February 2017 Vol. II No. II
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
"Get You Dirty"
by Pamelyn Casto
Hey, you're the one. You got yourself a fine little shape, looking so fresh and clean. Virginal. Unsoiled. You look like high class stuff that ought to get involved with someone like me. And I want to really get into you. Deep into you. That feel good to have me looking at you, to have me breathing on you like this? Feel good when I touch you with my hot hands? You know it does. You're coming with me.
But I'm not promising you no forever shit. Might only be for one night. I
got this big bed and a big desire to know you. You'll get real dirty with me too. I'll bring you down to my level and my level's pretty damned low sometimes. I'll bend that cute little uptight back of yours and I'll soil you, put my hands, my fingers, my presence, my marks all over you. And I'll take you at my leisure, slow or fast as I want. Make you mine for as long as I want you.
You better know too that it ain't good, if it don't please me, you'll be out
faster than a rabbit hopping on hot asphalt. And I'll have another in my bed in no time flat. There are so many who'll come home with me. Remember that. You'll have to work hard to satisfy me because I've been around. Plenty.
And you'll never be the same again. When I'm through with you, you'll be damaged goods. Those who take their turn after me will be able pick you up for a few coins. Maybe even for free. You like that idea of being picked up cheap by just anyone that wants you? Or taken for free? Some do. Maybe you too.
So let's really see that high class stuff you're advertising. Let's go find out what you're really like. What we're like together, mixing it up. You're mine because I want you. Bad.
"Miss? I'll take this book. Can you ring it up for me?"
Apology Peaches
by Max Luque
Through the kitchen window, I watched you pull into the driveway and get out of the car. You held a paper bag in one hand and your briefcase in the other. I opened the door for you, and you stood there smiling at me as though we hadn’t argued that morning.
“Hi,” you said. “How was your day?” You leaned closer to me, and I knew that you wanted me to kiss you, but I pretended not to notice.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked.
“They’re apology peaches.” You pulled one out and held it to my mouth. I felt the fuzz touch my lips, and I let you stand there like that, holding the peach up to me, looking stupid with your arm outstretched. I wanted you to feel stupid for a second. I wanted you to know what it felt like.
Then I bit into it and took it from your hand, our fingers touching briefly. I wiped my lips with the back of my hand and stared at you, waiting for you to say something, but you didn’t. You nudged past me and walked into the kitchen, setting your briefcase on the table. You pulled out a chair with a scraping sound, and then, sitting down, you took another peach from the bag and started eating it.
“I thought you got those for me,” I said.
“Oh. Right.” But you kept eating it.
“So. Apology peaches.”
“Yeah.” You held yours up.
“Usually people just bring flowers in these situations.”
“But you love peaches,” you said. You smiled, and I wanted to scream at you.
I couldn’t help but say, “Apologizing means, like, saying sorry and admitting wrongdoing. Understanding what you did wrong.”
You looked at me, but you didn’t say anything.
“You can’t just . . . you can’t just show up at the end of the day with a bag of fruit and expect me to be, like . . . happy about it. It doesn’t work that way. It takes a bit more.”
“What do you want me to do, then?”
“I want you to tell me you’re sorry. I feel like . . . I feel like you don’t even understand why I’m upset. You don’t even know why I was upset in the first place.”
“That’s not true.”
“God damn it. You can’t just shove a fucking peach in my face and make me forgive you. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
Then you were silent. You put your half-eaten peach on the table next to your briefcase.
“Leo. I’m sorry.”
“It takes a bit more than that,” I said, and I felt the anger pressing on my skin.
“I know that I was short with you this morning,” you said. “And I’m sorry about that. I really am. I have a lot of work things on my mind and…I know it was wrong of me to take it out on you. Do you feel better now?”
I wanted to throw the peach at you, but I didn’t. I said, “I just don’t like it when you treat me in a way you shouldn’t just because you’re in a bad mood. It just hurts, that’s all. I just wish you could’ve apologized for it with your words first instead of trying to use peaches to get out of it.”
You stared just past me at some spot on the wall. Then you closed your eyes and said, “When are you going to stop punishing me, Leo?”
“What?”
“When are you going to stop punishing me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know that I hurt you before. I know that I did everything wrong before, but this is different now. This is me trying to be with you properly. This is me being with you for real, and you know that. You know that I’m not leaving.”
“That’s the thing, though, Daniel. I don’t know that. I don’t know anything, okay?”
“Leo, come on. It’s different now. This” – you stood up, spread your arms, and pointed at different parts of the kitchen – “This is ours. This is us being together. This is our house, and these are our things. I mean…I’m not leaving again. You need to believe me.”
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