"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.