When the businessman shoulder-checks me at the airport,
I do not apologize
Instead, I write him an elegy on the back of a receipt
and tuck it in his hand as I pass through the first class cabin
Like a bee, he will die after stinging me

I am 24 and have never cried
Once a boy told me he “doesn’t believe in labels”
so I embroidered the word “chauvinist”
on the back of his favorite coat
A boy said he liked my hair the other way
so I shaved my head instead of my pussy

While the boy isn’t calling back, I learn carpentry
build a desk, write a book at the desk
I taught myself to come from counting ceiling tiles

The boy says he prefers blondes
and I steam clean his clothes with bleach
The boy says I am not marriage material
and I put gravel in his pepper grinder
The boys says period sex is disgusting
and I slaughter a goat in his living room
The boy doesn’t ask if he can choke me
so I pretend to die while he is doing it
My mother says this is not the meaning of unfazed
When the boy says I curse too much to be pretty
and I tattoo “cunt” on my inner lip
my mother calls it “being very fazed”

But left over from the other universe
are hours and hours of waiting for him to kiss me
and here there are just hours.
Here they are a bike ride across Long Island on June
Here they are a novel read in one sitting
Here they are arguments about God or a full night’s sleep
Here I hand an hour to the woman crying outside of the bar
I leave one on my best friend’s front porch
Send my mother two in the mail

I do not slice his tires
I do not burn the photos
I do not write the letter
I do not beg
I do not ask for forgiveness
I do not hold my breath while he finishes

The man tells me he does not love me
and he does not love me
The man tells me who he is
and I listen
I have some much beautiful time