Vacation with the Deutschmans
I couldn’t take it when she started having sex.
Couldn’t. I’d sat on that couch
so many times.
Her dry humping him there, her bouncing
breasts, horrified me.
She had the first set. I saw
her nipple once by accident, it was so
purple.
I saw her mother talk on that couch
looking like Susan Sarandon
except for her chandelier neck. We watched
the Sixth Sense at her birthday party
on that couch, playing the goo goo dolls,
her tight grip on my clammy hand. So many sweaters
color coded in her closet. We laid down
our heads underneath the sweater rainbow. She never ate,
beautiful tightness dyed straightened hair
dancing like a commercial, her belly
peeking out waving innocently. Vacation
with her family. Dinner, skis, mountains,
twins, attention, abuse;
they needed me, an excuse
to keep it together in the middle
of the snow, we could have washed away
into the thick plastic booth seating.
Next to me I imagined her lips folded
hung over the flat edge of her face
melting, her nose dripping
collecting viscously around the low spot in the floor,
draining. I sat on the edge
of my seat stared so long at those long faces,
dreamt of gouging my eyes
with the toothpick from her hamburger. I hesitated
before stepping over the floor drain,
begging for it to suck me under.
-Danielle Gershkoff