Tuesday Scavenger Hunt

My kitchen is my favorite place to stand. Cramped yellow walls push your attention outward through the window, past their molded frames, and into the shit stained alley. I grew up in poetry thinking of snow in pristine shades of blues and pinks. Or it was white, encompassing, controlled, and sterile. A cover up. For when winter melts, we can smell what it had been hiding from us all this time.

Past the alley there are people , most of which are like myself, going to greasy diners and upping property value like gut ache. And nobody can stay stagnant. Notre Dame becomes less like a road and more like the canal everytime I walk down it, the ebb and flow taking me where I need to be, and the people are always growing and shifting like sand or silt or something that can be broken down and built back up. Yesterday I drifted back into the laundromat, stuffed my clothes ino the machine, sat down, and witnessed similar cycles. People rinsed their hands along their hairlines, smoothed creases in the street with their footsteps, and I almost felt washed of you when I saw her walk by and head toward the lofts.
"Had she stopped by my house as promised?" I will go to hers.
And so I went, but not on purpose. It was 3 AM and I had spent the evening drenched at the pool, swimming laps, and laughing with the other manatees. The YMCA made us wear shower caps and I'm certain my did more than contain my mess of hair, but it strained my thoughts together tightly until I could feel why I've been so drawn to you.
You got naked like you always talk about doing and I felt relieved to know some people don't feel like they have to cover up anything.
I felt the same way at the diner, but better. I felt like a rat. I, drunk,braless, broke, with ripped pants, and you, cheery, thinking of romance, in love with the city and the dirt so much that I don't even think you could see it. We wriggled our tails, squeeked at the night, ate our scraps, and scampered off into the cold air to scavenge.
When we made it to the lofts she was not there, or maybe sleeping, and my bruxing ceased into sneezing fits and the feeling of a slow respiratory death. Maybe she had never been to my house that afternoon anyway. I decided to end the hunt. You said you wanted to watch the sunrise, and it's possible I took home the ugliest pants in the world.
Two weeks that I've known you, and in two weeks you'll be gone. I'm unsure as to whether you've been a friend or some sort of healthy reminder that the people in our lives aren't ever actually in them , just like they can never actually be out of them. But before you leave, I'll be topless, and with a little effort we'll expose this hidden skin with inked hands and intentionally fleeting pricks past the surface.
I'd say goodbye too, but it would be more like 'thanks' interpreted through a wave out my kitchen window.