I’m thirty-five and sleeping with the student body president.
He went to law school and took tests while
I dropped acid and danced
To blinking lights in foreign lands where glass cut
The dance floor before the bar flared up in balls of flames.
We were dead to each for twenty years until
We hit the hometown together,
Wasting time judging the dashboard flexing figurines
Of friends who stayed behind to live
The complacent lives we ran
From in opposite directions.
Time and time we reminded ourselves,
We’re only tourists here, just visiting.
Our drivers’ licenses bared different zip codes
Than our birth certificates. We were winning.
He was living on an island under Guam,
Squashed in an office with two secretaries, his home
The government sanctioned blessing for
Unfruitful bachelors looking to move their lonely lives abroad.
I was bleeding Austin sweat and multiple texts from
Uninteresting men and marriages with part-time custody
Of the only two decisions I'll never regret.
Now we live together in a house
With worn rugs stained yellow in places,
Housewarming presents from an elderly cat that has
Taken a liking to the man who made a more honest
Woman out of her owner.
I stay domesticated, and his trivia winning—
Not always the kissing finish. But
The picture of similarity, no. He plays computer
Games while cancer and I have another meeting--outside,
Even when it’s freezing.
My drinking to him is heavy, I ask for tips on
Spelling, we come and go at a pace he finds
Unsafe but I find endearing.
—Erin Passons, 4-2014
