Paula Harris
the many ways in which our first date would be a disaster, and which we will talk about for years to come
you will pick me up wearing jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt, with a jacket over the top
while I’ll be wearing blue high heels and a top that shows off my cleavage and a skirt that
used to be a dress but I didn’t like it as a dress so had it cut down to just a skirt
and I’ll say “oh, am I dressed okay? should I change into something a bit more casual?”
and you’ll say “no no, you’ll be fine”
and in hindsight this will be a mistake
at dinner I’ll sprinkle Black Death on your food which will possibly seem a little bit negative
and maybe even excessively pessimistic
but I want a man who’s strong enough to deal with anything that may come,
because if you stick around there will inevitably be things that will require some strength to
deal with
and this seems like a good way to see what you’re made of
afterwards as we walk I will suck arsenic off your thumb, because I’ve always had a
tendency to be a bit forward at times, and you won’t stop me
instead painting your other fingers with cyanide and mercury, offering them to me
and while trying to kill each other is probably not generally considered a sign of a Date That
Is Going Well
still this seems like a positive sign and I lick and suck your poisoned offerings
you’ll promise me a movie but take me to the morgue
because you heard they’re doing an autopsy and those always seem cool to watch on TV,
but instead the morgue will be closed so we’ll break in
scrambling over a brick wall, which is hard to do in high heels,
scraping skin off my knees and tearing the hem of my skirt a little as we do so;
sitting inside on steel benches we will talk about previous relationships which is something
You Absolutely Must Not Do On A First Date,
we’ll even talk about our worst dates
and friends’ worst dates
and the worst dates of people we haven’t met but which we have heard others talk about
just to tempt fate
you’ll take me to an absinthe bar which sounds cultured and French and classy but will in
fact be
a bunch of your drunk mates and some hookers they arranged for on payday
all rolling around out of their minds on absinthe,
although I suspect they’ll just get drunk first and then start drinking Palmolive dishwashing
liquid
which is possibly lethal or at the very least a Very Bad Idea;
I’ll be shy and quiet because I often am around strangers
but one of the hookers will put her hand up my skirt and grab my arse and pull me to her
and kiss me with bubbly lips
and you will catch my eye and we’ll giggle at
all of it
we’ll walk along and talk and at some point I’ll comment that we’re walking past my
favourite restaurant
you’ll grab my hand and pull me around to the back, where you’ll jump into the dumpster
while I stand there, feeling a bit awkward, while you scuffle around inside it
emerging with a slightly dented disposable container of what was once three éclairs
but are now a bit smooshed
and as you pull yourself up and out of the dumpster, a police car will drift by
and they’ll notice you and come over and talk in Stern Voices and ask Serious Questions
while I stand there, feeling a bit awkward
and eventually they’ll let us go, after a warning Not To Do This Kind Of Thing Again
and as we walk away you’ll tell me that one cop groped you a little while patting you down
and I’ll think “lucky cop”
we will sit on the cracked lino floor of a laundromat
eating smooshed day-old éclairs with our fingers
with a cold breeze coming through the window beside us where a baseball bat has knocked
out a corner of the glass
and a guy, who smells of dead sheep, will be masturbating while watching someone else’s
clothes in the third dryer from the left,
which thumps with each turn,
and I will shiver a little from the cold and you’ll wrap your jacket over my shoulders
you’ll walk me home through drunken crowds that push and pull us with them and I’ll
realise that at some point during the evening
one of your sneakers has gone missing and instead you’ve just got one sneaker and one
sock,
which fortunately doesn’t have a hole in it,
and at some point you’ll hold my hand and my scraped knees will still hurt and then after a
bit you’ll turn to me and kiss me
but we’ll be off just a little bit, so your kiss will be awkwardly only half on my mouth and
we’ll laugh and rest our foreheads together and you’ll try again and this time the kiss will
work
but we haven’t even met yet
so here I am sitting,
waiting for you to ask for my number
and then come knock on my door
while I’ll be wearing blue high heels and a top that shows off my cleavage and a skirt that
used to be a dress but I didn’t like it as a dress so had it cut down to just a skirt
and I’ll say “oh, am I dressed okay? should I change into something a bit more casual?”
