You are a pile of street grey snow singing a folk punk song.
You are a half cleaned Logan Square apartment.
You are a half moved into Rogers Park apartment.
You are the Old Style tallboy tattooed to your forearm.
You are the yellow line to Skokie to do your laundry at your mother’s house.
You are holding hands inside my coat pocket and mistaking it for romance.
You are passive aggressive niceties in a slouchy beanie.
You are converse in 20 degree weather.
You are a shaky L track covering a Sufjan Stevens song.
You are Chicago in March
you are snow on spring break
you are disappointing.

All the Midwestern Sad Bois own that Chance the Rapper hat but never wear it in public.
All the Midwestern Sad Bois are in a band.
Maybe the same band? All ratatat-tating to the beats of their own sad Midwestern hearts.
All the Midwestern Sad Bois struggle to find my clit more than they struggle to find a seat on the red line at eight in the morning.
All the Midwestern Sad Bois have semen that tastes like Malört
Cuz all the Midwestern Sad Bois are vegetarians who drink too much and don’t eat enough fruit.
All the Midwestern Sad Bois moved to Chicago from Wiscondiana Ohi-isota cuz they were too interesting for their hometowns
Now all the Midwestern Sad Bois have to go back to their hometowns just to feel interesting again.
All the Midwestern Sad Bois are an easy lay.
They enter me
But it’s really more like I’m entering them.

I’m painfully aware of all their crevices mostly just because they aren’t that deep.
They fuck me from behind
But it’s really more like
I’m not there at all.
I’m a hole into which they project their sadness
Dumping their Malört cum and their opinions about Hemingway into me Like I asked for it.
All the Midwestern Sad Bois want to marry me after the second date.
They want to move into me
Want to make me their permanent address
Want to set up their xbox and their shitty leather couch inside my intestines Want to curl up and sleep inside my left ventricle.

Cuz I’m not from here.
I’m from somewhere warmer
Somewhere where we don’t romanticize sadness
Somewhere where we learn to hide it.
So all the Midwestern Sad Bois think I’m happy
Think I can fix them
Think I’m their mom now
Think I’m better than them.

I’m not better than them.
I’m just done with them.