Jason Bredle

photo by Matt Walker

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Orange Crush

It doesn’t matter how I die,
I want the news reports to say autoerotic asphyxiation
is something you once said to me that I never understood. And now,
you’re gone.
I sit in the co-op, drink carrot juice and think about the day
we insisted the juicers
make us carrot juice the same orange as your shirt,
how they made you remove it
so they could hold it up to the juicing machine
and match the oranges exactly.
We took a photo of you and the juice for the university’s
ping pong bulletin.
It was mostly ginger,
like the way you insisted you’d always wanted the square
because you knew it would fit and I’d always wanted the circle
because of its silver top
even though you’d always wanted the circle
because of its silver top
and I’d always wanted the square because I knew it would fit.
Now I sit in my apartment
and think about that photo
because I can’t look at the photo
because I lost it sometime during the two years
I pretended it was 2005.
I moved eight blocks away and convinced myself I was starting over.
For the next two years I’d drive frantically
around the city crying with animals wearing cones
who were also crying.
See, I was missing something,
which is why
I often panicked.
See, I was lost,
which is why
I often picnicked.
Even though I wanted to know what I was doing I didn’t know
what I was doing but things kept moving forward moving forward
moving forward and you said this
and I said I understand what you’re saying but I’m thinking this
and you said
this isn’t going to work, it’s not going to work,
and at the time, at the time I was devastated
as I stood in the lot of a supermarket where I’d no longer be able to shop.
And then I met Caren,
who took me to the top of her building,
filled a sleeping bag with warm water,
placed me inside and pushed me down three flights of stairs.

Jason Bredle's book of poems, of which this is one, will be released from Magic Helicopter in December. A chapbook of his poems was released today from Chapbook Genius, and can be read here.