i typed about each poem in you are a little bit happier than i am

in this post i type about each poem in my poetry-collection you are a little bit happier than i am which was published by action books; i did this previously with today the sky is blue and white with bright blue spots and a small pale moon and i will destroy our relationship today; this is just what i do, with my time

some of my happiest moments in life occur on AOL instant messenger

This poem is about death. This poem says, 'Death exists.' If this poem were two animals it would be an intelligent moose and an intelligent grizzly bear. The moose and the bear would walk through a city at 4 a.m. after the city has been evacuated in an epic hollywood movie and the buildings would block the moon and stars so that it's very dark. The moose and the bear would hear each other but never touch or see each other.

if i get hit a little by a truck tonight i’m okay with that

This poem is about not wanting to have responsibilities or desires anymore. This poem was made possible by the time I spent in a hospital in Florida, and by the Lannan Foundation.

i want to pour orange juice on my face

This poem is about not wanting to exist anymore.

that night with the green sky

This poem is about a brief period of unrequited emotions that occurred between two extended periods of severe loneliness, desperation, depression, anxiety, and fear.

poems that look weird

If this poem were a parrot it would fly calmly around a room four feet above the ground saying something stupid repeatedly. Someone would find out it was a robot parrot, but then when someone hit the parrot with a baseball bat in order to knock it out of the window, to be funny, the parrot would hit the wall and real blood would come out, because it is not a robot parrot but a real parrot.

spring break

This poem is about severe depression at 1 p.m. on a sunny day. When you have severe depression at 1 p.m. on a sunny you can't go to sleep, there is no escape. There is no escape.

things i wanted to do today

This poem is an piercing biopic in story form into the refreshingly optimistic mind of Tao Lin.

i want to start a band

This poem is a study into the vagaries of insane violence. Vagaries.

i am unemployed

This poem is a scathing indictment of the McSweeney's publishing empire, with narration by George Clooney.

October

This is a short story. This short story is about the ecstacy and genius of John Updike, the Canadian pianist.

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November

This story is a humorous, light-hearted take on prairie life in the late 1800's.

my favorite book of poetry right now

This poem is about standing at work in the library in the poetry section when i worked in the library reading the first pages of over two hundred books of poetry and feeling severe frustration at not reading anything that does anything to my brain. I never did that, but that is what this poem is about.

i saw you on the street

This poem is about not wanting to exist anymore.

loneliness is just a word that means you are feeling alone and depressed and starting to think about how difficult and strangely impossible it is for you to be interested in the same people who are interested in you and how if you don’t change your worldview and personality soon then you will probably always feel alone and depressed because you can’t remember a time when you haven’t felt alone and depressed but really you can and that is when you were a small child but that small child seems like a different person, really, than who you are right now and you can’t become a different person anymore because you are over twenty years old and people this age don’t change unless they fall off a barn and get a long metal rod through their brain and then they change drastically and get studied by scientists and never have to get a real job again but always look very alone and far away and doomed on TV even if they and all their friends and family and an international team of doctors, neural surgeons, and psychologists—cognitive, behavioral, courtroom, and analytical—say that they aren’t at all

This poem is about variety. Having a poem with a very long title adds variety to your poetry-collection.

pessimism? or robotics?

This poem is about 95% not wanting to exist and 5% wanting to exist.

it’ll get different

This poem is about not wanting to exist anymore but continuing to exist because of the knowledge that maybe later on I will want to exist.

[untitled]

This poem was originally titled 'you are a little bit happier than i am.' To avoid the mediocrity of having the title of the book be the title of a poem inside the book (while still having the sense of cohesion, balance, metaphorical potential, and stability that that particular mediocrity bestows), I deleted the title of this poem and made it the title of this book.

Friday

This poem is about when your life has changed so that good things can only arrive through email.

i am about to kill my literary agent

This poem is about Hitler. Hitler killed some people. But what is going to kill all people? The universe is going to kill all people.

4:30 a.m.

This poem is about being polite in times of severe desperation, depression, and despair.

thanksgiving

This poem is about not wanting to live anymore.

Appreciate Me For Everything Good I Have Done In The Past

If this poem was a grouper it would have a net over its face and swim into a different net trawling for shrimp, then a different net trawling for tuna would come from a different direction into the grouper's side.

i honestly do not know who this poem is directed at but i still somehow wrote it with conviction

This poem is about not having convictions anymore but still continuing with the same rhetoric as before, when convictions were still there.

