Receipt (s)
Among the dirty laundry
And cigarette butts
That basketball shot and
Missed the ashtray
After being put out on my skin
Evidence of our time together
Dingy carbon paper
Smeared credit card number
All left legible was the four
We bought magnum condoms
Pack of smokes
Bubble tape bubble gum
Two bottles of Fanta
And a bag of Pork Rinds
All that there scrawled and
Faded on the crumbled receipt
Laying like a ping pong ball-sized egg
In my damp but now crusty knickers
No more than an afterthought
Like me
Whore for the night
He didn’t have much
But I was starving
And wanted a warm bed for the night
So, thanks, John Pork Rinds
Your bed is lumpy but warmer
Than asphalt
I made you cum so hard
I felt my back pop as you thrust
That final thrust
Into my dry cunt
And then…
You cried.
Sloppy, snotty sniffling
Into my hair -- apologizing
Your pork rind breath made
My nipples hard and …
Father, forgive me, I rubbed my clit to your tears,
Apology and shame. Came so quiet.
Even though it had been a while
Since I stole an orgasm for myself
Listening to you sleep afterward
Was almost enough that I could delude
Myself into thinking about having a normal life
With this man
Be more than the whore
But the wife
Living dissatisfied in the suburbs somewhere
With his brats turning my hair into holiday tinsel
And the smell of pork rinds emanates
From my pores so much and so often
That he’d call me cutesy names
Like ‘his little piglet’
And it would be
Some variant of perfect
He belches and the delusion snaps
I wiggle out his arms; he rolls over
I take the rest of the cash out of his wallet
Steal a shower and pray he doesn’t wake
Get dressed and look one more time
Around this grungy one-bedroom apartment
Swallow the shallow dream of the
fucked up fairy tale, even the microwaved version
of the promise of a warm bed and food every night,
and someone to come home to.
I close my eyes, steel myself
to just go out, into reality
The cruel, unreliable streets full of
Strangers, crime, and danger
Because beneath all that is that tiny glimmer
Of hope. Hope that if you Hustle
Long enough, and hard enough you’ll be free
And safe
Warm and above all
Loved.
Being loved -- worth so much more than being wanted.
People can want anything for the right price but love,
Well,
Ain’t enough pork rinds in all the world to afford that.
