The Friendzone

He said, "let me give you the skinny."
She listened, heart full of hope like
a bucket fills with water that turns to mold--
only to be carried away by a pair of arms
not meant to be there
but instead to be providing someone a home.

"You want to make me your home,"
were the words that made her feel skinny,
as if she didn't exist with them there,
in their light and meaning. It was like
his words were his right to bear arms
and his mouth was the gun's mold

ready to fire at the hollow mold
that was her frame. "Home,"
he repeated again, crossing his arms.
If this was the skinny,
she knew she wouldn't like
where the conversation would go from there.

"I'm not ready to go there."
She began to smell a faint mold,
one that screamed please, please like
me! from the corners of a family home
filled with the skinny
people she wanted to be. Arms

are only good arms
if you can use them to prove you're there
for someone. To wrap their frame, skinny
or not, until the shape of their body is the mold
your limbs take when they're home,
proving you're not alone and the like.

"I'm not that guy, babe, like
I said," he expressed with his arms
around her. She felt awkward in her home--
the one she had created there,
with him and his embrace. But the smell of mold
still surrounded them, making them skinny.

And that was the real skinny:
not the loss of a home, but the smell of mold
and how it had never not been rotten there.