A Pinkliquor production

Chapsticks

ooo

Holly liked to bite

A past time and an old habit

She chewed her lip to pieces when

It was time to understand she needed

Her fingernails to write.

Her mom scared her with cancer.

---

Genna was some girl

That worked behind the sets.

Of everything.

Holly knew her well

Because of her words

And her hands

And her lips.

That puppy dog smell that came from

Her eyes and gravitated outward.

She was a comfort, like a disease.

And when they bumped shoulders in the hall

One day

Holly wrote it down in her diary

Executing hearts to parade around the page.

This gives me hope!

---

They didn’t know the other’s

Last name.

Middle names hadn’t even been discovered.

Or remembered in 2013.

But they worked hard behind the curtain of the play

In the gymnasium

Before it became a courtesy to do so.

Some art project thing

That Genna insisted needing

Holly’s help.

Some girl she bumped shoulders by the water fountain.

---

Holly knew Genna was different.

The guys didn’t like to get too close

And the girls liked to get close enough

To let Genna hear the words, “I don’t hang around with lesbians!”

Like if this was an aura; she was crushing it.

Holly slapped one of the biches in the face

For comments like that.

Genna only walked away, bumping her shoulder.

---

They made out in that undiscovered hutch

Atop the roof, sheltered from the wind.

Like it didn’t matter that a whole ‘nother

World was just below their backs--

The tin crunched beneath them.

Hands ate stitches of fabric like appetizers

To the real meal.

Chapstick red

Lips.

ooo

...incomplete and lovin it.