Stale

How do you keep a girl floating?

How do you keep her above the ache?

When your cup run empty and all the water drain

When there’s just so much pain to bear

How do you keep a girl floating?

When the tightrope runs short,

Not enough for all of your fingers to hold,

Not enough to tie around your waist to

when the sticky summer wind blew

His ego, you stroke as if it were your pillowcase,

careful not to press on it too hard

so you can lay your head down, 

peacefully wait 

for sweet dreams to come.

But no, there were no sweet dreams.

Let alone dreams -

only heavy breaths and stale silence

You fumble for meaning out of words

that do not really mean anything. 

No, they do not mean anything.

Sticky tongue. Sweaty palm. Moving black pillow guards.

The run, the run.

The things he was so sure he was supposed to do

—but didn’t.

The words you should not have said

—but did. 

How do you keep a girl from aching? 

How do you stop her from asking?

***

4.30.2015 / 11.49 AM

The chase.

The Sink

Once there was a girl, who peeps by the corner of her door, 

to see whether the man in black suit has passed by

He strides as though he knows she’s eyeing him,

His eyebrows arched, his eyes squinting, his lips, she imagined, moist.

He’s an over bearing squire with not so much of a use,

I don’t know what word else is there to use to describe what is obvious.

There is a volt of electric current that swims through her veins whenever he comes around

The stolen stare, the last minute glare

The almost but never quite near encounter

The failed encounter—

Then, there was the sink incident

She was standing facing the stainless steel  sink, 

singing old rock music, washing her filthy coffee bin.

With her peripheral view, she knew, someone was eyeing her,

Maybe a utility man or another crew waiting in her que.

Or so she thought.

   

Standing with her back facing him, she saw the black man in suit

tilting his head sideward looking at her, intently as if he’s looking deep into her soul,

transmitting yet another volt that in that second crawls through her nerves and eyelids. 

 

The universe has little bits of candy-sweet miracle it keeps in its side pockets.

And in that morning, it decided to bring some of these miracle bits out and shower her.

She faced him. Her eyes met his, she did not smile.

They were there in the middle of the little room with an open door, as if the seconds stall.

He did not speak, she could not not speak. 

“Good morning,” she said,

in a very calm, somewhat commanding voice even she was surprised she had.

He was stunned, she was not.

Right then, in the middle of the room with an open door, where seconds refused to move

where water drip loudly from the sink,

the girl knew there was something she had won.

In that morning, in that room with an open door, and a stainless steel sink, 

while singing rock music .

**

Just because. 

4/1/2015