Valentine Swine

I once caught a Virgin Atlantic to the dirty Pacific
For a blue eyed sailor on Whidbey Island.
With a Pink Floyd triangle across his heart.
Then in Madrid I got swept off the steps in Plaza de Sol.
Professed our love with our fingers.
In the pages of a Spanish-English dictionary.
I had to delete pictures from a weekend in Fort Worth.
It was there I found interest in the culinary arts.
I spent some time in a Grand Prix out in the Boston snow.
With a hockey player from Flint.
I left him for a morning in the Harvard dorms.
With a blue-blooded ginger I fell for in Cabo.
I once found redemption in the City of Sin.
From a reincarnation of a lost lover.
Ode to the blackouts in the city of lights.
Then there was the fierce and rugged Celtic Tiger.
I left my heart on the nightstand of a one night stand.
Before I got asked to kindly leave the country.
Though that was after I wandered up to Portland.
To catch a couple nights with an MC.
I made sure to catch his show before I caught a train.
There was the time I found the funk in the bottom bunk.
From sea-doos in Grand Cayman to his Staten Island estate
Then the lovely accountant from the horse races in Limerick
If only that silver fox would answer my calls.
I met a teacher in Dublin and a footballer from Cork
A med student from Athens, a musician from Georgia.
I woke up in a $30 million yacht in Newport Beach.
With the most beautiful lawyer I’d ever seen.
As I highlight this black book, it’s more divine.
That I will never discover her name.
I look down the page and their faces gleam up.
It sounds so lovely out loud.
I close my eyes and there is only darkness.
It appears so ugly jot down.
My heart scattered like bread crumbs across this earth.
Left like a trail, to be eaten by vultures.
With a hollow heart and an unmade bed.
I’ll never find my way home.

Happy Valentine’s.
14 February 2014
12:31am

Vegas For Thanksgiving

Haven’t seen my bed in four days.
I don’t intend to start now.
Panties in my purse.
Yesterday’s deodorant.

He shows me a ruby.
I want a sapphire.
He looks away.
I slip it on for the glimpse.

A Renoir to the left of a Van Gogh.
Fishing rods everywhere.
Cage on vinyl.
He has no ceiling fan.

In an amazing place.
I’m not in a good place.
Start up the engine.
Losing the battle to smile.

My best friend tattles to her.
I get worse.
I want to be judged.
I don’t want to be fine.

A beeline out of the city.
Listening to his music.
Stop for nothing but petrol.
I can’t escape fast enough.

Four weeks til I leave this country.
It isn’t soon enough.
Two hundred and fifty miles.
I’ve arrived.

Seated in the dark, I don’t move.
I don’t miss him.
This is me not missing him.
What am I fucking doing here?

I’m not rebounding, I drove to Vegas.
Here for one reason.
To ensure I can never go back.
I can still leave. I can still turn back.

Start up the engine once more.
A knock on the glass goes.
Held up with a grin and two beers.
“Leavin’ already, sunshine?”

The Plastic Pool Paradigm

He had a tattoo of a beautiful abstract woman with her arms up in the air, folded around to make circles, much like a wistful yoga stance. Her surreal existence was mysterious and elusive, but captivating and beautiful. A picture is worth a thousand words, yet hers rendered me speechless.

She welcomed me to admire her longer than I ever intended, while daring me not to break my stare. Then I blinked involuntarily and scrambled to realign my sight. This time my head was slightly askew, and Miss Enigma was no longer an exquisite, enchanting woman, because her arms that were bent so elegantly around had since become actual circles; her arms were no longer there. She wasn’t even there. Her silhouette had blended into the canvas of his more than perfect complexion.

The indelible ink endured, yet the image had changed. All that remained was the circles once outlined by her long, slender arms, but they were no longer just the shadows in the backdrop. They were no longer in the periphery. They were now the focal point-a pair of giant, supple tits-and that’s when I knew.

12 March 2010

The Plastic Pool Diagram by Sophia Blacke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.