I Am ‘I Don’t Know What I Am’ And You Are Afraid Of Me And So Am I

This poem is written for a Gene Morgan project. He solicited me and payed me $50.

i hate the world and i’m not immature

I wrote this and some other poems in this book in order to read them out loud at an opium magazine reading. I knew I would be reading them out loud so I didn't want to say anything I couldn't defend, couldn't explain, or that didn't explain itself explicitly, directly, and clearly, so that five year olds in the audience could understand and so that people wouldn't come up to me asking what the poem was about and so that I wouldn't feel pretentious.

i am about to express myself

This poem is about insane violence.

The Poem I Wrote In My Room After We Fought On The Internet And You Called Me A Dick And Said You Had To Go To Sleep And Said You Would Email Me Over Thanksgiving From Home But Then Said ‘Forget It’ After I Said About You Emailing Me Over Thanksgiving From Home That ‘I Doubt It’

I wrote the first draft of this poem laying in my room at night suffering from severely unrequited feelings, severe depression, and very comfortable room temperature, a large soft bed, and overall a high standard of living.

My Dreams Are Almost Always Nightmares In Retrospect

This poem is a scathing indictment of the American banking system.

you were a martial arts master and you worked at circuit city

This poem is about... I forgot his name. I was going to type his real name but I forgot his name.

you published a one-page comic where someone freaks out while eating breakfast

This poem is about Tara Wray. I watched her documentary. Someone in the documentary mentions Being John Malkovich and Tara's mother says, 'Being John's Master Bitch?'

an instant messenger conversation we had about how my dad was in jail

This poem is a scathing indictment of the MTA.

you are somewhere in florida right now

This poem is about Ryan Dixon, who plays drums for this band

things you have emailed me

I copied and pasted things Noah Cicero has emailed me and that is this poem.

in manhattan on 29th street across the avenues then over a railing there is a little beach

This poem is about Benny Borukhov.

book reviewers always praise books as ‘life-affirming’ because the more humans there are on earth the better

This poem is about not wanting to write poems anymore because it feels impossible to.

promise i’ll vote for you

This poem is a scathing indictment of myself.

poem to end my head off

This poem is about wanting to write a very long poem so that people can say that this poem 'holds the book together,' that 'everything else in the book is sourced in this poem,' that 'without this poem none of the other poems would be possible,' or that 'this poem is the masterpiece of the collection.'

i see million dollar baby, starring clint eastwood, with my mom

This poem is about not wanting to see hollywood movies anymore.

you are my mom

This poem is a scathing indictment of the American banking system.

when i think of grapefruits my heart beats faster

If this poem was a time-bomb it would be hiding under a bench in Washington Square Park. The time-bomb would feel meek. Then it would see a piece of cantaloupe on the ground and feel hungry and want to eat the cantaloupe. Then a squirrel would eat the cantaloupe. The entire time the squirrel is eating the cantaloupe it would stare directly at the time-bomb's eyes. The time-bomb would be staring intensely and with shame at the ground.

i am ‘you’ to you

This poem is a good idea because it makes it possible for academics to 'mine' my collection for all its 'interstices of meaning.' The 'you' in the title now becomes 'me,' thereby allowing college students to write about that. This poem is also a good idea because it makes it so that MFA or PHD poetry students who are embarrassed for reading poetry that is direct, uses concrete sentences, comprehendible syntax, and conveys its meaning through language rather than by putting spaces between the words and arranging the words in formations across the page can now maybe assuage themselves by thinking something like, 'each poem can be read in at least two ways, depending on who "you" is... hmmm.'

Washington Mutual Is A Bank That Is Everywhere

This poem is about not caring about 'the mysteries of the universe' anymore.

I Will Like The Things I Dislike, Hate, Or Am Indifferent Towards

This poem is about not wanting to think anything anymore.

April

This poem is a refreshingly scathing indictment of the life of poet Rumi.

walking home in cold weather

This poem is a scathing, low-calorie carrot cake made from all organic ingredients grown in my backyard in florida.

my brother is vacationing on a mountain with his girlfriend and i found out from my dad

This poem is a 7-day Carnival Cruiseline cruise to the Bahamas, Haiti, and beautiful Key West.

February

This poem is a scathingly refreshing look into the abyss.

At That Leftover Crack Concert Two Years Before I Met You

This poem is about Ezra Kire. I also wrote a novel called Ezra Kire. Ezra Kire is a scathingly acid take on the American banking system, as seen from the eyes of a North American Wild Moose.