Sweetheart

She sat in the stool next to me

petite pretty and ruddy faced rubia

she faced me and I was all horse blinders stooped forward bar in front

she faced me and asked me what I was reading because I am good looking and I smolder well at the bar at night after work

Something about Pynchon, how I’m too dense for it

she tells me about a man who is perfect and has money he’s a lawyer and who is ready to marry her and she touches me about my bad tattoos

she hesitates because, well, he’s drab

she’s not a romantic, my words not hers, but she’s looking for excitement, her words not mine

What would she know about love anyway? You can smell the brunch and 9-5 and the idling in mini-SUVs in traffic on her — miasmic

You can smell that she doesn’t like her friends really

PR. Atlanta Georgia. I love my job.

I’ve had enough

I move my rook to regain some peace for the book I was staring at

sweetheart it was nice talking to you and she caterwauls

EWWWWWWWW!!!! SWeeeeeEEET HEAARt???

As if to rally the bar against me

You could never rally the bar against me

I tip 40% sometimes more and the lighting agrees with me

A humiliation tactic a psychic power play that surely worked for sweetheart during her tenure at whatever idiot SEC college she learned how to stop rapping the n-word

Go Gators Go Tigers Go Dogs Go fuck yourself this is New York let some romance into your heart before you ever think to bother me

Didn’t you go to Bonnaroo or some other miserable ecologically-devastating festival?

Didn’t you trip some shrooms or a little acid and freak out and become a slightly more tolerable drone because of it?

she has left the stool next to me and I will miss her company