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Tomorrow's Paper was in the Grocery Store Today

He was tomorrow's headlines.
His brain was today's breakfast.
His soul was dinner from two weeks ago.
I can't be blamed for living in the past,
although the present and future
are just as intriguing.

His hair was left over from puberty
(mine hasn't been quite the same since)
His eyebrows were warring caterpillars
(I tried to tame them, but to no avail)
His nose was Little Bo Peep's hook
(mine is the sheep, and we just can't find each other)
His cheeks were a shot of tequila
(I'm the salt on a margarita glass)
His lips were the Forbidden Fruit
(mine are the Serpent).
We were told to stop.
We were forewarned.
But his hand on the small of my back
just felt too right.

His fingers were pockets full of coins
His fingertips were upside-down post-it notes
His fingernails were bottlecaps.
When I snuggled his palms, his calluses burned my skin.

His back was whiplash
(mine hurts just as much)
His spine was a skateboard
(I could never get the hang of those, anyway)
His belly was the rip tide
(I surfed it with my fingers until he pulled me under)
His thighs were unapologetic razor burns
(mine are the razor)
From the first time he spoke my name,
I was hooked.
Who's to blame, then
for what came to be?

His crotch was the entire country of Nepal.
His whole body was the rise and fall of Rome.
My first trip over his seas made me wonder
what was left to discover in the world.

His voice was a Strawberry Daiquiri
(mine is a rum and coke)
His laugh was an old trapper-keeper in the back of the closet
(mine is the doodle on its cover)
His phone calls were a celery root
(mine are the stalk)
His conscience was a black hole
(mine is the planet that got sucked in)
His sense of humor was a Swiss Army Knife
(mine is its nail file)
His emotions were the Holy Grail
(I thought I found them, turns out I was on the wrong path)
After weeks of searching for inner meaning,
I realized that he's incapable of any.

His gallbladder was Santa Claus, found dead this morning.
His heart was a baby seal, clubbed.
But I still maintain that I was not the one to beat it.

His knees were a marble statue in the rain
(mine have pockmarks from acid rain)
His calves were impatient drivers
(mine are the red light)
His feet were baby birds
(mine are the mama who deserted them)
His toes were rhinoviruses
(mine are boxes of Kleenex)

His words were lines of cocaine
(mine got addicted)
His relationships were Shakespearian tragedies
(I asked about them, his lips were sealed)
His marriage was drunk driving
(I pulled over to let it pass)
Our flirtation was Heaven's Gate
(I'm the one who mixed the Kool-Aid).

I was his toothbrush, don't you know,
and he wore me out.

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Failure to Communicate

He smells like skin and sweat and beer
and cigarettes and coffee
and cheap cologne.
He pushes his bangs up, fifth-grade style
and hands a dripping beer
to his flavor of the week in
a push-up bra and stripper heels.

I talk to my diet coke,
anxiously aware of the blister forming on my left pinky toe
and my underwire slipping out from under me.
My store-brand sandals rip apart at the soles
if I try to take a step in any direction.

She's drunk after one sip.
She knows; he knows.
She knows he knows.
They recreate the plot of a made-for-TV movie
and I re-adjust my ponytail.

I want him to look over his shoulder at me,
to come say goodbye like he used to,
back in the days when his flavor of choice matched mine.
A gaggle of blond girls attack the cooler and
like after a plague or locusts,
He's gone.

A real-life Barbie doll looks over at me,
turns back around and giggles with her friend.
I know they're not laughing at me.
They couldn't be, could they?
But all the same, I hide the way my clearance rack shirt
bunches up around the belly.

I have to wonder why it even matters.
I once was unafraid to make a fool out of myself.
I was loud and obnoxious
and carried my oversized chest with pride,
screaming, this is who I am,
Take it or Leave it!

And in the middle of my self-assurance manifesto,
the room begins to burn white-hot
I can't breathe among all these people I don't know.
No visible doorway,
no way out.

I close my eyes and try to feel my lungs inflating.
I can feel the vomit rising- or is it a burp?
My face is burning; my body's itching.
The irrational part of my mind screams in anguish:
I'm in Hell I'm in Hell I'm in Hell.

I scatter the whole room with a single push,
forgetting to care what anyone thinks.
Outside, with the cool Autumn air on my face,
panic attack reaches boiling point
and ends.

And out of nowhere:
I giggle.
The chuckles turn into hearty belly laughs.
Some boy peeing on a wall turns to give me an angry look.
I guess I'll never be good enough for certain men.
I don't even care anymore.
Saved by my own insanity,
I dance alone on a friend-of-a-friend's porch,
indifferent to how it makes me look.