and you’ll say “no no, you’ll be fine”
and in hindsight this will be a mistake
at dinner I’ll sprinkle Black Death on your food which will possibly seem a little bit negative
and maybe even excessively pessimistic
but I want a man who’s strong enough to deal with anything that may come,
because if you stick around there will inevitably be things that will require some strength to
deal with
and this seems like a good way to see what you’re made of
afterwards as we walk I will suck arsenic off your thumb, because I’ve always had a
tendency to be a bit forward at times, and you won’t stop me
instead painting your other fingers with cyanide and mercury, offering them to me
and while trying to kill each other is probably not generally considered a sign of a Date That
Is Going Well
still this seems like a positive sign and I lick and suck your poisoned offerings
you’ll promise me a movie but take me to the morgue
because you heard they’re doing an autopsy and those always seem cool to watch on TV,
but instead the morgue will be closed so we’ll break in
scrambling over a brick wall, which is hard to do in high heels,
scraping skin off my knees and tearing the hem of my skirt a little as we do so;
sitting inside on steel benches we will talk about previous relationships which is something
You Absolutely Must Not Do On A First Date,
we’ll even talk about our worst dates
and friends’ worst dates
and the worst dates of people we haven’t met but which we have heard others talk about
just to tempt fate
you’ll take me to an absinthe bar which sounds cultured and French and classy but will in
fact be
a bunch of your drunk mates and some hookers they arranged for on payday
all rolling around out of their minds on absinthe,
although I suspect they’ll just get drunk first and then start drinking Palmolive dishwashing
liquid
which is possibly lethal or at the very least a Very Bad Idea;
I’ll be shy and quiet because I often am around strangers
but one of the hookers will put her hand up my skirt and grab my arse and pull me to her
and kiss me with bubbly lips
and you will catch my eye and we’ll giggle at
all of it
we’ll walk along and talk and at some point I’ll comment that we’re walking past my
favourite restaurant
you’ll grab my hand and pull me around to the back, where you’ll jump into the dumpster
while I stand there, feeling a bit awkward, while you scuffle around inside it
emerging with a slightly dented disposable container of what was once three éclairs
but are now a bit smooshed
and as you pull yourself up and out of the dumpster, a police car will drift by
and they’ll notice you and come over and talk in Stern Voices and ask Serious Questions
while I stand there, feeling a bit awkward
and eventually they’ll let us go, after a warning Not To Do This Kind Of Thing Again
and as we walk away you’ll tell me that one cop groped you a little while patting you down
and I’ll think “lucky cop”
we will sit on the cracked lino floor of a laundromat
eating smooshed day-old éclairs with our fingers
with a cold breeze coming through the window beside us where a baseball bat has knocked
out a corner of the glass
and a guy, who smells of dead sheep, will be masturbating while watching someone else’s
clothes in the third dryer from the left,
which thumps with each turn,
and I will shiver a little from the cold and you’ll wrap your jacket over my shoulders
you’ll walk me home through drunken crowds that push and pull us with them and I’ll
realise that at some point during the evening
one of your sneakers has gone missing and instead you’ve just got one sneaker and one
sock,
which fortunately doesn’t have a hole in it,
and at some point you’ll hold my hand and my scraped knees will still hurt and then after a
bit you’ll turn to me and kiss me
but we’ll be off just a little bit, so your kiss will be awkwardly only half on my mouth and
we’ll laugh and rest our foreheads together and you’ll try again and this time the kiss will
work
but we haven’t even met yet
so here I am sitting,
waiting for you to ask for my number
and then come knock on my door
Biography
Paula Harris lives in New Zealand, where she writes poems and sleeps in a lot, because that's what depression makes you do. She won the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize and the 2017 Lilian Ida Smith Award, and her chapbook "i make men like you die sweetly" will be published in September 2019 by dancing girl press. Her poetry has been published in various journals, including Berfrois, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Barren, SWWIM, Glass, The Spinoff and Landfall. She is extremely fond of dark chocolate, shoes and hoarding fabric.
Twitter: paulaoffkilter Instagram: paulaharris_poet Facebook: paulaharrispoet Website: paulaharris.co.nz |