Playing with Joelle

Roses are red,
Your undies are brown,
If you weren't my bestie,
I'd really be down.

Olives are yummy,
Sometimes the truth hurts,
No more blind dates,
Because that was the worst.

Vodka and Cranberry
Will do the trick
Just one more ground rule:
Chicks before dicks.

Some boys are pretty,
But when a girl's blue,
Not much is better
Than a best friend like you.

Sugar Baby Blue

Warmth, the first in months; rain on sun-dried pavement

Tender, winter-hidden skin exposed to the new season

Deep breath. Sweet smell. Not Burberry, but better

Teal twirl, slick-skipping moccasins, cherry hair

Run for lunch, windows down, dewy droplets clinging to my forearm

Breathing space spiced by a cinnamon-stick cigarette

Partner in crime in the passenger seat…where she belongs

Laughter like ours doesn’t ring; it’s not cliché like that

Like those unfettered stanzas boys used to send me, I made them insane

You and I aren’t thinking of them today, talking dresses and dreams

I painted a new face on this one-horse town

Because I’m done swinging from his tire swing

No more bare-feet-in-the-grass-type romps for this sugar baby

Chill, the sun sets, and so sets in my hesitation

Hours of typing, reading, replying, wasting my time trying

Your fancy name and your motorcycle rally can’t save you here, I see you

But it’s okay, it’s almost like no one ever taught you any differently

An apartment, the carpet coarse with tiny seared craters

The furniture, too; sheets, pillows, blankets, books

White lie, you barely ever smoke in there, it airs out well

First chance, only chance, no second chance, that’s the way it is

A parking lot, a jewel-box bank, your partner in crime, his passenger seat

Secret swill, spit into the newsprint which stains my fingers

Not allowed to call, tethered to the blue and whites

Gray lie, this is the last of the legal trouble, six more months, and it’s done

Second chance, only chance, no third chance, that’s the way it is

A romantic night, a second date, seasick to my stomach

Country fried steak sloppy and heavy on your plate, but nevermind

Kiss me underneath an amber streetlight, my lips are better than your drug

Black lie, it was beautiful waking up beside you, take a number, come again

Third chance, only chance, no more chances, that’s the way it is

Isn’t it?

Warmth, the first since yesterday; sunlight on my single bed

Arms and legs, wrapped around no one else

Deep breath. Sweet smell. Like freedom, but better

Gilded spark, defiant dance, head held high

Conversation with Cody

Well, boo,

What it comes down to

Is that I liked you

Since the day I met you,

And I want what I can’t have,

And I know that,

But I’m a spoiled little kid,

So I’m gonna play it

Like I own the situation.

Written When I Could Not Sleep

Despondent glances cast between us in the memory you composed

Overlooking words I long to say, long for you to know

Under assumption of greater things, which need not be discovered

Gleaming skin and dying eyes of a clandestine lover

Left alone, fatigued, bereft, jaded in my tension

And you, my dear, superb, unfazed, immune to our dissention

Somehow I cannot look away, somehow I cannot flee

Zero-hour closes in, I must find sanctuary

Every note, a memoir, hand-addressed to your spite

Pressing, I hope, on your heart, that you might feel my cry

Keeping in tradition, before I realize my worth

All that I have given you, flung harshly in the dirt

Day 4

Sick and sleepless

Eyes, wide with disbelief

This untruth, this lie, this fable

And supreme awareness belongs to me

Not sure what you were thinking

Face, defiled by sorrow

Sick and sleepless

Sleepless and sick

Hands, dry, just like yours

Working, formulating, preparing

To hold one of yours between my own

Might kill me on a night like this

Lips, burned by the cold

Sleepless and sick

Sick and sleepless

Throat, choked by request

Secrets of best friends and lovers

Deception kept quite separate, clever boy

Return to me, spill your invention

Heart, undaunted and strong

Sick and sleepless

Thursday Night

My stomach, cold, knotted , as I listened to the message that changed everything

Don’t think I’ll ever forget the terror, the rush, your voice in my veins

Limbs numb with pain I couldn’t feel, unmovable, nauseous

I was back in that little bar, watching those fucking blue eyes strangle my conscience,

Back to a pool table, your smile a wonder unlike any I’d ever seen, mirroring my hammering heart

Text messages, Valentines, comforting and beautiful, the things you made me believe for a moment I was

Wrapped in your arms, the best night’s sleep you said you’d ever had, and I bought that, too

Too much, too soon, too hot, too heavy

And her. Forever the confider, the secret-giver, the expecter, the naive and afraid

Unable to return the favor, feigning concern, selfish revelation, destruction

And I. Left holding the reins of her life…and his, what to do?

Back to the traditional expectation of my sex-- silence, brooding, solitary suffering

Hopes that you might stay, that perhaps this is only the beginning, that my error is not fatal

Modern verses on small backlit screens, rewriting you as you rewrite me

Biting my tongue, suppressing the twinge you’ve asked me not to disclose, is it enough?

A new fashion trend, wearing my heart in my chest instead of on my sleeve,

Protected from romanticized sticks and stones, weapons that dismember emotion from experience

Lines of reality and interpretation blurring, I always do that to myself

Always left with incomprehensible sadness, emptiness, loneliness, a song played by someone else

Always someone else, looking for advice, but my own shit isn’t even straight

Is that how psychologists work? This isn’t what I wanted to be, the trying half of the one-sided friendship

Back to sliding into the driver’s seat, your car, not mine

But with your hand on my leg, I can’t focus on the road; there’s nothing but contact charge

Electricity between your skin and mine, please god, don’t let it end, where are your high beams?

Does your microwave work? I brought Chinese, memories flash through my shattered mind

As if we’re dying for your third time, as if we were ever living, converging together as one

But we had, and I couldn’t…still can’t…get enough

Back to the first kiss, your hands on my face, you asked for it, pulled me under

Told me I moved like the 1950s, and now I almost wish I hadn’t believed you

For a cosmic moment, I gifted to you the damaged goods that were me, opened to your scrutinizing gaze

Hoping you wouldn’t destroy them in the fashion of those before you

Learning to love what I had been taught not to trust came easier than I expected

Learning to lose what I had taught myself to love, not so much

Fleetingly, perhaps that was what I breathed as I shared your cigarettes

But somehow, it was all still too much

Somehow, I am still unprepared to surrender, to remove my fingers from your scars

My secrets may not be safe with her, but hers are safe with me, and so are yours

For it is not I who cannot, and should not, be trusted.