQs
i want to remember you as a river
with a flower on it
Tao Lin is the author of a novel, EEEEE EEE EEEE (Melville House, 2007), a story-collection, BED (Melville House, 2007), and a poetry collection, YOU ARE A LITTLE BIT HAPPIER THAN I AM (Action Books, 2006). His site is READER OF DEPRESSING BOOKS.