She rolled in from nowhere with a carbonated grin,
a history of winning the hard way.
Switchblade vocabulary and cut-off ambitions,
running through me like a holiday.
Slapped her particular brand on my self-regard
and peeled the whole thing off for sport.
She don’t kiss slow —
she deploys contact like a hit-and-run on a short court.
Her perfume carries a hangover built in,
her lipstick leaves the kind of mark
that stays long after the room goes quiet.
She’ll ride your reputation until the letters
wear completely off in the dark.
Said she’s looking for a sinner
who won’t call her particular bluff and back away,
but she’ll walk out laughing
when she’s absorbed everything she came to take today.
She locates devastation by its specific scent,
collects other people’s regrets
the way a landlord collects rent.
Her identifier scratched into the bathroom wall
at the end of the block —
a contact that bites right back,
a warning carved into the rock.
She’s a drive-through wreck
running in cherry red lace across the floor,
leaves scorch marks where she used to orbit,
then operates no more.
Backseat honey — too incandescent to hold or contain or keep.
You pay the full price just to watch her
when she’s finally asleep.