Photo by Matthew Ansley on Unsplash
It hurts
admiring my elongated self
wiry legs stretched across asphalt
mirrored dance moves that make me smile
a little robot some running man
having way too much fun to pay attention to the curb
how it reaches out to grab my foot
I often contemplate my darker half
but becoming so intimate wasn’t planned
He quickly ran at me so abrupt
shrinking along the way
first, it was an awkward elbow-bump
the kind of greeting that happens when both parties acknowledge
We have dirty hands
from there we go to the hardest high-five ever
who high-fives with a handful of gravel?
I’d hoped that was the end of the salutations
but momentum and gravity felt otherwise
The kiss was a bit much lips crashed together
like when two people have been skirting around sexual tension for years
and after divorce and dead spouses find themselves
in a hotel bar no wall of guilt or impending regret
teeth clanked noses crunched foreheads bouncing off
skirts hiked up trousers caught on thighs
Seconds later and he’s all Wow, I’ve waited years for this!
And she’s God, I’ve waited years for this?
I must say I’m on her side
laid-out on the blacktop little stones embedded in my palm
throbbing pain in my elbow scratches
on my nose and forehead not to mention
how we banged our knees together
All this from my partner my compadre
all the times we danced together ran around chasing each other
made finger animals on the wall barking dog, anyone?
and finally we embrace
and it’s all bloody lips bruised elbows
and a possible chipped tooth
Jason Melvin received a gimmicky T-shirt from his teenage daughter on Christmas with a picture of one large fist fist-bumping a much smaller fist. The caption read, “Behind every smart-ass daughter is a truly asshole Dad”. It fit.