To Be Written on the Back of the Check

I am going to tell my waiter that I
consent to them holding my hand while
we sit by the fire in a mutual dream we
will have tonight.
I am going to say that it is even ok to
kiss me and rub my earlobe like a sage
leaf while they hum the sea shanty they
know I like. I have said little
else than “thank you”
to them when they serve me chicken
strips, but in the dream they will know
I like Barrett’s Privateers and listened to
it on repeat when I was eighteen,
alone, closing every door like the song
was a secret.

I am going to tell them that it is ok to
think about me with a bedsheet
between their legs before they go to
sleep or after they wake up and wonder
if there is an alternate universe where
we live together in a treehouse on
another continent and must throw down
pots and pans on slick pink heads of
mutated men to defend our home.
It is ok to then wonder why every plane
where our lives entwine is in the middle
of its third or fourth world war and/or
climate event.
I might say: O, we have so much in
common. I also obsess over basic shit.

I am going to tell my waiter that it would
be completely fine if it turns out they
can’t live without me.
I am a messiah or a college education
or both, since once you know me I am
impossible to be unknown.
It would only take a bit of reading-in, a
movement swift enough to glimpse
the tapetum lucidum behind my tongue,
for them to understand that I am not just
being nice
when I say that their Hufflepuff sweater
is cool –
I am offering the evergreen pinpricks of
our future together. At that point,
I should probably tell them that I have a
partner but that this is a non-issue. I will
explain I am polyamorous
born to it like a turtle to the ocean, and
that the journey to self-acceptance had
few casualties, no broken men in
Halifax.
Not to worry, I will say – I have split up
no marriages
besides that one
and they didn’t even break up before
they stopped talking to me, and that I’m
sure that venus trap snapped shut as
soon as I wasn’t in their DMs
and they’re fine.

I am going to tell my waiter that I do not
tip them extra because I don’t play
favorites
but if I did I would give them the tip
that when someone lets their hair down
while you’re talking to them it means
they want to waft over to you like leaves
darting through wind.
I would also give them maybe about five
to seven dollars and tell them to get an
ice cream, a pistachio gelato, even
and say to think of me the entire time
their blood pressed against their eyes
while they ate it.
I would say: it is alright to want to eat
gelato so fast so badly.

I am going to finish this poem to give to
every bartender in every close-talking
cocktail bar in every tight black shirt
instead of my phone number.
If you are reading this, I do not have a
phone number. I do not have any
means of contact or entry into my
person.
I have no origin and no home.
I have put myself out of it over and out
of my love for you.