My heart hurts. It comes in waves, the pain. Mostly it’s not there. When it is. Well. It gets hard to focus on anything other than you. And while we’re on the topic of you. Where did you come from? And when, exactly, did I start to like you so much that I’d lay so vulnerable and that I’d feel soul squeezing rejection from an unreturned text?

My heart hurts. You’ve always got to listen to Short Round. I’ve got to protect my heart.

The hot mess sitting across from me,

Smiles like the Joker,

Toothy pearls gleaming,

Incongruously straight,

Given the skull they’re embedded in.

Her eyes, two Pharos against the reefs,

Broadcast like lighthouse lamps,

Sending mixed signals,

In the barroom dim.

Laughter roars from me,

Another joke,

Another flash of those pearls.

I am in trouble.

I will the night’s swirl to pause,

Politely ask the thick, dark draughts

Inside me to release my wits,

And I gaze at my companion,

Just to confirm,

That, yes, I am listing badly,

And cannot make out if,

Her parabolic glow,

Invites safe passage,

Or is a warning,

That my trajectory ends,

With me,

Crushed upon the rocks.