she wandered down the stairs in jean shorts cut so low it looked like a denim thong

she wondered at the stares as if having her entire ass hanging out wasn’t enough to stop traffic

i just sat in my chair and watched as she took her time making sure everything was just so

an extended period with her head in the trunk and i realized i was squeezing my glass of tea to the point of knuckles cracking

she always waves and smiles at me when i bump into her on the rare occasions i actually leave the living room

it is almost like magic that when my door shuts her’s always seems to open up as my keys jangle and the lock thunks loudly in the breezeway

she calls me baldy and cutie and asks why i have never asked her for her name

she lives above me and has vigorous and loud sex and i have heard more than one guy scream out rosie

i don’t mention this just apologize to rosie, calling her by name and seeing her eyes light up and she asks if she can bum a ride to the store

if there is anything i hate worse than going out amongst the people it is the forced interactions with them but rosie has those cutoffs on and i think the passenger seat of ny car has been good and deserves a treat so i just shrug and say hop in

her definition of store and mine differed and when we got the grocery store she looked disappointed and said she meant liquor

we walk through the store as i get the necessities to survive another week, not only the jailor and jailee but the defacto mess chef, launderer, and maid

i stop counting the number of eyes and muttered comments as she struts down the aisle

occasionally she peels off of my side but she has a kind of fifteenth sense and it seems the moment i would make eye contact with another lady she is there cooing at me

with all of the things she has done with a cock that i’ve been forced to lay in my bed alone and endure, blocking one didn’t seem to be on the list but never once was my cock involved so it’s hard to say for certain

she mocks my spartan lifestyle of brown rice and frozen vegetables and organic chicken and korean barbeque sauce and five different kinds of hot sauce

my only concession to eating the same basic thing is it needs to be hot as hell but not always the same way

she has a body like professional dancer and i don’t mean ballerina, i spent a few years bouncing at a strip club and there are certain natural attributes that would have earned her twenty five percent of the life savings horny business men and lonely married men would happily throw into her denim thong

she makes a lot of incidental contact and if i learned anything it is that is how they slip their poison into your system

an accidental brush as she passes against my shoulder, a hand lingering for a moment too long on my forearm, when she grazes my balls her eyebrows raise as does the left corner of her mouth

yes that was all that raised, though there may have been a head nod but that is involuntary i assure you

i went through the pharmaceutical section looking for snake bite kits or something to combat the anticoagulants and restrict the blood flow

we got in separate lanes and the guy checking me out was checking her out and he let out a low whistle and asked if i saw the ass on that one quietly

i shrugged hoping to keep this moving, i have a small window of tolerance for the infestation of humans into my biosphere and between her gyrations and his sweaty upper lip it was fast approaching time for me to fall back into seclusion

as we both manage to finish at the same time, the double entendre not lost on me and i wonder if this a sign of some kind she sets her bag in the cart by mine and flashes her smile at the guy who had been commenting about her vertical version moments before

he stared at me, partially in embarrassment and partially in shock

i shrugged again and she stuck her hand in my back pocket, which made me jump and let out a shrill note of surprise

her throaty laugh and disapproving clucks threatened to bury me in an tsunami of red as my cheeks flared up like three mile island

this just made her laugh harder and take her hand back

we hit the liquor store and she spent a goddamned eternity thinking about which vodka to buy

i told her just get the cheap gallon and some kind of mixer, she asked what i use and i said i always like lemonade

i stockpiled on whiskey, honey and vanilla, don’t judge me i was getting enough of that from the small asian lady behind the counter

when we got in the car i turned up the music as misfits came on and she jammed out as she pulled out the vodka and cracked the bottle open

she’d bought two bottles of juice at the store and to my surprise one of them was lemonade and the other a tea

a liberal amount of each was used to water the concrete, which is conscientious if you think about it, the summer sun was beating down like a jackhammer

so we drove down the road with our drinks, strong enough to blow fire with or at least help remove laquer from a bench

