Fried Chicken by Rosa Caines

I got a call from you from Brisbane

It was very late where you were or very early

You said you went to get fried chicken and the waitress reminded you of me

I could smell the alcohol down the phone

You nearly said it

I know you nearly said it

I need to hang up before I say something stupid

My blood was pounding in my ears

Say it 

Say it

Say it

It went quiet the line went dead

The gentle hiss of snakes around your ankles

I used to wonder what was the difference between love and lust

Because every inch of you made me collapse inside like a cliff edge

I kissed you as the sun came up on the beach

I tried not to and then I stopped trying

I felt like I was in a film

I had a boyfriend who was very kind but didn’t make me feel reckless

I think about the word shatter

You were sat on that bike in sunglasses a cigarette and a bad attitude

You told me you’d spent a night in a cell before 

You said you’d never met a bird like me before

At the time I thought that was a compliment

You were every teenage cliché

Expect we weren’t teenagers

And sometimes we had to push that bike up the steepest hills

And I heard you coughing from the cigarettes and you hated the taste of coffee 

and your friends made horrible jokes on nights out 

Like put your tampon back in

You kept drinking until you couldn’t speak

I told myself that deep down you were different and really very sensitive

My arm still fucking aches from digging

My insides swam like goldfish

In my tiny denim shorts I pressed my arms around your waist like a belt

I burnt my ankle on your motorbike

You ran into a café for ice and they tried to sell you crystal meth

An old man told me bikers call them dream tattoos

I wanted that scar to stay forever

I wanted to lick your bones clean

You were so tall that I had to lean up to kiss you

Like a standing lamp

Sort of hanging over me in a hazy way

Do you ever think about me and does it catch in your throat?

Do you ever press your own hands to your waist and wish that I was there?

I have loved a lot of stupid people

I can’t believe I ever fell for someone who didn’t dance

You said you felt self-conscious and didn’t know what to do with your hands

I just wanted you to put them on me

A drink in each hand doesn’t make you interesting 

And all of your anecdotes about when you were high, and all of your banter, and all of your bragging, and ski trips and jack wills, and nights out with the boys and all of your lies

And how you narrowed your eyes and bit your lip and it made me swim

It doesn’t amount to much if you can’t be brave

Sometimes when I am drinking heavily I think of you

I don’t associate with cowards anymore

--Rosa Caines