Poetry: Selections From Brandon Diehl

Oh, You Like Elliott Smith?
Name 5 Antidepressants

 

I was watching this YouTube video about him today.

About how his chord progressions sedate you.

About how they double or triple the weight 

of your eyelids just to deliver an uncontested puncture 

to the chest at 1:36 PM on a Tuesday. The blade 

is his trademark. A chord with his name. An assassin 

moving like winter. An icicle in Death Valley. 

The musical equivalent of catching snowflakes 

in your mouth when a chunk of hail knocks out a tooth.

 

Recently I mailed a handwritten letter to a woman 

I met on a dating app. I wrote “Brandon Diehl”

on the envelope with my address, then wrote her name

and her address. I thought about the 4 hours of highway

between us as I listened to a YouTube video of a guy

covering “Ballad of Big Nothing” on an accordion. 

If I could fold up the distance between us with my hands,

would it cut through the silence? Shatter the ice

on our blackened ears? Empty love is melting me alive.

Everywhere I look are 2 snow angels holding hands.

 

One day I wish to die a lyrical death —

blue-faced in a cold bath with blue rubber ducks.

I wish to have a chord named after me

by a content creator who has big glasses and smiles 

too much. I can almost hear him now, saying, 

“The Brandon Diehl chord is the sound your guitar makes 

when you splinter the neck by launching it

into the painting of an emperor penguin on your wall

that your ex-girlfriend got you for Christmas.”

 

 

 

The Vice Guide To Makeup Sex

 

1. Break the no-contact rule 

by accidentally texting her a picture you took of your cat.

 

2. Type, “Sorry, that wasn’t meant for you,” 

and hit the send button.

 

3. Type, “Also, I’m sorry for everything,” and hit 

the send button before realizing that your phone, 

for some unknown reason, has autocorrected your text 

to read, “Also, I’m Samuel L. Jackson.”

 

4. Put on some mood music to get yourself all sentimental.

(Example: a live debut of a new Blink-182 song you found

on YouTube, which sounds like it was recorded 

on a Nokia flip phone from 2005.)

 

5. Light a candle. (The “pet odor exterminator” candle 

you bought from Amazon earlier this month after your cat

randomly started pissing everywhere will work just fine.)

 

6. Be sure to “spice things up” 

by eating spicy chicken wings in bed, alone.

 

7. Spoon her pillow while you wait for something more

exciting to happen, even though it doesn’t smell like her

anymore, even though it smells like cat piss, even though

the spicy chicken wings have opened up your nasal

passages, heightening your sense of smell to said cat piss.

 

8. Listen to the garbagemen taking your trash from the curb.

Open your window as they start to drive away. Attempt 

to call out, “Wait, you forgot me!” but choke on a piece

of spicy chicken until you pass out from exhaustion 

and dream about really good makeup sex.

 

 

 

Nerve Party

 

I’m tired.

 

Apparently, so is my coworker. 

 

A few minutes ago, in the Microsoft Teams chat, 

he typed, “Phew, I need an extra cup of coffee 

this morning! I must be getting old. 

Last night wore me out. I went to a rave at some bar.”

 

At first glance, I thought he had stated 

that he went to a rave at some barn.

 

Now I can’t stop picturing a flock of chickens 

breakdancing under a strobe light.

 

 

 

Modern Shakespearean Love Ballad

 

I want you to mop our kitchen floor with my head.

 

Clarification: 

I want you to mop our kitchen floor with my head

so that our kitchen floor becomes less dirty.

 

If you mop our kitchen floor with my head, 

you’ll feel productive and accomplished.  

You’ll cross “mop kitchen floor” 

off your mental bucket list 

as you dip my head into a bucket of suds.

 

When your self-esteem is low and you hate how you look,

just remember that I’m fatter than you,

which means you’ll probably get a good workout

when you mop our kitchen floor with my head.

 

When your parents come over for dinner,

they’ll be impressed by the level of cleanliness.

Your mom and I will hug, and she’ll compliment me

on what she’ll think is lemon-scented cologne.

 

I want you to mop our kitchen floor with my head.

 

When we’re apart, I’ll be able

to harvest memorabilia from my hair:

some Lucky Charms marshmallows,

crumbs from Henry’s cat treats,

one of your fingernail clippings,

a piece of broken plant pot 

from when kissed on the table

like idiot teens in an idiot romantic comedy.

 

Sometimes I just need to be reminded

that our life together exists —

that I didn’t dream it up

the way I do with most things.

 

I want you to mop our kitchen floor with my head.

 

We could live without grudges or stockpiles of dirt.

We could erase our worst moments

as you mop our kitchen floor with my head.

 

I want you to mop our kitchen floor with my head

every day

for as long as your consciousness lives in your brain.

 

And if I die before you, I could still be your mop.

You could disembowel my body with a steak knife. 

Stuff it with paper towels. Stitch it back up with 

that purple yarn from the junk drawer. Dry out my skin 

with a jumbo bag of salt in an effort to stop 

the rotting. If that doesn’t work, you could hang my body

in the freezer every time you finish

mopping the kitchen floor with my head.

 

On days when you feel alienated, 

you could open the blinds

so our neighbors can see you 

mopping our kitchen floor with my head.

They’ll crowd around the windows, gasping in shock 

and confusion. They’ll utter things 

like “Yikers!” and “Linda, where’s my camera?!”

 

You’ll never have to be alone

when you mop our kitchen floor with my head.

 

 

 

Captain America

 

Today I was waiting for my takeout at Wingstop when a

man in a faded camo baseball cap said, “Christ almighty,

Fred, why don’t ya get bone-in wings like a real man?” A

second man in a faded camo baseball cap said, “Heh,

pussyyyyy.” A third man — Fred, I’d gathered — was in

a faded camo baseball cap, too. He said, “Fuck yer mothers,

ya bastards.” Then they all stopped talking and watched the

TV. I watched it with them. A news anchor in the most

expensive-looking suit I’d ever seen was explaining to us

that “welfare queens” were “the problem.” Sitting at the bar

was a drunk woman who also had on a faded camo baseball

cap. She smacked the counter really hard and said, “DAMN

STRAIGHT! FINALLY, THEY SAY WHAT EVERYONE

KNOWS!” Someone went, “Heh.” But the room grew mostly

silent. Fred said, “What are we doin’ watchin’ this? Isn’t

there a hockey game on?” An employee walked over and put

on the hockey game while another employee gave me my

order: 10 boneless wings. I drove home, ate my wings,

loaded up a game of Fall Guys. A player in an Incredible Hulk

skin grabbed me, then slipped off the platform, into the void, killing us both.

Brandon Diehl lives in New Jersey with his cat. His poetry has appeared in Dream Boy Book Club, Apocalypse Confidential, Maudlin House, Pool Party, Scaffold, Cottonmouth Journal, Blood+Honey, The Daily Drunk, Horror Sleaze Trash, Ear Rat, The Literary Underground, and other places.