S

In another world, I am fourteen again 

       But this time 

I am aware of the length of my shorts 

I do not wear walk down the street

barefoot in a bikini

to get a cigarette from someone's

father who is just as

ill-intentioned as his son

When the dog snaps at my calves 

I leap over the fence

and run faster this time 

Just so your grimy hands don't

ever get the chance to

latch on to my hips

and throw me over your shoulder  

And the first time I see

you're hard from looking at me

I announce it aloud

I jump from the bed

and never return to that house again 

When you comes prowling later on

I hide behind the washer

and don't come out 

In the other world

you aren't fooling anyone

We aren't fools in the first place

You are never close enough to kiss me

When you say you'll be my dad now

Since mine is gone 

I punch you in the rotting teeth 

In that world I am consistent

I believe my eyes for what they see 

I believe the girl I grew up with

who says you molested her

in the middle of the street 

I understand you don't have to be

small and blonde

for any man to sink their teeth

Childhood Lessons

06/01/2019

Friday

Saving Face

06/02/2019

Saturday

His big brown eyes grow serious as he says he will not allow me to teach myself to love drinking because I will never stop.

I tell him I really am fine, why are you always thinking you're the boss of me? Give me another damn beer because if I have to ask again, I'll be finding a boy who will always satisfy my demands.

He says I will never find a boy or anything at all that satisfies me unless it's deadly and I better not touch those drugs ever again.

It always comes back to that.

I tell him I believe in finding what you love and letting it kill you, but I'm not at risk anymore.

He says I am an addict until I die, there's no undo button in real life.

Fuck yourself. Really. You're not getting anything tonight.

He laughs and 3 white ovals disappear beneath his tongue.

I try not to remember the lovely bitterness. I try to resist the urge to slip my tongue in his mouth just to taste it.

He says he is immune to things like depression and addiction, he is the man his father wanted him to be.

But at 3 am on a Wednesday when he sends me a document entitled, "last will and testament", I read it with one eye and fall back asleep.

You were going to kill yourself, weren't you, asshole?

He grabs a frigid beer and presses it against my inner thigh.

And just what the fuck would happen to you if I killed myself? I'm immune to selfishness too.

I am adjusted and friendly with every person in the building. A new kid walks in. The other students perk up and seem to recognize him, nod their hellos or fist bump a welcome. I only see him from the back but the first thing I notice are the strong muscles rippling beneath the surface as his shoulder blades move. He runs his hand through his fashionable blond haircut and his biceps bulge. He faces me, familiar, but how? Smooth skin with freckles sprinkled across his nose, green eyes watching me with arrogance. Jaw square. He smiles at me and I jump. Fuck. An optical illusion, I think to myself.

He is not a look alike because he is the real thing. Not regularly attending now but he drops by in his shiny gray sport’s car when school lets out. The boys I have befriended all excitedly yell at the top of their voices when they see him. I don’t follow, even though they are my ride home. It is late spring and nearing the end of the year when he whispers something to the guys and they leave me behind. I linger near the front door of the school until he approaches me. Easy, calm. He grins at me the way that the boys from public school did and pulls something from his pocket. He extends his open palm toward me and in the center sits a stick of spearmint.

“Still don’t want my drugged gum?”

I take the stick, unwrap it quickly and toss it between my lips. He stands to full height and I try not to notice how he towers above me, the tallest girl in my class.

“I’m your ride. C'mon.” There is no one left in the parking lot. I remind myself how much worse I’ve done as he closes the passenger door and strides to his seat.

He shows up at my backdoor mid-morning with a smirk and a joint, says, “Been a while, huh?”. I’ve moved towns twice since the last time I saw his face but he found me. I let him in because I've known him the majority of my life and he remains the most hilarious person I know. He isn't disgusted that taco bell and getting high are nightly rituals here, he calls it inspiration for my "harsh, aching prose"; I don’t judge when I learn he always gets drunk before playing on stage because after all these years he has yet to defeat his stage fright.

I am still three months older and unimpressed with his physique, but now I’ve devoted myself to literature professionally and miscarried an Italian child and learned how to love each day for what it is. He’s grown taller than me and his hair is longer than mine, he makes money for music now and his gaze is much softer than it ever appeared in school. We drink wine from real wine glasses because I say so (even though I know he prefers whiskey) and play a violent game of scrabble and he tells he's going to university for a fancy degree in the fall. When the second bottle is empty, I tell him we’re playing truth or dare. He chooses dare, says he isn't taking a chance because he remembers how nosy I am and I’ve got that look in my eye. I dare him to tell me whether or not he had a crush on me in school. His laughter comes from somewhere deep within him and something twitches involuntarily in me. “I take that as a yes?” It’s a rhetorical question because his face has made a split second transition from pale pink to burgundy. “You could say that.” He doesn’t look me in the face but he’s smiling to the floor. “Your turn asshole, truth or dare?” There’s a challenge in his tone, a voice deeper than I remember.

“Truth. Because I’m the brave one.” I am warm, comfortable, loose, so I wink at him and pull the cork from a third bottle, nearly spilling it all over me. “Is it true you’ve thought of what it’d be like to kiss me?” I gape at his bravery. My mind rolls back to high school, where all my conventionally pretty, wild, vivacious girlfriends giggled at every word he said while I wondered how anyone could be attracted to him. My best friend, the class clown and party boy from a wealthy family even though everybody thought he was poor because he never took anyone to his house but me and liked to be seen as edgy. “One day, I almost thought about it.” His eyes seem to teeter more on the blue side than green tonight and I try to keep from cackling at his anticipation. “On the day you showed me the library at your grandparents’. I was so full of lust for those dusty old books and antiques, and you just happened to look charming in the afternoon light.” He grabs the bottle and swallows audibly. I don’t move away when he sits it on the table and leans into me. He laters says he's been infatuated with me for a decade and it's never threatened to fade; his fascination ages well, he says, like wine. I wonder why I never knew.

-- No Trespassing Sign