Excerpts from Poems for the Morning After
by Jordan Sullivan

~

my favorite color is marlboro red

and my favorite city doesn’t exist
and the best day of my life
is gone
and
the
memory
of it
is fading
faster
than
this drink
that promised 
me
it 
would
never
end

-

first day in la

there are leaves that are trees
and nightmares that are dreams
there are flowers that are weeds
but most everything exists in between
there is love without love
and some hate that’s ok
there’s a violence in almost everyone
and a beauty in absolutely everything

~

surviving the afterlife on earth

i guess i needed to hear that i said
after jenny told me that i was already dead
i hadn’t felt so alive until jenny confirmed
my death
it took this long to be born
a whole life
a lifetime
full of things
and jobs
and apartments
and chairs
and couches
and movies
and trips
and meals
i remember when i first met jenny
i felt like i had hurt everyone i had ever known
everyone i had ever even looked at
or passed by
like my presence was some sort of plague
and i asked jenny how do i live with myself and she said the same way everyone else does

~

time was never really here

it’s a hard business being alive
it takes time
real time
the kind of time
you can’t tell
anyone
about 
because it’s your time
and it isn’t ruled by a clock
or by sunlight
maybe it’s ruled
by alcohol
maybe it’s ruled
by drugs
maybe it’s ruled
by work
or maybe by love
and hate
maybe it’s ruled
by that girl
i saw
in santa monica
for maybe a second
when i was 23
and we never spoke
but we knew everything 
about each other

-

talking to ghosts at the china cafe

but life still feels like a distant star
and my noodles are getting cold
will it really matter
if i wait till tonight to start drinking again
will it matter if i don’t drink at all
or
if i don’t call her back
or
if she doesn’t call me back
or
if no one calls anyone
ever again
what is haunting me today
all my ghosts at the counter at the china cafe
all these
cold noodles
sometimes i feel like my whole life
and
all
my past lives
have been little bonfires of one dollar bills
microscopic eternities spent right here
at this counter
with these cold noodles
and these ghosts
and this warm beer
sometimes it feels like
i’ve been eating this one long breakfast at the china cafe
since forever

~

moving to california

we moved to los angeles
to get sober
on our first night
we celebrated by getting high

~

trying to remember the name of eternity

so i left los angeles for lisbon
i only packed my bad habits
the job that had killed most of me
had finally let me go
i had just enough life left
to fly over an ocean
just enough life to
put some time between
all the old me’s
and whatever was left of me
i stayed in a room with blue walls
above
a street painted pink
the impossible pink of roses that never die
and the street
was haunted
by all the gone
by the dead texas bar junkies
by the dead sailors
by the dead romans
the dead revolutionaries
by the ghosts of the old streetwalkers
and by their bastard sons and daughters
the daughters were old women themselves by then
and they were
still hanging around
those same corners where their mothers worked
the oldest corners
maybe the last real corners on earth
and they were still
waiting
for all those
sad
lonely
poor
men
the men
who never
look anything
in the eye
and i got drunk every night
i got drunk with tourists
and i got drunk
with names i’ve forgotten
until i found
her
she was serving drinks behind
a small counter on the banks
of an ancient river she had no eyes
just two big blue
worlds
orbiting a universe no one will ever really find
it was freedom day
and all the carnations
were blooming in their rifles
we spent two nights together
that first night we met
and my last night in town
we had
maybe six hours total
and that’s how i know
life is measured by everything
but time

~

shipwrecked on long beach

the internet is a house party full of randoms
and life is a party you were never invited to
but there’s an empty booth in the corner
of the combination pizza hut and taco bell on long beach
and you’ve been sitting there for a thousand years
writing your version of the odyssey
but penelope isn’t a woman or a wife
she is anywhere but here
and you aren’t looking for home
you’re looking for anywhere else

~

ham & eggs tavern

talking to myself on 6th Street
lying to all my friends who never call me anymore
promising them i’m ok
promising these coors lights
that i won’t drown by tonight

i’m with sierra
at ham & eggs
and it’s barely noon
or maybe it’s midnight
we’re trying to remember the future
i ask her why love is a four-letter word
that we’re actually allowed to say
she pours me a vermouth
and puts on a mariah carey song
and suddenly everyone forgets who they’re trying to be
i’m 33 going on 16
tell my friends the world ended
tell my friends they are strangers

~

the smallest part of the biggest story

the world isn’t a place
it’s a secret
with no sound
and no apologies
the world isn’t the earth
the earth isn’t the world
they are estranged
they never have time
the world isn’t true
it’s a story
but the story isn’t a lie
it’s just a story
and there’s a part in the story
about us
and the part is so short
it’s immeasurable
but it’s all we have
this story that is so short that
not even
time can tell it