5 poems I saw this week

Feat. Lenny Kravitz and Lindsay Lohan

Hello to you all. It’s fixing to be 96 degrees today here in Cincinnati and people are upset. Not I, not really. Keep the summer here at all costs, even discomfort.

Anyway, poems!

1. Card in a hiking book

In the back shelves of a Half Priced Books, a queen remains in the pages of a used Ohio hiking guide. Only she knows whether or not the book’s original owner ever did make it to the Grandma Gatewood Trail...

2. Our messy apartment surf shack

I have uncovered a new trick that makes messiness seem charming: just imagine your apartment is beachside instead of riverside. I come home from an early morning swim at the pool, toss my damp Turkish towel across the shower rod, kick off my flip flops in the kitchen, and pull yesterday’s leftover coffee out of the fridge. This scene could have a distressing bachelor pad feel to it—but not if you decide to start calling your apartment a surf shack. Surf shacks might be untidy because their occupants are busy chasing waves—which we are, metaphorically.

In college, I dated a guy who bought me cleaning supplies. Ouch, babe. Later he apologized and told me he’d realized my apartment was messy because I had better things to do than clean it. Thanks, I guess? That’s what I let myself see now when I look upon our messy apartment. It’s a story about our life—leftover incense dust and unlidded candles from the night before, stacks of books we’ve been reading, guitars and instruments left out after practice, and the Turkish towel perpetually at the ready for the next pool day.

3. Zoë and Lenny Kravitz’s Instagram interactions

As smoking weed becomes more normalized (and legal) I have encountered multiple parent-child weed transactions. Everyone has a joint that someone’s mom or dad gave them. It’s sort of sweet. Like fresh baked cookies. And I love seeing Zoë and Lenny as approachable father-daughter stoners just doing their little projects. Cute!

4. Imaginary soft serve romance

At the whippy dip and waiting for our treats. My ice cream float is out before Jake’s cone. Why?

“Maybe the cones are in a place where it’s easy to steal a kiss,” I say.

5. Lindsay Lohan

Spent some quality time on Lindsay Lohan’s Instagram the other night. She is glowing and I am touched. The way she and Jamie Lee Curtis talk about their time together filming Freakier Friday feels earnestly emotional? The more captions I read, the more I felt healed by the mere anticipation of this wholesome sequel.