some tiktok poems i relate to lol (tw...everything??) pt 14

I met her ten years ago.
Last call at a hotel bar in a city I couldn't pronounce.

Her lips dripped with the chrism so striking you could see it across the room.
She had beauty marks on her right cheek and a martini clutched,
with a single sip left between two fingers.

I asked her if I could sit on the empty stool next to her.

Her eyes rose, slowly, her smirk unnerving as if she'd met me before.
I tried to order something sweet, but, she gave the a bartender a look,
nodded towards her drink, and he poured two more.

I talked the entire time... Of course.

Didn't know then, but, I was trapped in a perpetual loop of mistaking change
for progress. I had an addiction to disclaimers and an unhealthy usage of platitudes,
filling every gap with, "I should be grateful," "He's a good guy," and, "The job is fine."

She'd let the silence thicken, swirling her finger around the martini rim,
taking another sip or heavy pull from a cigarette.

I scribbled the only words that came from her crimson red mouth that night
on a crumpled bar napkin seconds after she left.

"Oh darling...

I can hear the quiet desperation in your gratitude and the dissatisfaction dripping
from your disclaimers. You know, I wish someone would have told me,
when I was your age, that my doubt and dissatisfaction
weren't two ugly demons to be done away with.

They were guides."

-@nnekajulia