as the first boy
that I ever blew.
Really, Ava.
What a joke that was,
or should have been.
The fates were really laughing when they spun that day –
a loop.
As if those first encounters aren’t embarrassing
enough – now I have to stack another memory on top.
Small talk. Red face. Half-eaten worm jammed in
my pocket.
Worst part is, Ava,
now I can’t stand the gummy fuckers.
They taste like shame
or him
or adolescence
which is sweet
but terribly unstable,
and with the added sugar now feels sickly,
I can’t stomach even the slightest
recollection.
Am I making sense?
In the mirror, in the shower, on the train,
at my desk,
in The Big House of my sleep,
I groan out loud.
Hoping, I suppose, the sound will
scare the memory away.
But The Big House has a groundskeeper
who rakes and rakes the same old leaves and no amount
of groaning stops his work.
Is it the same for you, Ava?
There must be food or drink that you can’t
swallow, for the place or feeling that it pushes onto you.
It’s like hot chocolate, Ava –
haven’t drunk it since the job
I had when I was just sixteen –
my first!
Waitressing in a sort of bistro
wine-dark walls,
