Love and Other Poems by Alex Dimitrov

Author:Alex Dimitrov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

FOR THE CRITICS

No, you never got me.

No, I don’t think that you ever did.

When I walk into a bodega

and buy cigarettes and ice cream,

blueberries and Diet Coke,

all so I can cry with real enthusiasm

and with feeling, just as soon

as I can make it home—

that’s called performance art.

That’s performance art, you fucks.

NEW YORK

New York is the best city to cry in.

I’ve cried on the corner of Spring and Greene

smoking one cigarette after another,

taking two-hour lunch breaks in 2006

at my first internship at Interview magazine.

I cried in Washington Square Park the other night

thinking about healthcare

and how I quit my job to write poetry,

and how even a job in poetry

prevents you from writing it.

I’ve cried so many times

in front of the fountain at Lincoln Center,

then watched the cars drive by on Columbus

without reason to cry

and I’ve cried even more then.

The one year I lived on St. Marks Place

I was in grad school and cried at Cafe Orlin

with one drink for a million hours

until I’d write a poem and immediately

send it to the New Yorker

feeling entirely justified

because why wouldn’t they want it.

It was terrible. All of it.

But I miss those days most.

The 6 train is my favorite train to cry on.

It’s always late

and full of other people’s fathers.

No one really looks at you

because they’re so glad

they’re not you,

and of course because they know

that being anyone is a tragedy

like the MTA itself.

There’s something productive

about crying in New York.

It’s almost like crying alone in your apartment

but you can cruise strangers

and run errands at the same time.

Once I was so exhausted

I started crying in the middle of a drink

with my friend Rachel

at the Beagle (which is closed now),

but I was telling her how people

always ask poets to do things for free

as if we don’t have to pay rent

or attend to our loneliness.

Please pay poets, people.

Please pay poets more than anyone else.

I’ve also cried when I was happy

in a cab on the FDR

listening to Patti Smith

the day my first book got taken.

And again that night

when my parents asked

how much money I’d make

and what I would do next,

you know, after this poetry thing.

It turns out that next

there’s more crying.

In so many gay bars

I’m going to list them:

Boiler Room, Eastern Bloc,

Nowhere, Metropolitan

and I could go on but this poem

isn’t about gay crying,

just crying in general.

That reminds me how I used to cry

in Ray’s Pizza (also on St. Marks Place)

and how one time a guy asked

if I had cocaine and if we could

“go somewhere more chill” to do it.

I was so confused I pretended

to stop crying and said, “No.

Can’t you fucking see that I’m crying.”

Then I went to Cooper Union across the street

and continued crying there but less convincingly.

Believe it or not,

I’ve never cried in a man’s apartment.

A man I was sleeping with or about to.

They’ve all thought I was too detached

and should cry more. They’ve all been

emotionally bankrupt, to say the least.

Especially the lawyers.

Clearly none of them could picture me

crying in front of the Bowery Hotel

when I lost my wallet,

the same day I had three poems rejected

and went on an

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