guess what's come to tear me all apart.
9. I told you five minutes and only once. Begging is never attractive. In a dark room that I never saw again, compliance and compliments flowed while I adjusted my stockings. I walked into the cold winter night and by the time I got home, the stockings were destroyed and blood was everywhere.
10. A summer fling mysteriously, quietly and emptily consummated in winter. To the end, we were like strangers.
11. The exact moment was in a dark, snow-covered alley a few blocks away from where you lived. Long coats and long shadows were the order of the day, and as I snapped the picture, your hand gently touched my shoulder. I wish the camera had been facing us and not our tall ground-selves. Now, I would want to see your countenance.
12. A first kiss in a damp basement six years ago. I couldn't concentrate in senior year math, constantly following my fanciful fantasies, concerned with your lips and your strong hands. The scales of time evened our vices and leveled our desires. It's full circle.
13. Always in a haze, always in slow motion. I sat across from you at a Brooklyn restaurant so long ago and assured myself that I would never. Beige leather couches and big, hypnotizing screens. Dark brown glass and metal tops pop off with a satisfying release of pressure. Oh God. I had to go.
14. You want normal, complacent love. I wanted to make you burn and hate and feel so much that you couldn't stand it. I buzzed you up and put on my mascara. You stood in the door watching me, I watched you in the mirror. I sprayed perfume onto my white neck and walked up to you. You said we have to go, but we didn't. We never made it to Brighton Beach, to that carnival of Russian imitations. I don't miss you, but sometimes when I walk past the store on Third Avenue, I imagine us running and rolling with the waves, you whispering that first little foreign charm into my ear over and over again.
15. Chairs as additional protection from the door opening. I was never sure if you were a real person, but my fondest memory of you, the most humanizing memory of you: standing at your kitchen sink watching you wash the dishes at five in the morning. I made a slight comment about it, and you replied, well, who else will wash them?
10. A summer fling mysteriously, quietly and emptily consummated in winter. To the end, we were like strangers.
11. The exact moment was in a dark, snow-covered alley a few blocks away from where you lived. Long coats and long shadows were the order of the day, and as I snapped the picture, your hand gently touched my shoulder. I wish the camera had been facing us and not our tall ground-selves. Now, I would want to see your countenance.
12. A first kiss in a damp basement six years ago. I couldn't concentrate in senior year math, constantly following my fanciful fantasies, concerned with your lips and your strong hands. The scales of time evened our vices and leveled our desires. It's full circle.
13. Always in a haze, always in slow motion. I sat across from you at a Brooklyn restaurant so long ago and assured myself that I would never. Beige leather couches and big, hypnotizing screens. Dark brown glass and metal tops pop off with a satisfying release of pressure. Oh God. I had to go.
14. You want normal, complacent love. I wanted to make you burn and hate and feel so much that you couldn't stand it. I buzzed you up and put on my mascara. You stood in the door watching me, I watched you in the mirror. I sprayed perfume onto my white neck and walked up to you. You said we have to go, but we didn't. We never made it to Brighton Beach, to that carnival of Russian imitations. I don't miss you, but sometimes when I walk past the store on Third Avenue, I imagine us running and rolling with the waves, you whispering that first little foreign charm into my ear over and over again.
15. Chairs as additional protection from the door opening. I was never sure if you were a real person, but my fondest memory of you, the most humanizing memory of you: standing at your kitchen sink watching you wash the dishes at five in the morning. I made a slight comment about it, and you replied, well, who else will wash them?