Meeting at Night

When people make fun of me for buying cereal in a bag, I say, “All cereal comes in a bag. Mine just doesn’t have a box. I’m saving trees. What the fuck have you done lately?” Cereal is a serious matter.     An interchange like this typically marks the first and last time a girl will be in my 300 sq. ft. studio apartment. I haven’t had much luck since moving here.     But last night, you were different.     You saw the Cheerios that aren’t called Cheerios in a bag on my one by two counter and you didn’t smirk or say anything snide. You sat on my not-old-enough-to-be-saggy-but-still-is Big Lots futon before I did and asked me to sit down next to you and that made me smile, especially when you patted the cushion, a handmade invitation. When I came out of the bathroom knowing you just heard me peeing through the papery walls, you didn’t look disgusted: you just looked happy I was back. When you asked what I watched on TV and I said I can’t afford...

Before I Caught You, Fishing Kinda Sucked The tide smells like ghost fish and the fan blows you all over my apartment. I feel your hairs clinging to me and grasp to find nothing, another apparition. I changed the sheets, it had been weeks, you were there on that spread, but I had to change it. Wish I hadn't. Changes are flung like fat plastic bottles into the river, filling you and sinking you and drowning away into a new less life form flailing like a salmon in a story by Hemingway that's overrated. The times I have ahead, the thought of fishing and not catching you, using my bait on small fishes instead of big loves, it is the way it should be, but the salt taste in my mouth is one of loss, and it won't sweeten soon. One Dance, More Than Physical You say the boys never danced with you in school, that you were too tall, you intimidated them, but I’m inches over you so slow dance with me in my living room, music not all...