6
My brother’s best friend once told me he met the lead singer of his favorite band
and he looked a lot like Jesus.
So he shook his hand and said absolutely nothing
because he didn't feel the need to.

I once went to a party at that same boy’s house
that I wasn't supposed to be at and every one was passed out
so I sat on a couch that I guessed that boy’s parents have sat on before
and I wondered what his family would think of him now I wondered if they would be proud I wanted to ask him more than anything but instead I just

sunk
into the back of the couch and I melted into the weathered fabric
with two fallen party soldiers on either side of me.
And I counted how many times over I've read To Kill A Mockingbird


and concluded that if there was ever a time in my life
that I felt absolutely nothing like Mr. Atticus Finch then it would be right then and there.

Sophomore year I ran out of English class
where we were reading that same book
and into the nearest empty room and started crying hysterically
because one dense boy held more authority over my emotions than I did
but when I looked to my left I realized I was sitting right next to a girl with a nose ring who watched me with her jaw hanging to the floor.
So this girl and I sat in silence for forty-five minutes
until I got up and walked out.

The next time I saw that girl was a year later
at the bowling alley where she was drinking a bottle of whatever in a brown paper bag with other kids with nose rings
while I listened to my friend tell me about how when he went to France
he started to plan his full retirement
he said
“I just really think Europe is so wonderfully small.”

I spent the rest of the week thinking about how when I got off the plane in Spain
I felt like the smallest thing about Europe was me.
And I remembered the time when my friend Andrew and I sat in his blue pickup truck
in the middle of a field
while he talked to me about how these past few months he’s tasted every single flavor of lonely.
And he told me that he hopes God is smoking a pipe when he meets him
and just instructs everyone to “be chill”
and at first I was appalled but then I just thought that was the funniest thing in the world
because I think I hope for the same.