“It Is Another Friday Night And We Are All Avoiding Another Party We Don’t Want To Go To Full Of People We Don’t Want To See By Crowding Onto Our Shitty Couch And Playing Smash” by Timmy Sutton

Mostly we are waiting
For whatever crumb
From the table of grief
Has lodged itself into tonight’s parade
Of mashing buttons and gnashing teeth
To name itself then disappear

I get the sticky controller
That Mac spilled a Natty on in August
And am stuck jumping the whole game
But still beat Chris
Who’s almost a year behind in practice
And refuses to choose any character but random

So now he gets the sticky controller
And will likely be stuck with it
Long into the night
Until after we pass through CRJ’s E•MO•TION
Until after we pass through Neil Cicierega’s Mouth Moods
Until after we pass through whatever weird shit Andy begs us to listen to

While he, entirely obliterated, obliterates
Each of us with the same stupid
Off-stage Wii Fit Trainer combo
Over and over again
We never learn
That’s what makes it fun

That and the alcohol
That and the alcohol and Jake’s
Endless shit talk eroding with the night
Into nonsense words we will repeat
For weeks as if they are just inside jokes
Instead of small knots around our fingers
Whispering away the hours between now
And the next midnight we won’t be alone

These days my fingers are heavy with string
An infinite binding of reminders

There is no easy way to say
How not easy being alive often is

Unless there’s a controller in your hand
And you’re screaming at a television
As Jigglypuff careens offscreen
And Andy takes a drink
And Mac punches Jake
And Chris dances in the corner

At which point there’s nothing to say at all—
We know:

We are all just lonely jaws gnawing at the gates of joy
We are all so lucky that none of us are gone

Timmy Sutton is a person who writes, loves his friends and family, and also sometimes eats oatmeal with peanut butter for dinner in Springfield, IL. You can find some of his stuff in Taco Bell Quarterly, The Georgetown Voice, and Bossier. You can find him on twitter @timothy_matthan.