L.t. Pelle
QUENTIN TARANTINO COMES TO DINNER
So I put my feet on the table to make him
feel welcome, let him know I’m not
the kind of girl who runs
and that he can taste all
my sole-dusted memories.
I play Stuck In The Middle With You
while I chew his ear off
about my kinda love which he calls escapism.
I say, “And the soundtrack doesn’t even know
we don’t exist.”
I say, “If I overdose on men
will you jab this record needle into my chest?”
Sometimes, I think, the D is silent
in dick. Sometimes, the things I put inside my mouth
refuse to disappear even when they ask me to swallow
and isn’t this is why we invited Quentin over here
to dinner in the first place?
Apron pockets aren’t meant to hold this much truth.
Oh, art deco rape scene
Why are you always the way our stories collide?
Everytime I cut fruit with a sword I call it poetry.
Everytime I write about violence
I say fists and bruises to make it bite-sized
to get this part over with:
I feel most like a victim when he makes me happy.
When we bring out Monopoly
and he grabs the metal dog so no one can take from me
the smallness of what he’s willing to give
When Quentin asks what I do for a living
I tell him only about what is keeping me alive
and when I say I am an artist
I know he thinks I think history can be rewritten too,
and I do,
this is how I hors d'oeuvre forgiveness
make memories so much smaller
than the mirrored plate that serves them.
The plural of violence is woman, singular. On her own.
The plural of violence is end credits crawling
upwards just to disappear
at the top of the screen.
Before Quentin leaves my boyfriend
hands him a doggy bag
and it smells like the word bitch
is all that’s leftover
is all that I wasn’t able to consume
by which I mean
I tell Quentin
I like your happy endings
because they come covered in blood
and I can’t imagine any other way out.
Then I crawl into his briefcase.
My boyfriend says,
I always get so carried away
Quentin says, I am so beautiful
now,
I glow.
So I put my feet on the table to make him
feel welcome, let him know I’m not
the kind of girl who runs
and that he can taste all
my sole-dusted memories.
I play Stuck In The Middle With You
while I chew his ear off
about my kinda love which he calls escapism.
I say, “And the soundtrack doesn’t even know
we don’t exist.”
I say, “If I overdose on men
will you jab this record needle into my chest?”
Sometimes, I think, the D is silent
in dick. Sometimes, the things I put inside my mouth
refuse to disappear even when they ask me to swallow
and isn’t this is why we invited Quentin over here
to dinner in the first place?
Apron pockets aren’t meant to hold this much truth.
Oh, art deco rape scene
Why are you always the way our stories collide?
Everytime I cut fruit with a sword I call it poetry.
Everytime I write about violence
I say fists and bruises to make it bite-sized
to get this part over with:
I feel most like a victim when he makes me happy.
When we bring out Monopoly
and he grabs the metal dog so no one can take from me
the smallness of what he’s willing to give
When Quentin asks what I do for a living
I tell him only about what is keeping me alive
and when I say I am an artist
I know he thinks I think history can be rewritten too,
and I do,
this is how I hors d'oeuvre forgiveness
make memories so much smaller
than the mirrored plate that serves them.
The plural of violence is woman, singular. On her own.
The plural of violence is end credits crawling
upwards just to disappear
at the top of the screen.
Before Quentin leaves my boyfriend
hands him a doggy bag
and it smells like the word bitch
is all that’s leftover
is all that I wasn’t able to consume
by which I mean
I tell Quentin
I like your happy endings
because they come covered in blood
and I can’t imagine any other way out.
Then I crawl into his briefcase.
My boyfriend says,
I always get so carried away
Quentin says, I am so beautiful
now,
I glow.
L. T. Pelle is a student living in New Jersey with her 2 dogs. Her work has been featured in Rattle and 3Elements Review.