Dinner Party Flatulence and Other Minor Offenses

The wind's whipping, howling
through the high-rise apartments
of the Upper West Side
and I feel like a fake:
Here I am in an aunt's guestroom
like a thief amongst the righteous.
(They crucified them both
on the same holy hill.)
I'd kill for arms across my chest.
I'd kill for frighteningly less.

A recent conversation comes
recklessly to mind.
He tells me he gave her a lift
from the bar, she and another girl.
They wound up at someone's house, maybe his.
He got distracted, forgot she was downstairs.
When he went to fetch a glass of water
from the kitchen she asked for a ride home
from a corner of the pitch black living room.
"Scared me half to death," he laughs
as my heart sinks with the familiar image.
An invisible hook tugs at the spot
where my large and small intestines meet.
I shake it off, keep rolling. It was getting
back at me, and failed. Pity is a wonderdrug.

My plumbing's better than my painting.
My whining trumps them both.
And the next person to make a Charlie Sheen joke
will be plucking their teeth from my knuckles.