******* google plus.

I spent days deleting pictures of them off my phone.
Click update profile picture, and suddenly,
There's a beautiful girl standing at an ATM through a window covered in raindrops.
a little girl with smile wider han galaxies pulls the last jenga peice
Maybe I don't want to look at the three of us snuggled cozy smiling.
Maybe i don't want to see my old phones wallpaper.
That i changed to forget this happiness.
Maybe the hearth of that home burned ob these photographs.
On barbie doll soap opera ******
On match box car roller derbie.
On film strands ripped from the winding projectors of playground games and princess dresses and faces covered in cake.

******* google plus.
you didn't even ask if I wanted to save those memories.
or at least when you did, I had a different answer.

Up here at the top of the world, I stare into the horizon.
a building under construction in plain view.

Next to me,
A homeless man throws an empty bottle at some hard hats.
Screaming nonsense at them like he owns them.

Beside him,
A dog prances around, stopping only to **** on the brown grass.
covering up the **** that was left by some other dog earlier on.

the sun sets.
a film student points and clicks his camera at his model.
The model stares longingly into the horizon

At night,
Rebels, stumble out of the wilderness giggling and coughing.
smelling like skunk and sweat.
Almost stumbleing off the rocks.

I sit alone at the top of the world,
Trying to find my own way to escape.

I stand up and walk to the end of the cliff.
I scream nonsense at the black, but nobody hears me.
I ******* the precipice; but nothing is covered up.
I stare gloomily off into the horizon, but all I see is the building under construction.
I inhale smoke, but I don't feel any different.

I can't escape like the homeless man does,
or the dog, or the film student, or the rebel. they found their ways and Those ways belong to them.

I need to find my own way to escape. My top of the world.

You ******, exotic,
Beautiful creature.

I could not be more intrigued by you.

I drove,
46 miles,
just to meet you,
you screamed at me for being late.
I wasn't.
I just live farther from your perspective than you can imagine.

I saw your face,
then I saw your eagerness,
Then I played this game,
Where I googled every word you said,
became an expert on it.
Throwing back refferences to things
i've never seen.

When I rolled in with my cigarette lit,
Sporting my badboy leather jacket,
you asumed I was this rebel.
This dangerous,
adventurous,
amazing creature.
Dropped onto this earth to entertain you.

Today.
That's exactlly what I am.

I'm 46 miles away from my home town.

My foam swords,
magic the gathering cards,
Dungeon and dragons playing self
Packaged tightly in the lockbox at my bedroom door.

The daddy, I became years ago
because I wanted too.

The lover I was raised to be,
watching nothing but romantic comedies my entire childhood
like some sort of propaganda to be the perfect boyfriend.
Tucked crisply into my bed.

My smolder is a gas mask.
you are the poison gas.
It was invented specifically for me to survive when I'm in the trenches with you.
My attitude is an army.
I hold myself like a commander shouting orders at my mind like it needs a leader.

“Stop calling her beautiful, maggot! She wants you to take charge.”

“Sir, yes sir!”

...So uh...
What do you wanna do today?

“What do you think you're doing?
Don't give her options!
Tell her where you're going!”

“Sir, yes, sir”

We're getting coffee.

We go to her favorite coffee house, I guessed.

She gets a nutella mocha.

I get a 16oz almond milk maple syrup latte

She calls me a hipster,
I laugh, I don't disagree.

I give her the radio,
“You pick the music”

“What do you think you're doing maggot!?”

“trust me,
we need to find out what music she likes before I play my music.
It's very important.”

I can pull brilliance out of any genre,
bands she's never heard of, but she'll fall in love with.
She plays show tunes.

Oh...

... Jackpot!

I start the conversation, you ever heard of Rocky Horror?

You ever hear of
Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog?

You ever hear of
Little Shop of Horrors?

You ever hear of
Repo, The Genetic Opera?

You ever hear of
Hedwig and The Angry Inch?

She has.
All of it.
Every last word.
And she knows all of the words.
In fact,
every song I sing,
she sings along.
Word for word.

I  crack the whip,

you ever heard of Bo Burnham?

She has.

This girl might be the one.

“What do you think you're doing maggot?
Don't fall in love with this girl already,
Don't fall in love with this girl at all.”

“Sir, yes, sir”

We walk the beach,
Singing,
Dancing.
Every word of every song either of us start the other knows all the words.
She's breathtaking.
I can't believe it happened myself.
We chase each other in the sand.

I confess.

“You're actually the first person i've seen in real life from tinder...
I hear all these stories of couples meeting people for threesomes online and then murdering them.
I was half expecting you to **** me.”

She says:

“Well we didn't get to the end of the beach yet.”

I laugh.... wait... is she serious?

She laughs. “No really, i'm a sociopath.
My boyfriends waiting at the rocks down there and when we
Start to **** he's gonna jump out and slit your throat.
The redness of your blood spilling on the rocks is going to make me so,
*******,
Wet.”

This sounds like a great Idea.

She texts her boyfriend and asks if it's okay to kiss me.
When he doesn't reply she spams him.

Babe.

Babe.

C'mon Babe.

Really, Babe.

Babe.

Babe.

Babe.

It starts to rain,
We stay and get soaked together,
We don't care that we're wet, we keep singing.
The rain stops.
We get in my car.
I drive her to portland,
We park in the parking garage,
because i don't understand...
Signs...

