Apartment Living by Meghan O'Rourke

Apartment Living

So those despotic loves have become known to you,

rubbing cold hands up your thighs, leaving oily trails,

whispering, Just how you like it, right?

Upstairs the sorority girls are playing charades

again, smoking cigarettes, wearing shifts, burning

pain into their synapses.

Life is a needle. And now it pricks you:

the silver light in which you realize

your attempts at decadence

tire the earth and tire you. The etymology

of “flag” as in “to signal to stop”

is unknown. It is time to sit and watch. Don’t

call that one again, he’s pitiless in his self-certainty.

You used to be so.

You laid your black dress on the bed.

You stepped in your heels over sidewalk cracks.

You licked mint and sugar from the cocktail mixer,

singing nonsense songs,

and the strangers, they sang along.