in french
my roommate knows
i find it hard to fall asleep
because of bad thoughts,
so he suggests
i play music at night
when he compliments my selection,
i make playlists for him
he tries to teach me french,
but we get no further than
s’il vous plaît
in art therapy
he always uses charcoal
to draw black cubist pictures
and laughs at me
when i draw aliens
who take me away from earth
we both don’t talk much,
instead, we pass a piece of paper back and forth
over coffee
and write down scenes from a play,
line after line
he always guides the story
towards a woman smoking weed
on a bed
and i always guide it back to him,
the protagonist