I buy her dinner,

Not because it's the polite, gentlemanly thing to do,
I'd do that without the leather jacket, no.
because her sugar was low
she was having a panic attack
her boyfriend and her were probably breaking up and I felt bad.
Her boyfriend finally texts her back.

“Yeah, do what you want.”

I kiss her.

She asked me too before he gave permission, and my colonel said to do it

But I've been on the otherside of that text messege.

And even knowing what she wanted, I was waiting for that reply.
I don't know that boy.

But he deserved that

We go back to the parking garage, and she does not waste time,
My belt undone,
Her mouth eager,
Did I mention that this was the mission?
After awhile She asks to go to the back.
We do.
She removes the leather jacket.
this is her chance to wear
The leather jacket.
I make her ***,
I have this brief thought that maybe she faked it for me, but then
I can taste the truth,
I'm proud.


“Good job, maggot.”

“Sir, thank you, sir”


I drive the 46 miles back to kennebunk to drop her off.
She keeps my shirt.
I get home and find her phone charger in my backseat.
“Looks like we have a second date,"

I text her. “you forgot something, beautiful.
And I think you might want it.”

She asked: "if your personality was a beverage, what would it be?"

"Well..." I said.
"it'd be smoothe going down. Or at least I like to think so.
It'd be sweet. But,
You know how there's like two types of sweet?

There's like the fruity sour, tangy, bright, sugar sweet?

And there's the malty, caramelly, chocolate, foggy sweet?

It'd be later kind of sweet.

It has a certain childish joy too it.
An optimisim, a simpleness,
like... chocolate milk.

But it has a punch.
And it isn't all, childish, it's also
Responsible,
Protective,
Passionate,
Bold,
Loving,
Hard,
Strong hearted,
Mature, like...

...Whiskey.

I'm like... Whiskey Chocolate Milk."

I wake up on a yogibo. It's comfy,
But I'm in what is now just
My room.
It feels empty.

All the clutter that made it look lived in is in the three empty sock and underwear drawers that used to be
Hers.
All the pictures of us and half the nerdy posters were removed from the walls.
Half of the games, movies, books, Magic the Gathering cards,
Are all gone so the shelves look bare.
Half the closet is empty.

I walk into the hallway and pass three doors
The first door leads to a bathroom,
The second a closet.
The third is what I now call a "guest bedroom".
The only things in it are an
Empty dresser covered in
Princess stickers...
And a bed frame.
I try not to leave that door open.

I walk down the stairs and grab my coat.
I go out to my car, sink into my seat, turn on the engine and check my phone.
I've got two text messages, and a new tinder match.

I ignore it all and open spotify.
I start playing Watsky's album "All you can do".
I crank the volume to 24 so I can't hear my own thoughts.

I check the first text message.

It's from the
Mutual friend of the nice girl
Who I might date when I'm better.

"Hey don't worry about it, she has a lot going on and is super busy all of the time.
She wanted to meet you to see if she liked you but I think shes not really into you.
She said you were super nice, she just can't be with someone as outgoing as you
I think. She's super shy. I really thought she might like you but I guess not. lol.
Sorry!"

I check the second text message.

It's from the
**** buddy in Kennebunk
Who I met on tinder.

"What are you doing tomorrow?"
Sent at 8:33pm yesterday.
I reply: "nothing! wanna hang today? when are you free?"
"I'm free pretty much all day/night. Warning:
I just got my period, so I feel like absolute ****.
I need good feels and comfort(food), if you will. so when?" I send:
"Uhh, I got errands to run... i'll get back to you" In return, I receive a polite:
"Go **** yourself. :) "

I go check the tinder match...
"...Oops."
Unmatch.
No reason.
I Drive to work.
I belt all of the lyrics and jam to "The one" and "Whoa whoa whoa" and "sloppy seconds".
Shut the car down, clock in, apron up, shout: "Morning, family!"

How am I doing? "I'm awesome! how are you?"
How am I doing? "I'm wonderfull! what brings you to freeport?"
How am I doing? "I'm awesome, peak or dark roast?"

How's my daughter?

"Well actually... I
Broke up with her mom and I
Wasn't the biological father so I don't get to see her anymore,
and my manager said that customers are getting
Uncomfortable around me because I am too open so that's the
Scripted version I have to tell you."

Even though I'd love to tell you that I don't know how she's doing, and it kills me.
How I told her mom that even though she didn't have any
Compassion left for me, and she lied to me,
Tortured me more than any human on this earth and was slowly draining the
Life and sanity out of my body like a leech, that I
Knew what I was signing up for when I started to call myself
Daddy.
That I was leaving her, so we could both get
Better, but I was not leaving that little girl.
And if she would let me
Love her, or
Watch her, or
Buy her birthday presents that I would because she was the best thing to ever happen to me.
And when you ask me how she's doing
All I can think about is how I earned that first "I
love you,
dada."
How I made her laugh more times than her
Mother made her
Cry. How I tucked her in and she made me read her
"Oh The Places You'll Go", over and
Over and
Over. Screaming when I said she'd go
On through the hakken kraks howl, and
Giggling when I said she'd move mountains.
I raised her for three years and she called me
Daddy.
But her mother said that because I wasn't the biological father I don't have any right to see her.

"How am I doing? I'm awesome."
"How am I doing? I'm wonderful."
"How am I doing? I'm waking up."