So I think I can live without D.I.Y.
I think I can live not knowing
a 9-mil brass male nipple when I see one
because I’m happy to sit, pen
behind my ear, sipping my skinny decaf latte
with just one shot, like the wuss that I am.
— from “D.I.Y. and Me”
It’s okay to be comfortable. To live life day-by-day, and keep it simple. It’s okay to feel like we move through life as a slow drawl – not slow, but easy. Sometimes we need a break from heavy metaphors and subtext and reading too deeply into that which doesn’t necessitate it.
John Lawrence’s The Boy Who Couldn’t Say His Name (V. Press) is a look at living a good life beyond childhood trauma. It’s narrative and emotive and feels like looking out the window and watching time and people move maybe a step below real time. It’s cigarettes, love songs, betrayal, and Christmas morning.
It’s the days where we know we are getting older and time is winding down. It’s being comfortable with that. It’s at the end of the day realizing that “these days he has to squint to read / the numbers as they surge past in the traffic. / He’s more likely to recite the long-range weather than a list of types of bus.” It’s okay to wind down and just live life in your armchair.
Purchase your copy of The Boy Who Couldn’t Say His Name from V. Press.