bruce springsteen
your ex-girlfriend, she haunts us.
we are fucking in her bed and on its creaky frame (it was your bed, together, once, until you were relegated to the second bedroom, an air mattress, a sleeping bag), her huge, gilded mirror sits on her dresser to our right, in which i catch a glimpse of myself while i'm on top of you and turn away, as if shy, but more taken by surprise than anything.
on her mirror, i read her reminders to herself, scrawled, in script, in what looks like lipstick: "all that matters is how you see yourself. DO. YOU." and "dress up and go out 1ce/month." and i wonder if she has been sad, what she has been going through, if she heeded her instructions and what she wore when she went out. i notice her black, high-heeled, lace-up oxfords next to her closet. her eyeliner sharpener - sephora - on the sink, pencil shavings curled up like lovers.
i tell you it's a bit weird and you ask if we can forgo the weirdness for a bit of comfort and i cannot complain. the luxury of air conditioning, a house all to ourselves, her white sheets like mine, but softer. at my place, at the very top of an old victorian, all i have is a box fan that swirls around air so hot it could choke you, and the two beautiful boys who live in the rooms below me, we are all only still getting used to this new arrangement, your presence, that is.
it's not jealousy i feel, as i secretly flip through a pair of miniature polaroids in her bedroom (she is beautiful, if i've identified her correctly), it's not resentment or inadequacy but the weight of a love that can't be felt anymore, except for in these walls, the stainless steel, the lease they had signed together, and this feeling i can't shake is that i want to pay my respects. but where?
we are fucking in her bed and on its creaky frame (it was your bed, together, once, until you were relegated to the second bedroom, an air mattress, a sleeping bag), her huge, gilded mirror sits on her dresser to our right, in which i catch a glimpse of myself while i'm on top of you and turn away, as if shy, but more taken by surprise than anything.
on her mirror, i read her reminders to herself, scrawled, in script, in what looks like lipstick: "all that matters is how you see yourself. DO. YOU." and "dress up and go out 1ce/month." and i wonder if she has been sad, what she has been going through, if she heeded her instructions and what she wore when she went out. i notice her black, high-heeled, lace-up oxfords next to her closet. her eyeliner sharpener - sephora - on the sink, pencil shavings curled up like lovers.
i tell you it's a bit weird and you ask if we can forgo the weirdness for a bit of comfort and i cannot complain. the luxury of air conditioning, a house all to ourselves, her white sheets like mine, but softer. at my place, at the very top of an old victorian, all i have is a box fan that swirls around air so hot it could choke you, and the two beautiful boys who live in the rooms below me, we are all only still getting used to this new arrangement, your presence, that is.
it's not jealousy i feel, as i secretly flip through a pair of miniature polaroids in her bedroom (she is beautiful, if i've identified her correctly), it's not resentment or inadequacy but the weight of a love that can't be felt anymore, except for in these walls, the stainless steel, the lease they had signed together, and this feeling i can't shake is that i want to pay my respects. but where?