Boy Fight

Omar forgot to wash the booze out of my Coca-Cola glass.
His breath is an ashtray.
His feet are hog-head cheese in a greasy brown bag.

He makes me hate men with long hair as he brushes
his own in our bedroom. Strings of curls fall to the hardwood floor.
He smells like a Volkswagen of Rugby players.

4B is the place where my roommates can’t aim straight.
They leave blotches of piss on the rim of the toilet.
Pubic hairs in the bathtub.

Someone’s been eating my chocolate-chip cookies
with macadamia nuts. And it ain’t fucking Goldie Locks.
She’s learning how to make fuzzy navels in Bartending School.

Someone’s been keeping warm under my blanket.
It’s not the three bears.
They’re hibernating in a Houston Street subway.

Better count all my cd’s.
Better take my wallet with me.
This orange soda tastes funny.

They’re trying to poison me with all -purpose cleaner.
Win’s been cooking fish again.
He’s got my frying pan soaking in the sink.

Surachart, whose last name is as long as a drive to California,
stays up until four in the morning controlled by his computer.
“I don’t have a TV,” he says. “I want to watch Friends”.

This is the place of bread-crumbed countertops,
where dust bunnies multiply by the thousands.
This is the apartment where nothing gets done.

No one gets along. We fight like wrestlers.
Bash Omar’s head against the gas stove.
I’ve got Win in a headlock.

Surachart likes to pinch and bite.
He gets a knee to the nose.
“That’ll teach you not to poison my soda.”

In 4B, we’re ripping each other new assholes.
Tearing each other from limb to limb when we all know
these black eyes, the busted lips and teeth marks on forearms can’t continue.
So this is what it’s like living with boys?

Email: Shane Alison

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