1.
while new orleans struggles still
to get its face above water-
while chicago holds in the hope
that it can avoid another fire-
while new york hides its skyscrapers
every time an airplane circles overhead-
while san francisco apologizes again
for suggesting that queers could be in love-
while portland buckles under the weight
of all those guitars playing hollow notes-
while houston struggles to see sunlight
from behind the highway smog-
while washington dc counts its money
in a back room down on k street-
one hundred and forty five thousand families,
lovers, children, friends
wait for the return
of their definition
of normal-

they’re waiting at home,
cooking hamburger helper
without draining the fat
in order to fill the bellies gathered around the table
with something more-

they’re waiting in the basement
for the drummer to return
because the drum machine sounds like tin tapping tin
and its perfect rhythms don’t echo like the noises of life as they’ve lived it-

they’re waiting at bars
with a stranger whose eyes
seemed warm two drinks ago
even if now his hands are drawn as if by magnets
to the backside of pants, the inside of a shirt,
to places that those hands have not earned
but can not be repelled from
if more purchased drinks
can simulate attraction-

they’re waiting with xbox controllers
gripped tightly with both hands
playing at the vicarious thrills of simulated war
that would be surrendered gladly
if a soldier would just walk through the door-

they’re waiting up all night
until sleep finally comes with the sunlight
and the pills-
and the baby quiet for a just a couple hours,
please, please, please-

they’re waiting on street corners
with diego at three in the morning
defiantly hurling their middle fingers at the cops as they drive away,
getting fucked with with all night long when they ain’t done nothing wrong-

they’re waiting by the phone,
waiting in front of televisions,
waiting refreshing google searches for marines and killed when there’s a voice that speaks with creeping certainty inside a head that’s grown too tight that this time there will be news-
waiting outisde of the capitol,
on the corner every friday between noon and one o’clock shrouded in black with a candle burning and the honking horns of the passing motorists the only reassurance offered that they are not waiting alone-

they are not waiting alone!
one hundred and forty five thousand
are not waiting alone!
those who wait in their own manner
expecting validation from no one
are not waiting alone!
mothers and fathers,
daughters and sons,
sisters and brothers
are not waiting alone!

before he went,
he got drunk at a bar on s 1st st and played pool with a boy a year older than him who won handidly
until a girl he met on myspace who thought it was her patriotic duty to send him off by giving him his last night as a civilian in her bed
came by and took the drink he purchased with the fake id that his brother gave to him for his seventeenth birthday and
held his sweaty hand on the way out to her car and
kissed his smooth face like she remembered her nanny doing to her older sister when they were children and
he spent that night in her bed mostly in tears and
she promised to write to him and
when he was gone two weeks later he told his friends that her tits were nice but she gave lousy head and
he asked her for pictures of herself without a shirt on and
she took them timidly and sent them to him and
these he keeps to himself and
she does not wait alone!

and the boys
who spend their nights waiting tables,
and the boys
who play guitar in metalcore bands,
and the boys
who are barely passing classes they aren’t interested in,
and the boys
who keep the knowledge of the fact that they were diagnosed with asthma in the fourth grade tucked underneath the table
like the ace of spades,
and the boys
who love boys,
and the boys
who would sooner lob off a toe,
would sooner fire a gun next to their own ear until they couldn’t hear a beeping noise in the headphone on the right,
who have already picked out the heavy coat that would keep them warm for the seven months of the canadian winter a year,
who resent the failures of the sixties because they’ve only brought us right back here,
and the boys
who are waiting to hear that their worst fear
will not come to pass
are not waiting alone!

2.
and i
am not waiting alone
for the world to change-

i am waiting on the unreconstructed streets of new orleans
where i sleep in rooms packed with a dozen boys i never met-
where a stranger encountered in an unfamiliar room over breakfast can become a sister in an hour as you hustle down the debris-choked streets where the bumper of a honda civic can block the sidewalk for a whole year
as though it’s been waiting for the two of you to come, to meet,
to walk together and find it and heave it into a dumpster that stinks of sewage and rust water-

i am waiting in frozen chicago
where the fire that claimed this city once threatens to reignite
soon as the passions of james and cindy and kevin blaze
from behind the eyes
that even lack of sleep and trains too crowded and early morning donut stops on the way to desk jobs can’t extinguish
and the ensuing flood of melted snow and ice raises the level of lake michigan-

i am waiting in new york,
no longer turned off by the hipster bars in williamsburg
because we belong here
so long as we are not chasing the dreams of the ghosts who moved out here a decade ago to escape the rising rent in alphabet city and the bowery-

i am waiting in san francisco
because we are the ones left alive now
and we can claim new meaning for the tired symbols that to our eyes appear invisible at first through oversaturation like a constant buzzing that drones into nothingness until you return to the room-
we can define them as we see fit instead of leaving them clutched in the rotting hands of people who died and who are not even ghosts but corpses and their bones are not these skeleton keys that keep us locked out of the halls of our own world-

i am waiting in portland
watching music in bars
and wandering the aisles at powell’s for hours
convinced that the words i’ve been waiting to find were hidden there a week and a half before i arrived
on a slip of paper left as a bookmark tucked on page 167 of a volume of untranslated manga that was left behind in the lit criticism section on the third floor
blank, unmarked,
the words unwritten,
and the pen in my hand-

i am waiting in houston
northeast of downtown in the fifth ward
under a highway overpass with my hazard lights on and candy-colored cadillacs with low tires passing by while their trunks rattle and shake my dashboard with the boom boom boom of the subwoofer-
the music fills the empty space of the passenger seat
that should belong to raul except
he talked to that recruiter at the town and country mall last year and signed up to drive a hummer for a summer-

i am waiting in washington dc
amidst streets stuffed with people
who are there to remind one another
that they do not wait alone-

3.
one hundred and forty five thousand wait
for the monsters
to leave them
to their lives-
for no more criminals
to treat the ones they love
as toy soldiers,
parts of a war game played
by children who believe in their fantasies
at the cost of people
who wish to live
their own realities-
for no more beasts
walking as men,
defecating in the heart of everything
they claim to believe in-

one hundred and forty five thousand
and one-

we wait
in joyful hope
that our world
will not resemble theirs
for much longer-