Confessions
by Lukas Tallent
You breathe through your mouth way too much, and we haven’t been together long enough for that to be cool, and, since we don’t have a/c anymore, your breath, which smells like all of those poor animals you insist upon eating, hangs around the apartment for days because we’re out of Febreze, and Lysol smells too much like my grandmother, and I know you’ve got yoga four times a week and whatever you do on Thursdays, but your voicemail inbox has been full for like twenty years, and sometimes I need to talk to you because, let’s be real, the only time you say my name anymore is when I go “too far” like when I told you “bitches be trippin’ ” at the nursing home where we volunteered on Thanksgiving, after that old sack of Werther’s Originals said that it was so cute that I write stories, and if I’m going to tell it then I’ve got to tell it all, that shh-ing you do when we make love is a real turn-off, and that blowjob at the drive-in back when we first started dating has unfortunately turned out to be one in a million, and you never shave your va-jay-jay, and I know you’re not that hairy, but there are always these little course hairs in the back of my throat that I only notice when I’m in front of my classes, and, just when I thought I’d said all I had to say, this would be a better story if you refused to tolerate my drug habits, but no, you just cradle my head in your lap and make sure I don’t overdose, and I understand that’s because you love me and all, but love is just a social construct, and I don’t know how much longer that’s going to cut it because honestly, the only time I get a hard on anymore is when we’re walking to school, and you get ahead of me, and you could almost be anyone.
Lukas Tallent lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. His work has recently appeared in SORTES, autofocus, Spartan, and many other places. You can find more of him at lukas-tallent.com.