january 25th 2024

you like love when it’s easy. you’d never inconvenience yourself for love. if i asked you to come here now you would not. you like your bed and you like the show and petra’s in the room, a subject of banter, and you can’t even have sex with me, so why would you take the elevator down nine floors and scale the sidewalk only for a chance to watch me trip in my room? what shirt are you wearing? sunday you said, i want to see you again. you said, i want you to be comfortable. i want to make sure i do it right. did you love me for a day? you felt my desperation and it soaked under your jacket. you did not believe you could run that clear. oh, but i let you in, here’s my room number, first door on the right, i left it ajar, and then there you were in front of me, and it was absolutely over. hair to your shoulders. you brought me a book and you spoke small. you were a dark mass of winter layers against the pale empty wall, wound together and arranged on in front of the desk, paper thin, nervous to catch my eyes on yours. you said, let’s talk tomorrow. i felt the weight of you, and i was awake again.

i will admit i thought your jaw was so obnoxious. you really are such a dick with your face. everybody knows you. of course you wouldn’t even look their way, you’d say, they hate me, they think i’m a terrible freak. everybody knows you and it’s not because of kaleigh’s mouth, it’s because of your face and your hair and your orchestrated indifference. it’s because you got scouted to model professionally in brooklyn and you thought it was a tax scam. you know what you have and what you reap, which is girls, and you can’t fess up. so was i graced by you when you crawled to my doorstep? did you choose me for any reason? i think you felt that i’m gorgeous. a prize, a statuette. virgin not just from sex. i am a body but my body is not me, but i know what i have and i know what i reap, which is a complete radius. everyone is eyes. i’m calling them over to take me and scrape it off and make it end. then the rest is the real work because i am not the one in the pictures. your fucking iphone gallery, you’re such a hypocrite. the dream of the bookstore and mary fucking oliver, damn, it would be nice. i imagine you conjured me over an episode of friends: monica says something witty to rachel and you stumble, delirious, for your phone. my unblocked number. at least i was good. do you remember? do you remember? you call me twice, you scrape at your head. waiting. weak. at least i was good. 

you’re half of my brain. i need you to breathe and you’re partial to other drugs. how can you be? you could’ve had anything—you could have had something sacred. i am a flower that blooms once in a life. you waited. the chemical fumes lull you to sleep.