dd (dear diary)

at the party I think
all I do is want
answers
attention
to get some laughs
to get to the meat
to love and be loved
tell myself tomorrow
I will stop wanting so much
will contain myself



tiny proportionate port glasses
a plastic folding table for the booze
spread of fancy digestifs and aperitifs
this one smells like olives
and tastes like Christmas
they bought a former Catholic girls' school
multicolored pastel candy linoleum floor
dressed in a layer of sawdust
powdered sugar
they found an old invitation
to the school halloween party
typewritten inside the outline
of a witch on a broom
crumbly paper
pinned to wall



zoom out my friends can afford this?
how?
cigarettes inside



I make a documentary in my head
interviewing everyone at the party



Lucia tells me courting the rich people
for fundraising is fine
you just have to know their interests
make them feel cool



Nargiz says she thinks the revolution
is women being easier on themselves
and having confidence in their own minds



I ask Wai Ji what her dream job is
she doesn't know but after school she decided
being an artist wasn't something
she could do
figuring out what her narrative was
and making work about it
in that way



talks about her tech job
    UX
       10X
revenue
    my teams
the new owners 
  wanted us
   to grow revenue 
by 10% that made 
me very angry
  I told them look
that should be 
a company goal













*~`.
in my dream I know he's around
     in "The Bay" where I'm from
I drive by Lake Merritt as
    the sun is glinting sideways
into the steamy windows of
 my car, brown leather
it's an old Volkswagen or something
         I hear him reciting a poem
from far away, but for me
  like I'm in two places at once
sun just starting to tilt, Fairy Land sign
I light two lavender colored candles
   holding them in my left hand
against the steering wheel
     lighter in my right
wobbling wheel
   to help him find me
  white yellow candle flame against
    beams in the windows
glinting off the lake