By Button Poetry
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James Hartzer, performing at Park Square Theatre in Saint Paul, MN.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:02
The internet tells me hair loss and stress are related.
00:05
That increased stress leads to increased drinking.
00:07
I’m not sure when the internet said hair, it meant eyelashes.
00:11
Only drank once in the past two weeks, but I can’t hear the phone ring,
00:15
and think it is not death calling.
00:17
An uncle dies and suddenly it’s brothers everywhere.
00:21
His ashes scattered in a far away state.
00:23
I oversleep and there’s no one to tell me if I spoke in my dreams.
00:26
Never been a sleepwalker
00:28
but that doesn’t stop me from going places I shouldn’t.
00:30
Like brothers drifting down rivers of death,
00:32
leaving eyelashes like bread crumbs trailing off the edge of a pale map,
00:37
a road map, a pattern, a family of men spiraling.
00:40
It’s a pattern and we can’t seem to stop.
00:42
My father’s brother dies.
00:44
My brother tries to die.
00:45
I think maybe my father will die.
00:47
If I die, I won’t have to worry about it all anymore.
00:49
Haven’t known death since spring but I am all leftover grief.
00:53
All loose eyelashes and dripping teeth.
00:56
Didn’t go to the funeral, mourn properly,
00:58
ensure it would not happen again.
00:59
The phone rings, an unknown number.
01:01
It must be the police. It must be my father.
01:03
It’s not. It’s just a telemarketer.
01:06
Put the phone down. Ask the bartender for a rum and coke.
01:09
She douses my hands in gasoline and hands me a match.
01:13
This is what these brothers have taught me.
01:16
Sanitize the sadness, make it all better, make it go away.
01:18
The phone rings.
01:19
My brother must’ve swallowed almost death again.
01:21
He hasn’t, just wants to know how college is.
01:25
The bar rises up to meet me,
01:28
knocks me on the chin, scatters my eyelashes like dandelions,
01:31
like whispers on a sweat-soaked wind.
01:33
Swallow the match, grind the wood between my teeth,
01:36
spit out the slivers. I’ll take splinters over a bonfire.
01:39
Maybe, I’ve always been a firepit,
01:41
a chasm of twigs, old newspapers, lighter fluid.
01:44
So much easy burning.
01:45
It’s a wonder it’s taken this long.
01:47
It’s a wonder I haven’t burnt myself up and out yet.
01:49
I want to throw the phone across the room,
01:51
want to buy another drink, another fire starter.
01:53
My hair goes up in smoke, I mean stress, I mean do my eyelashes count as hair?
01:57
Do I count as having a drinking problem?
01:58
Is it a problem if the bar and me are both splintering?
02:01
If a drink means careful and careful means anxiety,
02:03
means all my fucking eyelashes are falling out.
02:06
I’m leaving pieces of myself everywhere I go, and I’m tired.
02:09
Live alone, don’t know if I’m talking in my sleep.
02:13
I’m stressed and want to drink,
02:14
want to drink and that makes me stressed.
02:16
Someone died but no one else has, so why do I keep dreaming it?
02:20
I spill my drink.
02:21
I’m caught dripping between the fire and the fire starter.
02:25
Maybe I can keep them separate long enough for one to lose.
02:28
I could sleep through the night.
02:30
Pick up the phone without death pushing its way into my ear.
02:34
(cheers and applause)
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video