when we got home she followed me to the door and i stared at her in confusion and she stared at me in a very knowing way

one of our neighbors who always sits on the steps and smokes waited for me to open the door and ladies first her in before giving me a thumbs up

the pig sty was less pig and somewhat sty and i cleared off half of the couch for her, it deserved a treat as well, years of faithful service and so on and so forth

i figure i owe her a drink before subtly, not a strong point of mine, asked her to leave me well enough alone

my other brain was fighting for dominance and i’d like to say i was going to come out ahead but now i was unsure of the scoring

i poured us each a tall glass of tea with a healthy pour of honey whiskey before sticking both bottles into the freezer for sipping later

alone

when i got to the couch she was going through my notebook and she looked at me with wide eyes

“who is she”

“who is who”

“she, her, who is it that has total control of you”

“well that’s the thing rosie, she and her aren’t really real, not really, or not in any way that makes sense”

“uh huh”

she doesn’t believe me and i can understand why, how do i explain that they aren’t odes to a person but an ideal, an emotion

so i don’t, just hand her the drink and turn on the stereo, which is really just the computer streaming through the surround sound but that is a mouthful and if i’m being disgusting for a moment her low cut blouse has two mouthfuls that are far more time worthy

she drinks absently, toes tapping as she reads more and more of my inner dialogue and i find myself watching her toes tap, the gentle waves cascading up her too long toned legs the perfect accompaniment to the tune

been listening to exotica jazz and the brazillian samba with a nice boom bap bass has my foot tapping as well

as does impatience, i will her to finish the drink before i finish mine or i will have to get a refill and will feel obliged to get her one as well

but thirst, dual meanings and both apply especially as my head stops pounding and the signals start to permeate my lizard brain

so I refill mine and she drains hers so i get two, mine just straight whiskey with a couple drips of water

when I was return the room has an all new vibe and she is looking at me with a different kind of look, one that says she has seen my soul and it may be horribly scarred but there is something to it that spills out on paper in a way that get her emotionally wet

i can see she has gone and gotten the wrong idea about me and then that wrong idea morphed into a worse one for both of us

she also seems less a seductress and now is trying to appear chaste as if the only thing between us isn’t a seam of denim and black satiny looking string

“will you write one about me mr poet”

“i don’t know, it isn’t how it works, the words just come and i scribble them down and hope it makes sense”

she pouts and nods while i drink and wonder if my upper lip is covered in sweat under my mustache

we talk for a bit about nothing as the music plays on

she stands and stretches like a gazelle, all long legs and perfect lines and watches me watch her

i make a note her groceries need to be refridgerated and pointedly do not offer the use of mine, this situation rapidly turning from fun afternoon of making monkey noises to cuddles and watching television

i wasn’t looking for either though the one i wouldn’t complain about seems to be forever interlocked with the other in her eyes now

she takes the hint, and the disappointment seems genuine which makes me feel bad but not bad enough to stop her despite the protesting my crotch is undergoing

a thin line there, a fine distinction between trouble and troubles that i don’t need to cross, i already looked both ways and the traffic seems heavy and not willing to slow for a tortoise trying to make his way to the tall grass on the other side

now weeks later i am staring a the clouds and two of them look like dogs fornicating in front of a tire shop, freud would have a field day with that i mentally note and the words come tumbling

i hear her door shut and she is in yoga pants that should be paying her for the honor and she sees me and waves and blows a kiss but i pretend to watch the dogs fuck in the sky

i’m sitting in my comfy boxers drinking coffee thinking about last night as i laid there and the symphony of spring from the floor above serenaded me to sleep and smile as the words change their tune

i dodged a bullet rosie, but you got your poem

i wait for her to leave before getting up and getting dressed and heading to the store, apologizing to the passenger seat for the lack of treat and turn up the music when the misfits come on and almost hear them howl about brains for lunch as the words sing louder and louder still