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2020-03-24T18:17:13-07:00August 5th, 2016|Musings on life|

Cake at midnight

It’s almost midnight
and the hotel room
has the charm
of a dorm
but it’s clean
and I appreciate
the little bottles
because I haven’t had time
to buy my own shampoo
for years

I tell my body
it’s time to sleep
but it doesn’t believe me

like an elastic band
I have stretched myself
across states
and time zones
and despite trying to grip the ground
I keep snapping back

I’m not hungry
but I don’t feel complete
because dinner
was lunch
after all

I scan the room service menu
like a lazy lion
might drool his gaze
across the plains

warm lava cake

I know I will have it
as soon as I read the part
about the caramel sauce
even while I try to convince myself
it’s wrong

like those places up north
in summer
where the sun refuses
to clamber back down
at the end of a day
making the middle of night
bright and strange

but I hit the button anyways
and a man with an accent
takes my order

I immediately want to cancel it
or call back and tell him
to leave it outside
the door

but there he is
knocking

he’s in his seventies
and his uniform
is wrinkled

I tell him to leave it
by the TV
which feels worse somehow
and I give him a big tip
but still he looks at me

I know he is wondering
if I am bulimic
or crazy
or both

wow I’ll never finish that

I blurt out
with an awkward laugh
and we both look at the pool
of caramel and the perfect
dollop of fudge on top
and I know
that he knows
I am lying

you deserve it

he says
in his swirly accent
and after he left
and I lay
beside the empty plate
on the clean white bed
doing nothing
and remembering
how much I miss
the space between
the noise

I wonder
how he knew.

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