ELEGIES.epub

or:
ELEGIES to forget all these metaphors for fucking

Your coffee, she says. Sliding it to you.

Spat in?

Of course.

You reply: for the record, I poison the food, trace amounts, bioaccumulative. you'll go quietly in your sleep the week before you become partner, and i'll be left to grieve into your half of a security deposit

we are never seeing that deposit again because you put your fist through the drywall demonstrating a rear naked choke

You said you felt unsafe walking to the subway

I feel unsafe walking to the kitchen, thank you very much. She turns a page she was reading - now drink your spit.

Gladly

You'd had this apartment since you were both broke - instant-noodle broke, splitting one metrocard broke, the sort of broke that's almost fun in the rearview because you survived it by the skin of your teeth.

Now she bills more in an hour than the rent. You do something with capital you've stopped trying to explain at parties - rather, take a middle distance, talk about all the publishing companies you've sponsored. exclaim books aren't dead after all! [1]

[1] of course, the irony of it is that they are, kind of dead

The radiator finds a new place to leak everyday, the second bathroom is a closet on account of all the pipe failures - and you have to pass by her bedroom to go to the bathroom. You'll take your grim - as she says - 4-in-1 facial cleanser, moisturizer, toner, window cleaner beside her 70 products to - as she says, to look like a porcelain cup. Either of you could leave tomorrow. But you don't.

I'm making you a tinder profile you say, taking her phone off the counter, sliding in the code to her phone.

I don't need a profile

You need a life. Or, at minimum, an orgasm that isn't self-induced.

She scoffs at the answer, still focused on the book -

You read aloud what you type in: emotionally available between the hours of never and also never.

Keep going. I'm aroused.

Lawyer, with three working holes

She sets the book down - this is how you know you've drawn blood - give me the phone

Make me

You had reserved a restaurant for the two of you, this new restaurant that was supposed to be great according to 15 google reviews who probably were the owner's extended family - doing their due diligence to make sure that this specific child doesn't become the family disappointment.

As always, the food comes out less than satisfactory; all the dishes are doused in butter; and the salad section was the most calorically dense section of the menu. You whisper about how much better you can make each of these dishes back home - and she'll agree, for once:

You ruined restaurants for me. I used to enjoy being disappointed by the $20 millennial man-bun burger. Now there's a douchebag at home who makes a great burger.

my pleasure, with a smile.

She’s still scrolling Tinder, ever since the morning. Look at this, look at what's available to me. This one opened with the word 'yes'.

Atleast he's confident about it.

Oh please... she sighs, and this one wanted to know - whether i would rather have one thumb for a tongue or a tongue on every finger.

What did you land on. I think the tongue on every finge -

Nothing! It's so impractical, i'd rather think about - i don't know, vigorously masturbating.

You choke on some food you were actively chewing on, and she giggles - of course she does - and this one spelled 'pussy' wrong, this one wrote 'wyd 2nite' and I just have to scoff - how lazy do you have to be. It is ONE keystroke. T-O.

She drops the phone facedown, Who raised these men. Who looked at a child and thought: i will release this, unfinished, into the apps.

You'd know more about raising them, if you'd dated more than one person since the Pleistocene.

Atleast I committed, you - you just find anybody to fuck around with. She points at you, still chewing the complimentary bread - there was that one with the lululemon workout gear, said that's her sexpertise - she mimics a gag - then the DJ. The other DJ. Then I think there was another fucking DJ. I just genuinely -

Respect the hustle, Sohyun.

Respect the hustle? Your dick has commitment issues.

You laugh, and she's laughing too, the helpless one she hates, hand over her mouth, a soft cackle, perfect, uneven teeth showing - and you pay before she can fight you about it.

There's a dress shop two blocks down, on the way back to your apartment - and there's a green dress of something very expensive, to which she slows just a tad for -

You say Try it.

No thanks. It's ten thousand dollars with a tag.

So is everything you own. And then, you can't help it, it's right there - you lower your voice into something oily, shriveled, all menace, Let your uncle get it for you.

Absolutely not, strike it from the record

Uncle's had a very good quarter sweetheart. You pat a pocket. Uncle wants to see you in the green one.

I will call the actual police, I will have you locked up in maximum security - but, that laugh, she can't help herself, laughing into her hand - ...does uncle want to come in - watch me try it?

And for once, neither of you has the line to pull back.

...That got away from us, you manage, like something's lodged in your throat

That got away from you, she says. Buy me the dress, uncle. I've earned it.

Of course. You buy it.

The weekend arrives with the both of you brushing in the same bathroom, the only usable bathroom. She gargles, lets the foam clear away before slotting a length of floss between her teeth - By the way, I've a date today