Friend with Benefits

It was a day when I felt unqualified to be human.
Ramen noodles all over the floor, my tribal children
running around in underwear and sharpie tattoos.
There was a furious pit of missing him bubbling
from my gut, but my mouth was sewn shut,
I didn’t dare say it.

Instead I got real floppy. Caught in the undertow.
The laundry rolled up over my head. The smells
leaked from the sink, the kitty flew through the air
with that You are so pathetic look on her face.
This does not mean I need a husband.

Eventually we crashed. A spent sea of simple sugars.
One harshly lit lamp, a mile further than my Gadget arms
would reach. Driftwood bones, a pillow of white flags.
If he was here, the piles would just stink like ridicule.
I need to get up and do something.

The text read: Booty Call. You game? Really, it was
a spring board. In 30 minutes, the house was picked up.
The stale was washed from my skin. Incense smoke
and grown-up music tip-toed through the air like prayers.
This is exactly what I needed.

We both knew it wasn’t a booty call. But it makes us
laugh to call it that. It was decadent clove cigarettes.
A post coital-glow, without the coital. It was the
Be Good Tanyas and mandatory naked time. It was
a reminder of ourselves.

The words Love Life, inked across his back, shone
like the flashing curser of our next sentence. We
wrote the ending of the day and worked our way
back. We told the stories of our most awake moments.
And felt qualified to be human.