jack kerouac comes over to my house for dinner
i sent him an invitation in the mail and he responded in red crayon, scribbled over careful
calligraphy
it is the fifth time he has come over and he has only ever talked about himself
jack kerouac comes over to my house for dinner, kicks his feet up on the table, leans his chair
back and asks for a beer
we are used to this routine
i give him one and the taste of warm bread bubbles between us
i tell him i hated his book
i hate him and his stalks of golden field wheat and blue jean daydreams
i poison the food
it poisons me back–this meal of cold french fries and burger meat
it sticks in my throat and i tell him i hope he chokes on the wrapper
i tell him all the lies i tell myself
it is much easier to hate than to want
it is much easier to tell the wonder to wait, than to let it grow into something dangerous
something a little like longing
but the truth is, i loved it
and the beer lasts until i say it–he takes his last sip once he’s ready to listen and i tell jack
kerouac the truth
i tell him i loved that book
its stories were bluegills in sunlight → the ache of teeth on red popsicle sticks
i jack America and in this litany of small town hot peach summer, i find the little Gods
i find wanting
wanting a skin painted clean technicolor until i fit in with the movies
wanting toxic arcadia, the pleasure pool of white suburbia
how i walk down wet sidewalks and drip honeysuckle down my throat and hope it tastes of
belonging
he does not listen – trails his fingers along wood grain
everything he touches is gold is money (midas) and
the table becomes America between us so i no longer get to sit down
i choke on cornstalks
jack Kerouacs me
and i have never been so beautiful
paints me red, blue, whitewashed
he does not know how cruel i can be, how patriotic
i have wished this body smaller, blonder, whiter
i have spit my parents genetics back at them, my teeth a mean experiment

brought back school lunches untouched, let food rot
i can be so patriotic
Kerouac touches America and this country gleams
he does it so much better than me
football boy with white teeth and blue eyes and red lips
he will always do America better than me
better than the girl with a name that takes time to say
inefficient in a country where god lives in the coal fires and gas stations
and sometimes i wish i were not so afraid of the world
sometimes i wish road trip was not my parents hugging too tightly,
their hands, beggars, pressing prayers into my chest
sometimes i think they must be afraid every time the phone rings
i wish
and wish and
wish and
wonder
if a country could ever love its daughter back
so i tell jack kerouac i hate his book → kick him out for the fifth time, tell him to never come
back
i hate and it is so much easier
i hate and it feels as though i’ve lost nothing at all
i hate and
i have never been so american

FAVEN WONDWOSEN is a member of the class of 2027 and lives in Saybrook College.