I have a boyfriend
I shout to myself,
Pinching my upper thigh
And blinking away from
The sight of them.

She giggles and I notice
Her laugh is lopsided
And she's too short
To be that loud.
Her shoulders are too far forward
And even I notice the
Gross stain on her
Upper left canine
Between her braces
That are bright, neon green.

She's my best friend.

I don't mean to think of her in that way,
I love her like a sister.
But it pops into the front of my brain
When I see them together.

I don't even like him
In that way
Anymore.
I have a boyfriend,*
And all he was
Was a whispered fifth grade crush.
That's what I tell myself.

He looks at her like
She's a million bucks.

Her crooked teeth
Earn her six cents,
In my opinion.

I take it back within a second,
But the thought was still there.

Jealousy makes me into a monster.

she chips away the wallpaper with her fingernails
she complains in butchered spanish
no food for two days
she is not her stomach
she sleeps through the grumbling
dreaming about christmas

Let you and I retreat to a room
And talk of it
Let it fall upon you
And question you and me.
Women come and go.
I dare to say
In a minute I
Should know you in the way
I have known perfume
That makes me digress
And I shall say that
Lonely men have
Stretched here beside you.
I have wept upon the moment
My greatness would
Have been worth you and me
Would it have been worth while
To have to question all you say?
I mean if the worth should
Mean all I meant -
Almost a fool.
I shall sing till we drown.

I slipped behind you
on all fours,
bypassed your chantilly lace
squirming,
I traced your lovely form
and me,
the naked summer worm,
fell smitten.

I used to tell myself that I would always love you,
that for the rest of my life part of my soul would always care
but I'm here now and seeing clearer and realizing that if nothing else
you ruined me, ripped me limb from limb and left me bleeding in the streets
and that even in my broken state, even being as empty as I am right now
I have enough self love to accept that whatever we had wasn't love
and that the truth probably is that I was delusional and lost,
I let you hypnotize me, and even when I realized it
I let you walk free,
I let you hurt me.