Cleavage Ghettos

Somewhere in the sweet supple breasts of Lisa I can see ghettos of microbes huddling together, smoking crack pipes, calling out for some god to take those pale mountains in palm and squeeze them together. In her ghettos are my eyes, watching her dinge and grime barely covered by some grey blouse made of wonder. As I watched her, her arm crossed her torso and her neck stretched out while her head craned into her shoulder.  In that moment I believe she had come from that ghetto on her chest—had somehow ascended it, but barely, growing out of insignificance and into its representative. Giant microbial being—I deem her, and she smiles one of those smiles that tells you she’s uncomfortable and waiting for something to happen. Meanwhile, in the ghettos, a young microbe lies in Main Street and dies as she scratches her cleavage.

          

  I often think about Lisa this way, staring at her through my little peepholes that I hate nearly as much as I hate what they are forced to see. I see her ugly muscles and bruised breast; I see her bourgeois grin as I have seen rats piss on the stairs of my home. As we slouch hand in hand on these piss stained stairs I want to tell her exactly what she is. Then she speaks.

“So, why do you live here? You know, you don’t have to. You could get a good job, live a good life…marry even. I could talk to my dad, you know.”

“For crissakes! Why do you come here if you wish it were somewhere else?”

I didn’t really say those two sentences. I wish I could have. I wish I could have sneezed and sniffled at her three hundred dollar boots, and told her to “getdafuckouttahere!” But I just said, “Well, maybe that’d be nice. Let’s just talk about it some other time.” And as the silence pressed its breast to my ear I could hear the heartbeat of our lives. The smell of grime hit me just then, and I thought maybe I should make a call, do something with myself, stop living in misery, do what people do. Maybe I should have eaten her purse, hell if I would ever know. I invited her up. This was the fourth invite I had sent her way to see my abode; I was counting. She declined, probably thinking it a wreck. Little did she know, that cunt. Little did that little fuck know that every time she told me she was swinging by, I went through an arduous tidying routine— which of course isn’t to say that it was a complete shithole beforehand. Enough complaints.

“I have something to take care of. If you want, you can ride around with me. Starbucks? My treat!”

“Do you know how much I despise that?”

I had actually said it this time. It was that moment everyone experiences at some point in their life; the moment when the person adjacent has realized a deeply hidden thought and that person knows that you know it too.

“What’s wrong?” She was already backing away. ‘Good riddance you shithead’ should have been my first reaction, but instead I stammered on words, tried to pull her back in, tried to get her to fill the air with some of that nice perfume she bought. With no words at all, she was already tearing up. Red face, puffy face, ugly face. A grotesque sight really. It seemed to contort in slow motion, like some parade of her disgusting emotions. It softened me. I closed my eyes, prepared a speech, an apology, and when I reawakened, a newfound sensitive guy, veil and all, she was heading up my stairs. My only thought was the broom at the head of the staircase I had forgotten to put away.

“Fuck, can you just leave?”