20 Draft 2

His front gate Old Spice greetings
begins with short anecdote
about blisters on feet,
1 am walking wasted 20 blocks
back to bed. His phone screen cracked
from dropping it on concrete, and he might have puked
on Belmont’s side street, but his name is John
and I shake his hand.

Our date debriefs to his smoking cessation session,
where he lights a cigarette before heading in
as I park car out front of study’s building -
flashing blinkers in 4/4 time
And during my wait, I tell myself
he might be the best one online I’ve met.
Our conversations like forest fires
bouncing from one subject to other tree leaves. He
keeps my attention on words and less on self doubts of
‘why the hell I agree to meet people
on sites basing love off swiping left or right.’

John opens car door - teeth biting cigarette butt, complaining
he lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks from smoking more cigarettes
than his one-meal-a-day.
I call it the John diet.
His oversized shirt hides his dietary progress,
while glancing out passenger seat window
toward burger bars and taco stands down Addison.
He got paid 20 dollars, so he buys me
Rum and Coke at a bar while Hawks play.

We sit in front LCD 55-inch screen; bartender pours
bottle shelf rum into coke glass. We sip politics and religion
until our hips thrust back to car;
my tongue poking his molars and K9s
like dentists’ search for cavities.

My car drives itself back -
right palm busy caressing his inner thigh, my pupils dilate
on secondhand smoke kiss
in 10 pm traffic.

We parallel park into bed; slipping inside each other.
He bites my lower lip and taste my blood on his tongue;
I let him swallow my iron
in fear he hasn’t swallowed any in years.

Our hips stay connected as one until 5 am,
where we watch sunrise out his shower window;
I scrub his scratched shoulders, watching foam
drip down drain.

10am circles sky and I dissolve down drain hole
where I become lubricant amongst our dirty skin flakes and sweat.
He dries off our one night by lighting another smoke,
flicking ash on bed stand, while I’m somewhere in sewers,
swimming with his spoiled leftovers -
it’s down in gutters where I swear to never talk to him again.

But, three days later, I’m naked in his bed again;
he snores on stomach and I’m on back
staring at dents on ceiling. Each dent tells me to leave him sleeping,
but voices sink to whispers within plaster
as the voices of bedsprings argue to
love him
love him
love the fucks out of him
despite his bitching about not buying dinner meat for our pasta meal
or his stone face TV stares while sober.

See, John only pays attention to me underneath sheets
with rum on tongue and narrowing pupils.
At least he compensates for something.

I leave his front porch for the last time with his bed springs on mind,
and I constantly keep texting, knowing his mind is already preoccupied
within bedroom walls.

So, I tear apart fabric off my basement mattress
to sleep on uncoiled springs -
their acupuncture stabs into pressure points along spine

swallowing shots of Captain with John’s toast -
“it’s always 20 ‘o clock somewhere”
burning down my esophagus.