It’s been a while…

and I still wonder how you’ve been… what you’ve been up to. Does your mailbox still have that dent in it from that one night so long ago when the world was ours and we didn’t care? When we would have thrown it all away for a smoke and a quick fix in the back of your car? We lived on chump change and cigarettes. We lived for holding hands and each other. I will never forget the way you would rub your thumb so gently on my wrist, as if you were afraid to break me. I hate winter but I will always look back fondly upon those cold nights so long ago when we would slide onto your leather seats and you’d rest one hand on my knee, the other on the steering wheel. The heater wouldn’t even kick in until I was long past home, but I didn’t care. I still had the warmth of our late night encounter on my mind and that was enough. Do you remember that night when you asked me to kiss you while driving me home and I said no? It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you to keep me safe, I always felt safe when I was around you, but it was because in that instant I realized we were young and stupid and could easily end just like that. Those cars headed our way, steered by the faceless, didn’t care about us or the happiness that we had yet to share. But then I saw the lights flicker across your temple and jawline and cheekbone at fleeting intervals that seemed to last hours, not mere seconds. And I kissed you anyways, didn’t I? For a moment I felt on top of the world. I miss the days when things were enough.

The Invitation

You studied me in the dark.

I could feel your eyes boring into my skull

daring me to turn towards you.

 

“I don’t think you can stay here tonight,” you said.

I’d been gazing off into the unadulterated darkness

following the silhouettes of unknown things with my eyes.

 

Empty picture frames leaned against the wall,

a knocked over lamp lay on its side.

A mountain of dirty sheets and blankets and clothes

that loomed tall,

jeering at me from your closet.

 

They had known the intimate design of your body

and felt its warmth far more than I ever had.

 

This was the first time I’d been invited into your room,

after all.

 

“Come on,” you said.

taking back your arms and getting ready to go.

 

As you slipped back into your shoes you were already withdrawing.

I knew that by the time we walked out the front door

you would be back to your old, impenetrable self.

 

It hadn’t been my idea to stay in the first place,

so why did I feel as if I’d lost something?

The Last Night

Maybe it’s ironic the last time I saw you two nights before you were drunk. That after downing shots and guzzling liquor, you thought of me and wanted me then. All I got out of it were your drunken texts and calls. You got pieces of me. You got satisfaction. You got your dick sucked for over an hour.

I got bruises. Four of them that formed a ring: two on my collarbones, two on my shoulders. That was the testimony to my night. But the only one I could explain was the bite mark on my shoulder that had bloomed into a flower like contusion. You got to use me, bend my body to your will. I was glad to do it.

Maybe it’s ironic that two nights before, you fell asleep. You didn’t mean to, you were supposed to drive me home. I remember looking at the clock on your TV, it was 6:38. It had been four hours of you, you, you. You taking whatever you wanted violently… bed shaking, legs quaking, chest heaving. Me bending backwards, forwards, over the bed for you. Your hands guiding me.

Until finally I said enough. You were supposed to take me home; it’d never been this late before. Close, but never this late. You fell asleep with your back turned towards me. I regretted de-spooning myself from you… regretted getting up and pulling your arms from around me. Regretted moving my arm out from under your head. But you didn’t try again. You fell asleep with your back turned towards me.

I tried to take up as little room as possible. I was cold, but the blanket was under you. Curled up, I became so small. I used myself for warmth when really it was your warmth I wanted. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is waking up. You asked me if I was ready to go. It was 8:20.

I looked like pure shit. My hair was a mess of tangles… we had tried to smooth it out the night before with your gay roommate’s brush but that did no good. My make up was all gone because you had fucked it all off the night before. Mere hours ago, really.

We rode in silence. “I don’t want to go to work,” you said. It started in 20 minutes and I didn’t feel sorry. “Do you have class today?”

“Just one,” I answered. It started in less then an hour. “But I feel like I won’t go.”

All this polite conversation – useless.

When you pulled up and stopped your car, I turned to you not knowing what to expect. I did this every time. But this time you kissed me. Four times. On my cheek, down the side of my face. God, that smile. I could forget myself completely with that smile. I could let it screw me over, not just screw me.