The first time I saw you, you looked bored,
like an extra sitting through a scene for the tenth time.
Your stare fixed into nowhere and no one.
You did not notice the eyes of that poor boy.

After the reading, he approached you.
I saw you state your name, expecting him to leave,
but he stayed. Gauchely told a joke on how he would
run away from you if he were smarter than his feet.

I came closer, turned my head and forgot that I was invisible.
How long has it been since someone took a good look at you,
approached you, mumbled that you are Helen of Troy?

The look in his eyes resembled the one you gave me last night
when my fingers tangled in your hair and my head lay rested
uncomfortably on your thighs. You looked at me the same way
that a mother looks at her son shaving for the first time.

Later you told him how you had given all to the past
only to receive this present filled with distance,
though it is better than any East Liverpool schmuck.

I wonder if he knew that you would never be his.
That when he smiled, his teeth were no longer white.
His hands stopped wringing and his lips turned livid;
his empty eyes reflected the fear
of all the men hanged in the past.

He left before you could get the first joke.

About the Author

Sony Ton-Aime graduated from Kent State University last December with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He plans to pursue a career of writing both novels and poems and study corporate law to satiate his love of knowledge. Sony has an avid interest in photography, and he enjoys spending time in his home country of Haiti.