It had only been a couple of hours,
but I had a really good feeling
about her. The energy was something
special, kiddo.

The streetlights became a thunderstorm of fire.
The sun knew when to take a third-round dive.
The news channels took their technical difficulties to heart.

I could even smoke
if I opened a window
and didn’t say anything to hurt the mailman’s feelings.

She could do impressions
and always kept the room at sixty-five degrees.

I was in love, you know?
I was doing well, considering I had only been awake
for a couple of years at that point.

My expectations for adventure when I’m breaking
into the gas station for cigarettes and cough syrup
are not spectacular. I’m usually happy
to just get what I need from life and get home
before the heat wave meets the blizzard,
and all of it splits the sky’s back like three anorexic twigs.

I didn’t expect to run into someone like her,
and I didn’t know you could live in this part of town
without sweating it out in the minor-league rehabs first.

Her legs were fantastic and not in the least dangerous.
I’m still willing to say that.

An hour to feel comfortable around her
then another hour to fall head over heels
and shake off the concussion almost immediately.

It took a lot less time to nod slowly,
kiss her throat, excuse myself to the bathroom
and never, ever come back.

Maybe I’m prejudiced.

I could have loaned her my grandmother’s ring
and hung in there for twenty more years,
just to be sure.

Panic is the only consistent justice I believe in.
It set when she told me that for an extra five hundred,
she would nail my hands to the desk and paint my portrait.

I used to have an open mind.
I’m a champion Hide and Seek player
with the Civil War ghosts at second-to-last old high school.

It may well go down in history as a real shame.
I ducked out of there, stole a cab from an old woman
and stashed myself and my good fortunes
at a grocery store that’s been renovating since 1948.

No one needed to tell me I was a fool.
I drank warm beer in the aisles and wrote dirty limericks
on the linoleum floor. I knew it was going to be a long
damn time before I ever fell in love again.

And I was right.
Forty-five minutes went by,
until I finally noticed the girl
at the thirty-aspirations-or-less counter
screaming in Chinese
and threatening everyone in her line with a shotgun.

She had kind eyes.
I was thinking about this,
as I scribbled my number
on the back of an old bus ticket
and confidently made my way towards her.

08/03/2011

Posted on 08/03/2011
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