Poems that you love

[matsunosuperfan]

Girl Like Me
by Anya Johnson 



First, I noticed her pantyhose,
which no one wears anymore,
except figure skaters and the very old.

Otherwise, she was ordinary.
Blonde, legs slightly bowed,
dressed for a night out. Pretty.
Enough to make my throat itch.

As we lurched ahead––a train
on the opposite track flying past,
a stereoscopic missile I could feel in my bones––
she approached a man.

“I’m really horny” she said.
Quiet, but loud enough.

“What?” the man said.

The train stumbled into a station.
“This is a good stop to get off
on,” she said.

“What?” the man said.

After the doors whipped shut,
the men around us, in dark suits
and dusty coveralls, clapped the man on his back,
laughing that locker room laugh
no one ever grows out of.

I wanted to be in on the joke,
the back-slapping, to be immune.

Then I remembered
my life.