The night is dull with white Russian swimming down
our throats like a squad of ants drowning in a drain pipe.
He is wearing his Kurt Vonnegut sweatshirt and a look
of punch drunk love in his eyes while I just sort of stand
and wonder why we can’t get it on right there outside the
playhouse instead of waiting for some official invite or
sign from God or whatever. I think people sometimes, or
rather, all the time, waste their lives waiting, staring down
at the ground awkwardly, afraid as all hell to just seize the
moment. Not me. I look up at him with that ridiculous pipe
bouncing between his lips. I don’t think, just go and stand
on my tipy toes and pull it from him. Ha! He gives a look
of surprise. I’m ready now to shock him a bit. “Look,”
I whisper in his ear, resting my body against his for
a few, “You’re lucky I’m not Sylvia Plath, understand?”
He’s confused, lifts his eyebrows, bends his gaze down
between our smiles and asks “Why?” I twirl his pipe
between my fingers, my own glossy gaze rested on the
tip of his nose. “Cause the night she met her man,” the
one,” I pause again to drive him a bit crazy, the look
he gives begs for more. “She didn’t grab his pipe,
she bit his cheek until it bled!” I move in closer for
the kill, the seal, the rush of still heat, the down-
ward spiral of two sex animals into a life of stand-
ing apart in cookie cutter homes instead of stand-
ing outside of playhouses closely. I don’t bite, the
semantics are all wrong. I’m too safe. I kiss down
from his earlobe to his lips and don’t stop to look
at his pathetic eyes closed in passion. I hope for
a moment that he really could be the one, his pipe
sitting on my dresser in the morning, that pipe
becoming a sick symbol of the life we spent stand-
ing and dieing as days crawled by waiting for
that faithful Friday night after a bad play. But the
taste of white Russian makes me gag, I can’t look
at him seriously; with an awful kiss, it all fell down.
