remember that game

SimCity

pretty sure I live in it

I am the secret police

of your dreams

I see you 

see me

put on my plastic

hamster mask

and go to work 

dismantling the rainbow

of the real

one line at a time

anything you say

can and will 

be used 

against you

my nightmares

are where

detectives go

to practice 

between cases

disappointment is a form 

of weather

and the weather 

is literally everywhere

the dead

never Reply 

All

somebody please

tag me

before I disappear

fuck all limitations!

puking diamonds

floating around

inside our hangover

like a seahorse 

there’s that cloud again 

muttering in the unionized 

blue sky

of love about diffidence

password protected 

watching porn 

with terrible sound 

dubbed like a Godzilla movie

was probably my masterpiece

worried about what

to wear or your haircut

check Instagram 

& my life melts

into a black puddle

like a VHS tape 

in the grass

in the end

there is no end

except forgetting

my whole life

is goddamn

I was meaning

to tell you 

something

let me be your barcode baby

I will pay you 

in falling down

OMG

Pain is my favorite song too

let’s take it 

next level 

& smoke a j 

in the shower 

we are artists

because we both pretend

which makes it real

I can charge 

your phone 

with my mind

the strange erotics 

of making do

I miss you

so much

I masturbate 

with my left hand

imagine this with a city

burning behind me

hacking @ the firewall 

of your desire

I give up

and have a beer

right here

at the end

of this 

poem

.gifs curated by Ana Božičević

SAMPSON STARKWEATHER is the author of The First Four Books of Sampson Starkweather. He is a founding editor of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press. His most recent chapbooks are Flowers of Rad by Factory Hollow Press, and Until the Joy of Death Hits, pop/love GIF poems (a collaboration with Ana Božičević) appearing somewhere soon on the Internet. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.