This was written in November 2008 (slightly edited December 2022). It's based on a real person but I change people's names and other information when I post publicly. I’m not sharing it because the feelings linger or anything, I just have a lifetime of poetry and writings which sometimes include the people who have impacted it.
Jimmy’s Lips
Bloodshot eyes graze my lids
as my finger touches my lips,
then reaches up to touch his.
“Notes went out of fashion,” I say,
as the phone softly vibrates.
“Texts are too expensive,”
lies blatant on the screen.
One, two, three, four,
my home made fortune teller
shuffles back and forth.
My paper balloon
lies crumpled on the floor.
He rests on the bed and eyes me
with a beer stained gaze.
“No,” I whisper across the room.
“Choose her, not me.”
In the background I hear
the Nintendo’s beat.
My heart drops as the phone stays silent.
I pace back and forth between thoughts.
I pluck at my mind like a pimple that needs to pop,
somehow hoping that it will make things better.
I use TV to replace my thinking.
I focus on the cheque that I’ll find deposited
in my bank account in the morning.
I pine for the wine that sits in the fridge upstairs.
I wish there was some way to take it unnoticed,
but there’s not.
I question karma and try to re-track my entire life
to see all that I’ve done wrong.
Pre-menstrual I think.
Inside I shake,
looking at the cigarette before me.
It offers no aid.
Hospitals and self harm,
Living cheque to cheque.
High school dropout, dreadlocks,
and stubbly legs.
The pills form mountains,
wet and stuck together
from the saliva in my mouth.
Dark poetry and the bittersweet happiness
that at least if the phone stays silent
then he’ll never have to see,
the Star of David on my wrist,
or my overpowering uncertainty.
Clenching my teeth as I sleep.
Living in nightmares and dreams.
Upstairs my baby girl singing
and I know I should go play.
Consumerism having a shoot-off
with hope and faith.
His smile, one would kill for —
Kill just to taste.
At the door he towers over me,
His puppy eyes lock into mine.
A sea of ale lies in between,
the veil of our gaze.
Rough notes stored within my bag.
Conversation for when words
could not be spoken.
My back turned to him,
hand upon the doorknob.
Turning back to see his glossy eyes,
reddened from fatigue
and too much drinking.
The knob turns with a jolt of my wrist.
I pause to touch my finger to my lips
then I reach my finger up
to touch his.
Photo: Amy Frank (2008)