2nd Floor 1 Bed 1 Bath
There are bright motes of dust suspended before our
bedroom’s westward-facing window, and the bed is
sloppily made. Just down a beige carpeted hall, the young
grey tabby slinks aimlessly and the white paint is several
coats thick on the bathroom door. Two of my fingers tap at it
softly while you cry on the other side, though I seem to be
the one trapped by your drunken indiscretion. The Wedding
Is Definitely Off, I tell myself cautiously. Then through cheap
wood, fifteen hundred fifty a month, Beverly Hills-adjacent,
batting well out of my league here where I tripped up in your endless
legs and straight into a ridiculous proposal, I say it out loud.
I don’t stop imagining another man inside your body, a boy really,
when you tell me you interrupted it after five minutes, that it
felt so wrong. Something else you say to me, voice trembling,
weeks later, is that I will regret this decision eventually.
I have punched a hole through a kitchen cabinet by then,
unsure of how to end this unlikeliest of poems.