NEXT-DOOR LIPSTICK VIDEOGAME GIRLFRIEND.

NEXT-DOOR LIPSTICK VIDEOGAME GIRLFRIEND.
by Shannon Baker
at the sixteenth birthday party
there was
lacrosse, cheesecake
treehouse, beach-hat
and lots of board game rhetoric
nothing conversational
had yet been type-set.
implanted
was more like it.
then
fourteen in the restaurant
a bad word choice surfaced
in the icecream dish
first-time things began
as comes every beginning
but only once can they
unfold from uncreased
born again
not-knowing.
this was before anyone
had
overdose resume
intuition about
office waterfountains
and the one building we had in common
never stood up against
our unlying music.
in the place where we held on
to steam and currents
it was the edge of being able
to make ideas
into convictions
true as universe
renamed religion.