Merciel

One step into the pizzeria was enough to singe my face
with their chemistry, its stench his body spray,
its sight dyed with highlights too bright to be sincere,
its noise his proclamations of princely ambitions.
I know not his name, his age, his occupation, his history,
his turn-ons, his turn-offs, but intimately know his type, his motive,
his alibi, his premeditation, his plan for the night she lies down
her doors unlocked, her lights off, her alarms shut down,
each wire snipped with his tongue, pinched by fingers
plowed into her shoulders, nearly wrapped around her neck.

Two hours he plays his con, two hours I play a rock,
subservient to social graces, shy except to smile
as he drops another roofie into her ear, syllables swallowed
without digestion, without bite. Too famished by one week
without a man, she drowns the hangover with another drink
bliss of where she’ll vomit next time she falls off the peak,
naive of the mortgage she accumulates, naive of who pays.
First a hand, then an arm, then two legs, then a heart
she mistook for a chew toy for that bitch she calls a sister.
From a friend cut to a donor with only a head left to pawn.