Sappho Tells Aphrodite “Nevermind”

By Emily Hunerwadel

Lipstick weighs down on my lips
           by the fifth hour.
Glossy faces are pouty from
                                   cellophane exhaustion
not from instruction or some sinister scheme,

like the branches that knocked
against your window pane.

People always like the character
           that knocks off-kilter purposefully.
So here it goes:

Madison spent all of her time with plastic
           between her fingertips,
Freddy was always drawing X’s
                       on the backs of his hands,
and no matter who I try,

I can’t shake the feeling of cigarette smoke
from the ends of my hair.

I’m avoiding the glances
of the dark-haired space-cadets
                       across the marshes of
spilt beer and vomit.

Still, maybe one day
           our split-ends will tangle together,
and we’ll become some sort of spoiled
                       four-footed animal
wondering around streetlights in
                                   mutually-dusted hazes.

Or maybe I’ll be digging my heels
           into the soft pink parts of his knees
until I turn the caps like radio knobs
                       to find the static
that shatters the glass-fragiled bones
                                   in my ears.

Only then I’ll breathe into his head
like the hurricane gust he wants me to be:

“The best deeds I’ve ever done
were all a consequence
           of unfortunate accidents,
and you were what I did in the in-between.”