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"Saturday Morning at the DMV" by Amber Decker

I sit for the long uncomfortable hour

with legs-crossed,

on a hard plastic chair

waiting for the automated system's

canned robot-voice

to call my number.

Later, I read in bed

and anticipate the sound

of my phone ringing.

When it does, I hope

it isn't your voice

I hear on the other end.

​

I am never first
in line.

​

"Our Love Was Like a Matchbox Twenty Song

from Their First Album in the Worst Way" by Amber Decker

I still have my ticket stub from the first movie we saw

together: some shitty horror flick that dredged all the

new, nervous laughter up from somewhere deep in our

guts. And you grabbed my hand when the lights went

down and the low-budget body count started to rise. 

I have the note you tucked into the visor in my car that

fluttered into my lap when I stopped to put on a coat

of red lipstick in an empty church parking lot at 12 AM.

In it, you wrote things like

"You have the most beautiful light in you."

and "I wish I could be what you deserve." 

The sweetness of those words at odds with others 

like 

"That lipstick makes you look like a slut" 

and "I've got a bullet with your name on it, bitch." 

One winter night, parked outside the same church,

I told whichever god cared enough to listen that I

wanted to die. 

With shaking hands, I reached to turn out the light. 

​

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