keeping up with jones

she smelled like cotton candy & canal street - and i smelled like blue sugar and axe - and the chinese bus i had just gotten off. shit was melodic.

i had jay-z and foxxy shouting through the plugs in my ear - and the dvd lady standing in front of me holding copies of the latest. i hate bootleggers - but i sometimes visit the websites late at night.

side note: i dislike the film theater because of the bullshit they serve us. although the sour patch kids are great.

i'm not really one to compliment - but there was something about the threads she wore and the nose ring that did it for me.
and in my head i created her life - like i did for many of my characters.

she was born in harlem but had moved to a brownstone on stigwood like the cosbys.
she did a semester abroad in italy when she thought fashion was the shit - but traded it all for picket signs and sneakers once she changed to an african american studies major.

- & then she looked at me -

she's caught me spitting lyrics off the brooklyn bridge around midnight - she said.
she'd never forget my face.
she was in a yellow taxi with tears in her eyes - she said - so she knows i had never seen her.

but i offered her poetry and a yellow starburst.
i hate yellow startbursts.
she loved them - so i told her to stick around to witness my candy addiction.

*me: where's your stop?

she wanted to check out harlem with me.
explore the cracks in the sidewalk and laugh at the price of filet-o-fish meals in 125th.
stupid shxt.

but fxck it - we were strangers in an old place.
young though - but old enough to exchange twitter names and lip prints on cheeks.

we ended on 23rd & 6th giggling at ads on bus stop glasses
and her nintendo watch beeping around midnight.

we decided love wasn't in the stars for us.
just this one day at the beginning of fall.

i hailed her a taxi

she wrote me a note:
when i grow up - i want to fall in love with men just like you.