It's getting pretentious in here!

(so take off all your clothes)

Driving in the car

Rain on the windshield

Think snapshot

Think couplet

This is a rhyme

This is a correct

Grammatical sentence

But so is that bit about green dreaming furiously

Think metaphor

But more literal

A laugh feels like a hot indoor shower after a day in the cold rain.

Dancing feels like a laugh.

When I'm done dancing, my legs still feel like they're moving in circles and learned patterns.

That is to say they feel like a laugh.

That is to say they feel like a hot shower.

Rain on the windshield casts transparent shadows

You can see through the shadows onto skin, for example.

Skin being touched by another skin, for example

Human contact seems concrete under flickering water shadows and streetlight.

I pick raspberries in the late october rain.

My fingers trembled but the berries are sweet.

To give good food is my love language.

“take this squash” (I love you)

“try the carrots” (I love you)

“have some radishes” (I love you)

But the problem is that when I spent three semesters in Chinese you spent a year abroad in a German immersion course.

The problem is you want someone to settle down with and I’m only in town for a week because my gap year is about traveling.

The problem is I wanted to date a woman and you wanted someone who would love you as a man.

The problem is you wanted to look good in front of your friends and I don’t shave my armpits

The problem is every poem I write is about me

But not this one.

This one is a metaphor

Didn’t listen?

“The writer uses multiple ‘you’s in the poem; some to indicate her ex-lovers and some address the reader. The technique is a rather sloppy way to try to immerse the reader in the poem.”

Is what my poetry teacher would say.

It’s a poem and

A dance and

A laugh and

Sweet raspberries off the bush in cold and rainy October.

I picked them just for you.