Then
By Christopher Owens

She kicks at my dangling right foot that hangs off the puke green sofa towards the shit stained floor with her high topped shoes, tongue missing on the right one, and that pathetic little attempt of a convoluted grin and I can't decide at this moment if I'm more annoyed than angry or just so damn tired of her never-ending games but I still remember the arrogant evenings when we would prance through thresholds to rooms, in which we'd never been invited, but who, we thought, were they to ever tell us differently in our classy, black slicked up Sunday-come-to-Jesus threads that only made them dream they had something more than rags to cover the shame that undoubtedly welled up in the pit of their stomachs where barbecued cocktail weenies fought to the death with cherry flavored Rolaids.

But I don't recall what I did with that jacket that you said made me look like a young Tom Selleck, and you couldn't keep your hands out from underneath even though you knew I only had the one white shirt with a fragile front pocket that frayed around the bottom and you had too long, blood red fingernails that left beautiful sketches of happier days on the wide of my back, but ripped at loose stitches and pulled at loose edges and ruined the only perfectly comfortable thing that I owned, but why should you care about things like that when you still had your simpleblack dress with the crystals 'round the hemline and the diamonds around the neck that always looked to me as if they'd choke you someday and I'd be left standing with nothing left of you, except for your goddamn high tops and your Cheshire grin.