What if when I call to tell her
she didn’t get the job, she asks why
and I accidentally spill the truth—
I had a vendetta against her flesh-tone nylons
and matching suit (a corporate blue skirt & blazer number)
because a few years ago, a different woman wearing the same outfit
had a vendetta against my lip ring and I didn’t get the job.
Truth be told, that happened a few times and I guess I started suspecting
those who wear blazers and pumps must be somehow interchangeable.
Of course, that’s more or less ridiculous. I’m not interchangeable with
everyone else adorned by body jewelry. Like those taut-torso girls
who get their bellybuttons pierced might as well be sorority chicks.
How about those tricky dicks with barbells all the way up the shaft?
I’d love to see them whip it out in front of all the Christian moms
who look down on me for mutilating my temple.
They really shouldn’t talk when they’re morbidly obese
cows who can hardly even make their calves fit
into the queen-sized sheaths of those cheap
flesh-tone nylons from mass-produced plastic eggs.
Maybe God’s special plan involves them
buying Thighmasters. Maybe my low-rider attire
isn’t half as undesirable as their plodding
cluck cluck moo moo delivery. Besotted
by one of my more violent fantasies, I watch
their numchucked muumuued udders burst
like water balloons finally freed from dusty barn rafters.
She pronounced condescendingly, ‘You can make holes in your body,
but only Jesus can fill the hole in your heart.’
He was wearing his sweaty purple gym shorts in public
when he fixed that teenage girl with his derisive glare and declared,
‘The nail that stands out should be hammered back into place.’
She had a DIY goth/punk aesthetic, a little clichéd, but a creative attempt
to separate herself from the suburban doll injection mold of her reality.
Maybe he should have painted his nails bright purple
if he was so intent on matching. Maybe if she wanted the job,
she should have Googled me and discovered that I prefer knee socks.
She handed me her resume, but all I could see were those legs;
their die cast sheen an insidious symbol of her fake golden brown proclivities;
her mute conformity. His casual cruelty as if teenage eyeliner was such a threat.
Of course, she wasn’t really mute. Her gingerbread girl lips were moving,
but all I could hear was that uniformed bus driver who gestured crudely
towards my lip and asked, ‘What is that, your hook?’
All I could think was too bad those flesh-tone nylons
don’t breed the flesh-eating disease.
