You wear your fear like a rosary,
And voice your feelings like you are
Fucking the Prom Queen
In the back seat of your father's Chevy.
Smoking your loneliness.
Elbows on bare knees,
You contemplate the tip of your cigarette -
Or some other thought in mind.
The wind curls your hair against itself
In a way not even sleep would dare.
I think you must be cold,
And want to warm you in my arms.
But I only watch, for you are so far.
I remember how the sun went red
And slipped beneath the sky.
Blue gave way to velvet black,
As silence brought the night.
The air hung still among the trees,
Heat wrapped a gentle fist
Around us closing in to share
The moment of our kiss.
I sit, resting my cheek in my hand,
Wrapped cozy in a quilt -
one corner frayed,
smelling faintly, comfortably,
of cigarettes and your cologne.
The rain sheets the window,
Crawling down, snail-like.
Your smile drifts into me.
I remember -
Playing in the summer-soft rain
Barefoot, splashing in puddles
Until we were both glowing wet.
We would come here,
and fold ourselves naked in this patchwork.
Now I'm here alone.
This chill January day, so far from you.
There's more to me than what you see
I'm not just cleavage and short skirts.
But you can't look above my neck,
Past the legs beneath my hem,
Or my ass as I walk away.
Since you can't meet my eyes,
I can see -
The bald spot you try to hide
The stomach straining against the waist of your wrinkled Dockers,
And the failures of an aging playboy
With a fat boring wife,
And three uninspired kids.
I can see inside your dirty mind,
And you see me as just another chick
To please your eyes
And your locked door Penthouse fantasies.
Take a good look now, little man.
Because the ass you want a piece of today
Is the one you'll have to kiss tomorrow.
You sit outside on the porch