The liquor burns in my throat for hours after it’s slithered into my bloodstream
(I wanted to vomit it up when I shot it back but I didn’t, aren’t you proud?)
And our phones are face down on the bar top, and our fingers never itch for them.

I never thought I’d be sitting at a bar with a guy I’ve fucked and fucked up with and fucked
again, baring our souls over rum and Cokes,
Philosophy dripping from your deep pink lips and pulled up on my white screen,
And dies having never really lived,
Are we headed that way,
I wonder?

And I think finally I understand you the way you don’t want me to
(the way you don’t want anyone to)
“I don’t like being perceived,” you tell me,
But what you really mean is you don’t like the lack of control accompanied by it—
You don’t like life not being a chess game,
You don’t like that there are cracks in you like oil paint laid too thick,
Or that maybe parts of you are see-through,
You don’t like that I might know you.

I’m drunk on tequila and the way you talk,
So aware of the way your thigh brushes mine when you shift to look at me that
My heart lurches to my esophagus
And no, I don’t love you now but
I think I did once,

And isn’t that hard to get rid of?