for mari with the beautiful face

       head full of heart    heart for the page   and more than a few times full of rage

           for white girls  in headdresses

for minor inconveniences     the rich digression of the syracuse session 

      and stupid boys who can’t tell one soul from the other

for ‘why do i even bother?’

      where are the white boys in singapore?           there’s nothing she is wanting more     than to be able to stretch it out and enjoy the clouds  of doubt    be loved like she deserves    and shout     

dance  to dance to draw    okay  go    alone     

 use the phone  not  exactly something she’s known   for    like a noise floor    from  the time when     we became friends   

through a silly south korean girl who thought time was the only measure of loyalty   who thought songs were just choruses strung together    who ran late      hid hate   never accepted that whole  ‘jesus was a black man’ fate     

water comes in       leally                like lion

she didn’t give much   see      her game was take      but she did  say    

‘peter  this is marissa’

five minutes to midnight the looming exam   that’s when yankee-man funny man   sam    said  okay okay just one more question   explain to me what kind of situation 
leads to long term potentiation

you have five minutes

  we were all actors then    moving from an old role 
                            into one we could  defend  

and learning the words           of  the      were  sing   errr

   shouting at clouds   and wishing she heard

okay i will tell you right now

ultraviolet light is purple      
                  this is a world you’d never know     
  
and  this       this?

         this is the basement troll   

for the desk sketch     the tshirt mess       
       she was right/i was right   that’s what  meyer confessed  
                       but the footswitch    he kept  

and mari   with the beautiful face     went to england     then  to singapore  and i thought maybe i wouldn’t hear anymore  then   back to england   told me she hated living there   i said  keep coming  west   i’ll buy   dinner    seem fair?    but she thought i was talking to somebody else         would not   could not be herself    not yet

 but she is a-ok with how things changed 
                         and that’s the best news i heard all day

  

                                  drawing by mari lee