03.22
She told me a moldy baby doll
had been her favorite as a girl.
She would hide under the stairs and scream,
Be quiet or they’ll find us!
And punish the doll with Barbie scissors
when she wouldn’t listen.
I said, I want to make out
in your parents’ basement.
She told me a mosquito truck
sprayed her street every week in summer.
She would ride her bike behind it,
pretending to be a bug
until the fog made her too dizzy
and she woke up in the road.
I said, Inhaling poison
is a turn-on we can share.
She told me fingers taste
like cigarettes and earrings
smell like good cheese. When she
imagined eating that smell,
it made her want to vomit
and disinfect her ears.
I said she was
shouting-at-socks,
bricks-through-windows,
hair-in-the-mailbox crazy.
She told me to go get the bleach
and she’d meet me in the basement.