Uppercut

I pretend that there's a spark.

I pretend he smells like laundry detergent and spearmint gum, that he wears loose cardigans laced with cologne and jeans that hug his hips and a face all done up with planes and angles and fanning lashes cutting shadows down his throat, spilling over collarbones like ichor runs through his veins.

I pretend we're running through the rain and his hair is washed neon pink with lit-up signs and our socks are soaked through and our shoes squeak with every step and we're laughing and laughing and kissing and touching and I'll say, "don't leave," and he'll say, "never."

But his hands are rough and clammy and his hair is too short for me to run my fingers through and he's wearing those douchebag Nike socks when he's likely never done a sport in his life and I'm cold and sour and hollow as the gaps of silence between the clinking of our forks over our lukewarm dinner, and the fettuccine Alfredo from the restaurant where he paid in coupons is sticking to the walls of my stomach and all I want to do is go home and sleep off this shitty first date.

But suddenly he's smiling at me from the driver's seat and I feel myself smiling back and his hand is resting on my knee higherhigherhigher and we're kissing and touching and kissingandtouching and stumbling from his beat-up truck and into his house, into his room, and he's making these sounds and tugging me towards him by the wrist and laying me down and doing these things and then the sun is splitting open my eyes and he's snug against my side, arm wrapped around my bare waist of wishbone ribs, and staring up at the goosebumps in his white stucco ceiling, I've never felt more alone in my life.