06.13.04 - 10:05 pm
the affair of the earring.

When you got
your ears pierced
we went together, and I
held your hand as they
pushed
the needle through
your flesh

(your face was
as pale as my
white shoelaces)

and as I watched your
eyes grow to wide teacups
and begin to roll back like
the eyes of a doll as you
lay her to sleep

I caught your soul in my
hands with a squeeze of your palm
and forced it back
like your hands were the
rubber bulbs of a blood
pressure cuff
until your eyes opened.

After the needle
they forced little black
circles through the red pinprick holes
and you grimaced and
I kept wondering if
you were going
to die and I'd have to
explain to your mother
why her only son
died in a piercing parlor
in the mall.

When we left, you
almost fell over walking to
the car, but less than
three months later
insisted on changing them
to a pair of blue
plastic spikes, putting
the small black
circles in a plastic zip sack,

where they stayed until
Christmastime, when, on a whim,
I handed the girl at the mall
twenty dollars and
she blew a hole in the
cartilage of my left ear, and
when I got to your
house

I pulled the still bloody stud
out of its hole and
you gave me one of your little black
rings from the plastic sack
and helped me slide it through

(the pain was a white hot
bolt of beauty)

then clamped the ends
shut around the little ball.
And there it stays, two
years since I last saw your
face, the last piece of you
that I carry; a constant
reminder that

you're gone.


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This particular piece is the story of where the ring in my left ear came from, the former wearer being my ex-from-hell.

.drink up baby, look at the stars. // .i'll kiss you again, between the bars.