Evidence

By Yassi Bliss

 

1

you coulda lied
I give you credit
only a man gets

tell myself
I’m the smart one
I got the better end
of this deal
you’ve been honest with me
while she
has no clue

you say
lets not argue anymore
lets just do what we want
by which you mean
fasten my mouth and
open my legs

I count all the
pairs of Cosabellas
I want to wear for you
how good
sex could be with
a snake like you

you
silk-worm fingers
landing on my tongue
you
lips weaving my belly
into a butterfly’s nest
you
a slithering blade
I jab through
another woman’s
back
I oil it with fake shea butter and
play it on the Q train to Parkside

and why when all my girlfriends tell me
I’m beautiful
it means nothing
until I get naked enough

for you
to say it

why for the eighth time I promise myself
I’m done with you
then join you and your friends for dinner
hang out in your room too late
slam your
dorm room door screaming
fuck you

you tell me
she’ll be here to stay
mid April
in two weeks

2

swallow whole
every two a.m. conversation

scrub your palms of
my silk thigh skins
you said were so soft

stash away snippets of
perfect tits and the air-slap of my loud laugh

souvenir for what you coulda had
had you been
a single man

maybe in ten years
my face will skip across
your conscience
as you fold your children’s clothes

but tonight you sleep

and I’m drenching in this absurdity
of
still
wanting you

and I keep saying
I’m the smart one
you were just fun
I don’t give a fuck

one more night

of a midterm I don’t study for
a paper I don’t write
instead a poem
you’ll dispose of
in two weeks tops
in case it’s

evidence