Joseph Parker Okay lives in Tucson with his best friend/cat. He’s the author of “my phone is about to die and i hope it takes me with it” (2F2H, 2016) as well as several ebooks, which can be found at gumroad.com/josephparkerokay. He tweets @verysoftlake.
2 poems by Joseph Parker Okay
is the universe expanding to scale
or is everything constantly being skewed?
today i thought a lot about a person i only know online.
a few weeks ago i watched 6 am waves crash onto rocks while hearing thunder in the distance. i’m always alone for the beautiful moments.
a fun thing i’ve been doing lately is giving up on everything and calling it Anxiety Management.
today i thought a lot about how most of my daily experiences are relatively new in the world, like how my generation is the first to show up late for work because we couldn’t decide if our selfie looked best in hudson or valencia.
tonight’s golden hour lasted only 47 minutes.
a fun thing i’ve been doing lately is lying down in the shower and Waiting For The Future. it comes incessantly, gradually running out of steam.
january 13, 2016
3 days ago i tried refilling my zoloft prescription and the pharmacy said they couldn’t refill it until i call my insurance company
20 minutes ago i ate .5 mg of xanax and finally felt okay enough to call my insurance company
it was an automated voice
the automated voice asked me to enter my 12 digit prescription number but my prescription number is only 11 digits long
the automated voice made me enter my prescription number 4 times before saying “that’s all right”
like the automated voice knew i was embarrassed
like the automated voice had a higher emotional intelligence than my roommate
i was transferred to a representative whose name i already can’t remember
they asked me my name
they asked me my birthdate
they asked me my zip code
they said it will be one moment
we sat in silence for maybe a minute and it felt nice
they said they were sorry
we sat in silence a few more minutes and it still felt nice
sitting in silence with strangers always seems endearing to me
they said they’ve never seen the page they were waiting to load take so long to load
we both laughed nervously
they said they were going to try something else
they said i was all set
we thanked each other
we told each other to have a good night
we hung up
chelsea texted me and asked if i wanted to come over
i told her i would rather be alone tonight
i told her i was sorry
i walked into the kitchen
i started opening a can of navy beans but gave up halfway through
my hands didn’t want to do anything anymore
my body didn’t want to do anything anymore
i sat on my kitchen floor and leaned against the cupboard door
outside the temperature is in the single digits
my cat meowed then walked over to her food dish
i felt my back sliding against the cupboard door
i felt the side of my body stop sliding once it hit the ground
i thought about how i’m moving to tucson in 7 weeks
i smelled something burning on the stovetop
i couldn’t remember what i was cooking