Charley & Me
Charley brings you fake flowers. He makes fun of your dime-size dimples, your girly smirk. You recall a suspicious touch of a stranger's musk. His love, he claims, could breathe through glass. He asks you to buy him a drink. He bores you with his acid dreams of sunshine at night. When he laughs, his front teeth shift — you fear they might fall out. You marvel at the sheer fact, the fact that forgets itself, that he still exists. On the sidewalk, you cover him with an old army blanket and some cardboard. You feel guilty walking away. You feel like a snake because they have no conscience even though you really do. That night you dream of San Francisco streetlights and what the two of you could have been. Oh Charley. The world was always too straight and too big and too strong. Wasn't it?
Published in Better than Starbucks, Nov, 2021
