The line between friends and not
is about as thin as that crinkled condom in your wallet,
as thin as the seat belts we unbuckled,
as thin as your belt and my jeans
and the panties I almost didn’t choose to wear this morning

My hand, see, had hovered
between ‘everyday cotton’ and ‘hidden-from-mom lace’
I dared not consider the possibility that
someone else might see them,
dared not hope that your fingers might
reach for my lace waist and
close on my hip bones and
frame your face as you
move to kiss up my thighs

But I did
and you do,
and while I never imagined this would happen here,
on sweat-slick cracked leather seats,
it is –

Some time between before and
after I catch myself
looking back through the hatch-back
of your sleet-shit-gray Saab,
remembering, as if in a movie,
some more romantic version of the car that
we’re now rocking:

one that I fawned over
the day of your seventeenth birthday
one that ferried me between my house and rehearsals
and took us, high, on late-night munchie runs
one that roared down Ocean Parkway
as we, pliant and centered in that two-am kind of calm,
laid out our secrets like marbles
on some dusty, recess-perfect playground

But that car is not the same as this,
the seats not so cramped,
the roof not so close,
the vinyl less gym-sneakers-bad-weed-fast-food stale

And you seemed taller, your embrace bigger,
your laughs were easier won
and your self-pity was not so evident in those
desperate late-night phone calls.
I guess the past is just hazy with my infatuation
for I think I liked you more back then

then
back when might have had a shot at something good,
instead of just ‘something,’
but nowadays ‘something’ is all I can hope for because

I like you, a little
I like that you hate your cell phone
I like your forearms and
how much you care for your mother and
your reverence for mob movies and
your cursed curious fingertips and
your smile –

I want to give you another chance
I want to give us another chance

even though you probably wouldn’t be good for me
Even though you smoke too much and
don’t read enough and
whine and get caught up in yourself
Even though you never return my phone calls and
still harp on your ex and
really, really don’t see what’s right in front of you

But I like you, just a little
And nowadays isn’t ‘just a little’
‘just enough’?

I’ll put up with your Saab
if you put up with my shit
and maybe, if we try,
we can have our second shot at ‘something’

I guess, in the end,
the line between friends and not,
between lovers and not,
between imagined and happening,
is as thin as the space between our bodies,
as thin as a driveshaft or a condom or a seatbelt,
as thin as faith –

or maybe as thin as a promise to try
and a promise to love
and a promise to make do with ‘something’

Author’s Note:

This narrator disappoints me, something rare in my work. Her resignedness in the end is not something I share; usually I channel myself in my characters, so this is a departure from my norm. The end I wrote to this poem surprised me, but served to strengthen my personal resolve not to settle for a half-hearted relationship with the real-life party in question. I hope that the audience thinks critically about the narrator’s choice in the end, and even more so, questions her reliability as a storyteller. Is she really telling the truth about this relationship? Is she omitting important details? Is she misleading the audience to make her love-infatuated logic seem more clear? These questions, I think, are worth discussing, and perhaps more interesting than the poem itself.

The narrator aside, I do like the nonlinear style of story-telling in this piece. Flashing from present to past to future, with little anchors to the present sprinkled in. When I perform this for my friends, or in practice, I really act this poem out. I see this narrator as more of a character than a permutation of myself, so I am certain to use a new kind of intonation and body language. I play up the ending, going doe-eyed and pleading, to give the audience a cue to pay attention and really consider how the narrator’s emotions affect her truthfulness.