I cut the pill of truth
and served it with honey.
A half-lie, I said

we were drunk.

Painted us starved,
in dresses of gin, egged
on by the barstools.

Painted myself stumbling
onto her face,
more so than an actual kiss.

Painted it as if cameras were rolling.
An image he could beat
off to, instead of curse. Said

it meant nothing

And how could it?
I was straight
as a wedding aisle.

I touched
his beard. Begged him
to stay. Insisted

it was only a kiss

and hoped he wouldn’t hear it
in my voice, how it sounded like

it was only a decade.
It was only a war.

I didn’t say there was no bar,
no audience except
the magnetic poetry falling

to the floor as she pressed me
up against the refrigerator, beaming.

That I felt more in that
one kiss than anytime he thrust
his tongue down my throat,

or wouldn’t get a condom,
or wanted it facedown.
I swore

it will never happen again.

He called me a whore.

I said

I love you.

He called me a bitch.
I said

yes.

 

~ Megan Falley (@megan_falley), tumblr.