Ode to getting distracted in church by Alejandro Pérez

i’m in church & i’m able
to focus on everything

but God. everyone’s singing,
busy being possessed by the spirit

& i’m just thinking of B & how
he wants to do shrooms sometime

next week & head to brooklyn
& check out this taco place where

tacos are two dollars & i’m thinking
damn that’s a really good deal &

i’m thinking of C & how she really likes
tacos & how she used to like me back

in sophomore year & how i liked
her too but didn’t say shit &

i’m thinking of all the relationships
that could have been but never were

& how it’s such a waste, kind of like
having beans & rice & chicken & salsa

& guac & cheese & tortillas & not making
tacos kind of like just letting the ingredients

go bad on their own until they need to be
thrown out & i’m thinking of throwing

out food specifically how much i hate it
& i’m thinking of how the problem

of hunger isn’t really waste but distribution
& i’m thinking of love & how the problem

with that is also distribution, one person
loves the other a little too much

one person loves the other too little
& i’m thinking of L who i think

i’m in love with & i’m thinking of
how i haven’t told her & how

i searched on google how soon
is too soon to say i love you

& i’m thinking of how google
said to wait at least a year

& i’m wondering if google can
be trusted & i’m thinking of how

i trust L cause she’s a cancer & i’m
thinking of how she probs doesn’t

trust me cause i’m a gemini
& i’m thinking of astrology

of how the position of the sun & the moon
& the planets affects the way we act

the way we carry ourselves in the world
& i’m thinking of the phrase

to carry oneself how it’s so beautiful
how it implies that the self is a burden

something you drag around something
you are stuck with something

that’s weighing you down that you
decide for some reason to hold onto

Alejandro Pérez is a student at Columbia University in New York. He is a 2019 Pushcart Prize nominee whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boulevard, The Missouri Review, Pacifica Literary Review, DIAGRAM, Salamander, Blue Earth Review, and Spanish-language magazines in Venezuela, Chile, and Spain.