watch for it.  it's coming.  much like the baby who came one day too late, stuck thumb in mouth, proceeded to suck.  and never ever learned how to love without doing so.


3:07 a.m.  wyclef and rain.  the boy on my right doesn't like the way our silence bounces off the security lights, splashes through puddles, or tiptoes its way across the asphalt and back in our heads.  but he's comfortable in it, has no other choice.  shell mart does not allow drive-thru traffic.  he smoothes out the creases in his skin, slides on depth and crisscrosses his legs.  with three movements, he just made my eyelashes stutter.  it's late.  two cops are parked beside us.  no one is coming or leaving.  it's best that way.  i should be home but there's something in the way he moves his hands.


"women are devils with perfume and an agenda."  how presumptuous?  i don't wear perfume.  my shampoo is strong.  i am stronger.  there is need swelling up my kneecaps, lacing between my red-polished toes, tying me helplessly to the bedposts and saying "listen.  listen girl.  listen hard, decipher me."  his father's house.  yes, i have intentions.  i am floating, soft, feminine, content, filling his father's bed with the smell of my shampoo and smiling internally, mischievously.  wondering if he'll smell my smell on his bed.  or in his walls.  yes, i have intentions.  i am four outstanding fucks away from civil disobedience.  i would rise to the occasion, but tethers on my wrists keep me in place.


new boy.  he thinks i'm deep, mysterious and captivating.  11:07.  the park is closed for the day.  we are opening for night.  pretending that he is in the throes of hypothermia, might die if i don't unbutton my blouse and heal him with my heat.  his kisses are soft.  he is softer.  he doesn't understand that my belly is splitting into different worlds, trying to differentiate between 'not good enough' and 'just right'.  i feel vulnerable.  my insides close.  somewhere on a a park bench two lifetimes from now, there is a girl who deserves a soft man.  i tell him to go to her.  and wait.


smudged black eyeliner.  dirty blonde lackluster.  my soul is moving.  crawling in between the cracks of cheap paneling.  moving.  two drunks plunked by the bar look me up and down.  lust drizzles from each corner of their half-cocked smiles.  budweiser breath, redwings & me.  i'm comfortable playing this game.  subsonsciously controlling the sway of my hips.  moving in a manner that says yes, i am down home.  yes, i can love.  yes, i'm keen to leaning against trees, loving and untangling leaves from my hair afterwards.  but this is the south.  and some men still believe in taking their women.  taking them far.  foreplaying with duct tape.  bruising hips and forgetting to bring them back.  red river has become accustomed to muffled screams.  my knees shift.  i am uncomfortable in my role.


an american prayer.  the cliffs are whispering.  tyler watches from six feet under.  takes notes for the road.  i have good girl insides with bad girl tendencies.  and a sleeping bag in the back of my jeep.  8:30 pm.  the fish aren't biting.  but i am.  one boy with a guitar and swollen lips,  traffic, one mile away, rumbles hauntingly.  i am covered in mud, in rain, unraveling, falling.  i have no intentions. it's best that way.  this way.


and the chord change crawls under my skin.