Early Morning Treasures
There with the crisscross veins
from thighs to daddy’s
too big jagged-edged
socks tucked into shoes
used to be white but smudged with
dry mud dry blood
caked into gum-splattered cement
kicked up in your run for treasures
hidden in early morning trash bins
by the left side of the road
your nails coated with food scraps
found beneath the newspapers
last week digging
too late too late today
they’ve all been cleared out
other boys kicking up city dust
their once white shoes
pounding down on gum-splattered cement
with early morning trashbin treasures
Sunday Night
Sunday night
I ripped the photos of you from
my walls,
because I could feel them watching my breaths and their falls.
Blue paint stuck to the clear cellotape, and
in between my conscious states,
the white spots on the dark wall were
constellations.
Sunday night
I dreamt of the forest,
dripping
with the night’s heavy perspiration.
When I woke, the constellations
had become chipped paint on the wall of a cheap city apartment;
my body was slick with
salty tears and sticky sweat.
Sunday night
after it’s color poisoned my dreams, I
yanked your dark green shirt
over my bumps and my bruises.
Let it
billow to the ground from an
open window.
Let it
settle flat on the street settled in shadow.
Sunday night
I basked in moonlight from a
marble floor,
skin pale and bare to it’s smooth surface.
Lips
blue as the chipped paint wall,
I watched the night of constellations.
I seem to see them everywhere.
Key Lime Lips
We sit in a silence so awkward that I’ve lost count of how many minutes we’ve gone without talking. I think it’s seventeen. Or maybe eighteen. Possibly even nineteen, but that seems like a lot. I’m not sure why one have us hasn’t just gotten up and left yet. I would, but I’m still hoping that maybe she’ll look at me again, breaking the record of four glances in one day with a fifth. It would be a big deal, but after seventeen or eighteen or however many minutes we’ve been sitting here, even my patience is running a little low. So I decide to begin dropping subtle hints that I feel confident she’ll notice, because I’ve heard girls have great noticing skills. First, I clear my throat. She stares straight ahead. I try coughing, but then I realize she’ll probably think I’m unsanitary, because I’ve also heard that girls are afraid of germs, so I stop. I begin to move around in my chair. I scoot it forward, then back. She doesn’t even twitch. I try to think of something manly I could do that would impress her, but I can’t think of anything, so I jump in my seat a couple times. Nothing. I decide to go to my last resort.
“Julia”
In a split second, ninja speed, no joke, she’s pressed her lips against mine and is moving her mouth around my mouth. And if I wasn’t so shocked, I might pass out, but all I can do is sit there. It kinda feels like she’s trying to eat my face, but I attempt to do what she’s doing anyway in case she likes it. But moving my lips in random directions feels like I’m trying to eat her too, and this is really uncomfortable. Especially since her lips taste like the key lime pie flavored yogurt that I’ve seen her eat
every day during lunch for years. I always wondered what it would taste like, but I definitely didn’t think
it would taste like… Cheese.
This almost triggers my gag reflex, and then she starts moving her tongue around in my mouth. She moves it in weird circles on the roof of my mouth and when her tongue gets near mine, I am feeling a severe lack of personal space. I almost pull back, but don’t, because none of my friends have ever kissed a girl before, and I want to be able to brag about it. For a moment, it almost seems worth it that I have to smell her cheese breath. But suddenly, I realize how much saliva has just passed between us and what if she has a cold? Or some weird foreign flu that there’s no cure for? Or oh god, what if she has an STD! What if I get herpes! I pull away as fast as I can.
“Is something wrong?” She asks.
“Oh…no, no…”
“Was that good?” She says, grinning.
“Um…yeah. I was just wondering… You don’t have herpes, right?”