The wine and cheesiest of affairs--an art show in the historical district. I should have worn my best synthetic laugh like a cowbell, ringing along the edge of the barbed-wire fence of price tags and black-dressed mourners of honesty. Pure gold hands applauded condiment splatters and analyzed them like hieroglyphics. It was quite a pyramid, brain sucked through the nose and mummified.
Except, the art was mine and they didn’t know this was my societal experiment rather than an emotional truth and visionary construct, product of perspective run through the meat-grinder of my mind and materialized on canvas. All of them stood on a chess square, as intended, and moved on cue.
But there was one man with an attitude and an eye for bullshit. I liked him right off. I sashayed by and tried to eavesdrop on his mumbling mouth stuck in a blonde’s ear. She giggled. I knew it had nothing to do with texture or deep trenched thought. He caught me, eye-balling purses like a pick-pocket and he smiled. How cruel is that? The cruelest, I tell you, better than sex in public.
His swagger found its way to my sandals and he carried an extra wine glass in his cocky hand. I would have eaten sunflowers seeds from his palm, all red-bird singing in that moment, but a lady must pretend to be dry.
Yes, I sipped and cooed and questioned, but tap-danced around answers for his amusement. He was somebody, a real somebody, one of these things is not like the other I learned about on Sesame Street kind of man. He didn’t fit, because he was too big for the chess board. I wanted to be devoured by him and read his thoughts. Instead I drank wine, shrank, and climbed into his pocket as he headed home.
The next morning, I snuck away from his bed before dawn and left him a note:
Build me a bridge with your merlot tongue and I’ll crawl into your mouth all tipsy and giggly, kicking at the names you’ll call me when you discover I’m that small, that insignificant.
He called, showed up at my door with a bottle of wine, and I sprouted fairytale buds all over. They're starting to open.
Paula Ray finger-dances on many keys from piano, clarinet, saxophone to laptop. She writes music, fiction, and poetry and often all three braid themselves together and bind her work. Bits of Paula appear in Litsnack, Word Riot, elimae, among other literary zines. Her blog is: http//:musicalpencil.blogspot.com/
Except, the art was mine and they didn’t know this was my societal experiment rather than an emotional truth and visionary construct, product of perspective run through the meat-grinder of my mind and materialized on canvas. All of them stood on a chess square, as intended, and moved on cue.
But there was one man with an attitude and an eye for bullshit. I liked him right off. I sashayed by and tried to eavesdrop on his mumbling mouth stuck in a blonde’s ear. She giggled. I knew it had nothing to do with texture or deep trenched thought. He caught me, eye-balling purses like a pick-pocket and he smiled. How cruel is that? The cruelest, I tell you, better than sex in public.
His swagger found its way to my sandals and he carried an extra wine glass in his cocky hand. I would have eaten sunflowers seeds from his palm, all red-bird singing in that moment, but a lady must pretend to be dry.
Yes, I sipped and cooed and questioned, but tap-danced around answers for his amusement. He was somebody, a real somebody, one of these things is not like the other I learned about on Sesame Street kind of man. He didn’t fit, because he was too big for the chess board. I wanted to be devoured by him and read his thoughts. Instead I drank wine, shrank, and climbed into his pocket as he headed home.
The next morning, I snuck away from his bed before dawn and left him a note:
Build me a bridge with your merlot tongue and I’ll crawl into your mouth all tipsy and giggly, kicking at the names you’ll call me when you discover I’m that small, that insignificant.
He called, showed up at my door with a bottle of wine, and I sprouted fairytale buds all over. They're starting to open.
Paula Ray finger-dances on many keys from piano, clarinet, saxophone to laptop. She writes music, fiction, and poetry and often all three braid themselves together and bind her work. Bits of Paula appear in Litsnack, Word Riot, elimae, among other literary zines. Her blog is: http//:musicalpencil.blogspot.com/
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