Delia Tramontina
untitled (September 27, 2001)
Inside, my roommate may be having sex on the dinette table.
You were always too close to hear me, the sounds of fat breath that amplify through the walls. You once felt my heart race against your thigh.
I'm happy to say it was just my battery and not the alternator. These days, men stare and I wonder how they are able to locate me. Walking down the street almost never has the quality of hiding behind a curtain and I must concede myself to this if I am ever to leave the house.
In the past year, I've heard women cumming through thin walls. They may have heard me with you, the tingle in your arm when I fell asleep on it and cut off the circulation, the way the nights got too hot for us to hold each other. These days I think seeing you may bridge the islands of my sanity so I don't crack like a spit string. You could not fit in this bed without your feet hitting into the cheap pressboard desk. These days I can't believe I let the heat get in the way but I check my email to make sure.
I just watched that movie you hate with someone you don't know. In your world, you can eat the Fig Newtons, regardless of who bought them. You sat me between your naked legs to watch MASH. I was afraid of crushing your penis.
These days I walk down streets, conscious of getting hit; a great SUV bumper saying 'What the hell are you doing here?' and I would ask you because you might remember, even if you've forgotten the sound of my breath filling the cheap plaster walls of your two room apartment, the way I fell apart like wood shavings on your futon, how men looked at me on the mall when I was still beautiful.