Closed doors, drawn curtains
Empty wine glasses and discarded clothes.
Early morning showers;
Slipping out into deserted hallways at 5am.
Lifeless streets and solid green streetlights
Leading the way to the next five-star hotel turned trashy
With the next homecoming queen turned cheap.
Dimly lit bars and taxi rides with the lips of a nameless boy
Pushed up against mine
Driving off into the polluted sunset.
Cigarettes dangling from shaky hands
The smoke filling the dingy room with the stained curtains
And dirty carpets.
A map with bolded cities and black lines
Scribbled over in blue pen
And soaked with salty tears.
City limits
State lines
And country borders
Burned into my mind, turned into memories
That stain the sidewalk with each step
Of my secondhand high heeled shoes.
Every movement carefully planned, each boy carefully picked.
Easy to forget, simple to replace.
Until there was you.
A boy with a name.
With unforgettable hazel eyes and tousled brown hair
Towering over me on a dance floor
With a tacky glistening disco ball and sappy love songs.
A taxi ride to a coffee shop on a crowded street.
A conversation
Without locking lips and searching hands to interrupt.
A no smoking sign and a decaf coffee
Shaky hands fidgeting on a fake pine table.
A closed sign leading us into a park, where the streetlights didn't work.
A movement in the night
Our hands finally finding each other in the dark.
A pair of lips that kissed mine with passion
Not greed.
We watched the sunset rise over the smokey horizon.
I fell asleep in your arms on a park bench
With peeling paint and graffiti.
Traffic and crows woke me in mid-afternoon
Your jacket wrapped around me.
A closed door, a drawn curtain
An empty wine glass and an empty pill bottle thrown on the floor
Where I usually lay my dress.
A bed big enough for two, filled by one.
A five-star hotel turned trashy
And this homecoming queen has turned cheap
With a too-big jacket wrapped tightly around my diminishing body.
Some nameless boy waiting for me
in a nameless town.
And I will use him, just like I'll use the next one
And the one after that.
I will use them to try and forget you, to try and replace you;
The boy with a name.
The boy with a face.
The boy who left me before I could leave him.
