20.

His front gate greetings of Old Spice smell
begins with short anecdote about blisters on his feet,
walking wasted 20 blocks back to bed
1 AM. His phone screen cracked from dropping it on concrete,
and he might have puked on Belmont’s sidewalk,
but his name is John and I shake his hand
with a closed fist.

I taxi him to debriefing session where he participates
in a smoking cessation study. He lights cigarette
as I parked car out front building, and I flash blinkers
in 4/4 time in unpaid Chicago parking spot.

And
during my wait, I tell myself
he might be the best one on Tinder I’ve seen.
Conversations like wild forest fires that
bounce from one subject to other tree leaves. He
keeps my attention on words and less on my self doubts of
‘why the hell I agree to meet strangers
on a site that bases love off of swiping left or right.’

John opens car door with teeth biting cigarette butt. He complains
he’s lost 20 pounds in 3 weeks from smoking more cigarettes
than his one-meal-a-day diet.

I call it the John diet.

And
his oversized tee-shirt hides his dietary progress,
while he glances out passenger seat window
towards burger bars and taco stands down Addison.
He gets paid 20 dollars, so he agrees to buy me
Rum and Coke at the bar while Hawks play.

We sit in front LCD 55-inch screen; bartender pours
bottle shelf rum into coke glass. We sip politics and religion in mid-drink;
both agreeing that we are anarchists and atheists -
humans believe in unreachable theories
and our president signs documents that mean
to drag supernovas beneath Earth’s crust.

We thrust our hips back to car;
my tongue exploring his molars and K9s like
dentists’ search for cavities.
My car drives itself back - right palm busy
caressing his inner thigh, and my pupils dilate
on his secondhand smoke kiss
in 10 pm traffic.

We
parallel park into bed; slipping inside each other.
He bites my lower lip and I taste my blood on his tongue;
I let him swallow my iron in fear that he hasn’t swallowed any in years.

Our hips stay connected as one until 5 am,
where we watch sunrise out his shower window;
I scrub his scratched shoulders, watching foam
drip down drain.

10am circles sky and I dissolve
down drain hole where I’m lubricant amongst
our dirty skin flakes and sweat. He cleanses off our one night
by lighting another smoke, flicking ash on bed stand,
while I’m somewhere in sewers, swimming with his spoiled leftovers -
it is down there I swear to never speak to him again.

And
three days later, I’m naked in his bed again
with the “what the hell am I doing back here” ghost
laying between our bodies. He snores on stomach and I’m on back
staring at dents on ceiling. Each dent tells me to leave him sleeping,
but their voices sink deeper within plaster
as the voices of bedsprings argue to love him,
love him
love him
love the fucks out of him
despite his bitching about not buying dinner meat for our pasta meal
or his stone face on TV while sober.

John only pays attention to me underneath sheets
with rum on tongue and narrowing pupils.
At least he compensates for something.

I leave his front porch
for the last time with bed springs on mind.
John’s attraction to me is swallowed by his ceiling dents,
and I constantly keep texting him
knowing his mind is already preoccupied
within bedroom walls.

So
I tear apart fabric off my basement mattress
and sleep on uncoiled springs -
their acupuncture stabs into uncomfortable pressure points along spine.

I take shot of Captain
with John’s toast of
“it’s always 20 o clock somewhere”
burning down my esophagus.