ha ha ha ha

what’s the matter

i’m just kidding

lighten/loosen

up here, poised on top of a mountain of recycled material that looms over the sidewalk like an unresolved argument, i’m trying to make you laugh by saying, “i’m trying to make you laugh,” exactly how ethan hawke said it in a movie whose name i don’t remember, but you can’t hear me and i have to go clock in for work soon, so, as a last resort, i put on a pair of groucho glasses, get in a foam-filled sumo suit, do a somersault off the mountain’s summit, close my eyes, and think back to that warm august morning down there on hester st when we, while making hamburger helper for breakfast, watched as condensation formed on the outside of the over-the-range microwave and appeared to sweat from the pores of our oily fingerprints, then trickled back down into the skillet of boiling water below it, which made the so-called beef stroganoff taste like whatever the gustatory equivalent of accidentally brushing one’s hand against someone else’s is, and we ate it without saying a word until, right as i opened my mouth to take one last bite, you broke the silence by breaking into an impression of julie delpy breaking into an impression of nina simone, just in time for the sun to shine on the turf burns all over your quarterback arms, and it was in that moment i discovered a new type of laughter, neither a drop of white wine into the danube canal nor a gunshot through the roof of my mouth but something in between, an unpronounceable and unspellable sound that i’ve spent the better part of the worst year of my life hoping to hear again, but don’t worry, i won’t stop until i make you laugh so hard your face hurts at least half as much as mine did as it bounced off our concrete-clad apartment building and exploded upon impact with the pavement, and besides, i never found anything else worth living for, did i

say that out loud

please excuse me

here’s your change, sir

have a nice day