Wardrobe Department by Chuck Young

Chuck Young

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wardrobe department

justin bieber smokes a cigarette
while wearing a cardigan,
converse sneakers, and nothing else.
he’s holding a pregnancy stick
and looks distraught.
soft grunge, the tiny screen says.

it’s five years from now
and a song off of
drake’s nothing was the same
comes on and his ears take his body
to the first time he heard it:
you and him in the last seats
of the L at midnight,
facing backwards, headphones
coming out of your phone,
you with one bud,
him with the other,
and his hand on the bare skin
of your knee
through ripped black denim.

it’s fifteen years before then,
summer, and she keeps hearing
no doubt’s don’t speak on his car stereo.
she is convinced it is a bad omen;
the soft maroon cotton of the
buick’s interior drooping down
claustrophobic from the ceiling.
her dad dies out of nowhere
a couple months later.
i know what you’re thinking.

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Chuck Young used to call himself a musician and then used to call himself a writer and then used to call himself an editor but now he knows better. For more of his work, visit: yourdeadbffsurl.tumblr.com.