Two Lovers Vi - Paper Plates
Out with his boys drinking, feeling rowdy
Special occasion
Rolling the way they do
His lover is not with them
She stayed in for the night
He misses her company
But enjoys his time with the guys
He'll swing by later
A local city bar
Not anything special
Just talking trash like they talk
Cheap drinks
Fun
The talk turns to girls and sex
As it always does for young men
Or old men
They talk about their girlfriends
Or booty calls
Joking
Borderline disrespectful
The girls would think
Nothing borderline about it
A guy the Lover doesn't know
Taps him on the shoulder
"What's up, Man?" he says
The guy says something about
Knowing his Lover
Compliments her
Goes back to his boys
The Lover hears laughter
Suddenly this clown starts talking sh!t
about the Lover's girl
With his boys
A few feet away the Lover hears it
How this guy stayed at her house
Was hooking up with her
The Lover knows the guy is full of it
He recognizes this guy now
The Lover came over that night
This dude was luggage
Passed out on the couch
Friend of his Lover's roommates
But...
She had acted odd that night
Distant...nervous...not herself
Ditched her Lover at a bar
When he couldn't get in
Went and sat out on the front stoop
Taking deep breaths
When the Lover arrived
Out of sorts
Said she was drunk and feeling sick
He had always kinda thought if he
Hadn't called and said he was
On his way over
Something may have been about to happen
...May have been happening?
A friend told him he'd seen the Lover's girl
Acting out a bit that night
But that friend had always had the hots
For his Lover
And he didn't believe him
She had encouraged the disbelief
A few weeks later
The Lover saw this douchebag
With his fake muscles
Slicked hair
Grating accent
Two hundred dollar shirt
Three hundred dollar shoes
Trying to hug his Lover
She fended him off
Laughing too loud
Pretending too hard it was a joke
And did not bite off his head
Like her Lover expected her to
Uncharacteristic
She's a poor liar
Too honest
Wears everything on her face
She's been staying in a lot lately
Avoiding this dude?
The last few weeks
Avoiding discovery?
Nobody that smart studies that much...
Had he been freaking blind?
Feeling like the world's classic young fool
Anger boils
Red vision
His friends see his face
They know the look
The Lover is not particularly fit
Or the biggest guy
But he is a combination
Bigger, stronger
and faster than average
Naturally athletic
He grew up poor
One of the only white kids
In a bad bad southern neighborhood
The other white kids all immigrants
The rest all Black or Spanish
Hookers on the stroll
Crime
Lots of street fights
He got his respect coming up
He knows how to handle himself
And he has learned these college boys
Northeastern rich kids
From soft towns and soft lives
Trying to sound tough
With fake mafia accents
These boys don't fight
Unless they have a group
If you knock them down quick
Their friends don't jump in
And just look surprised as hell
They melt like wet paper plates
When they feel the hands
Of a poor redneck
With an Irish temper
The boy talking sh*t
Melts
__________________________
The Lover feels something turn in him
Tonight, she's just his girlfriend
Not his Lover
He's just a boyfriend
Nothing serious
He and the boys have to go
To a different bar
After that
Have a blast
Now he can also talk smack
About kickin' ass
The boyfriend eventually goes
Back to his house
Not to her house
After a detour
He doesn't call her
He almost calls one of the girls
Whose phone numbers he got tonight
But he throws the scraps away
Barely
Maybe nothing happened
Like his girlfriend said
One invited him up to her apartment
After asking him to walk her home
He hopes nobody saw them
And what they did in the lobby of her building
Or maybe he hopes someone did
He'd almost gone up
But instead he went to his house
And he doesn't go back
Barely
Maybe it was innocent
A pushy drunk dude
A friend of her roomates
Like she said
His girlfriend calls a couple times
She's wondering where he is
He rubs sore knuckles
Before he passes out
He doesn't answer
Hopefully things turn back in the morning
What a crappy twenty-first birthday...
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