it’s not like the cactus is quite the same
as the computer animated shark

but we’ve learned how to lie
to ourselves & run away & sew our skin

back together without lidocaine
anyway. a girl i loved when i was young

wrote a poem that had we
in it & i know it wasn’t about me

but that’s any easy thing to pretend,
like dreaming i got to kiss my crush

in high school on the bleachers
instead of wanting to die.

but imagine a girl, instead of the shark,
falls in love with someone who embalms

bodies & she almost electrocutes
herself on purpose in a bathtub,

but then ‘first day of my life’ by bright eyes
starts playing & so she goes out

into the field of sunflowers. it’s easy
to remember that people used to think

the sun revolved around the earth,
but now we know that one day

we will have seven minutes before it burns
us all to hell. seven minutes in heaven,

after those stolen wine coolers
& cigarettes & spin-the-bottle kisses:

the dark, the star stuff ash in mouths,
the we & our hands—unless, of course,

we end up killing ourselves first. i never
got to taste you in the desert & earth

is the only planet we did not name after a god.
i’m not sure which death would hurt less.

i’m not sure we would feel anything at all