Sitting a corner booth by herself,
sipping on a Long Island Iced Tea
and reading Keats.
Hands down, she's the most
captivating person in this bar.

Fingertips calloused, and hands nicked and scraped
like she'd been in a fight with experience
and went down swinging.
Eased into her seat like slipping naked into a hot bath.
Smiled with all her teeth
like no one was looking.

Left her phone at home,
in pieces on the kitchen floor.
Tonight was the night she was going to forget all about the custody battle
the bill collectors
the late night fights about who was right
and who was left in the room with all this shattered glass to clean  up
the long sobbing nights with her pillow and her secret shame
the regret for time poorly spent looking for love in bars and cold blue eyes
the years that separated her from twenty-two –  when she was young and delusionally happy.

With her body language, she unknowingly spoke to me:
Tonight, I came to drink and dance.
Don't bother me with pick up lines.
Pick up artists, go find another canvas.
Mine's been painted over plenty.
I don't have the time to save anymore white knights from their mother's ***.
That fairytale story always ends in Shakespearean tragedy.
Plus, the **** horse leaves scuff marks on the dance floor.

I take one last sip
and slip the bartender an extra twenty-
tonight the nightingale drinks for free.

I leave before she can thank me.