self-portrait as an expired bottle rocket

My mind’s like a steel trap, my grandpa used to say. Sprung. And so everything I do is for the girls who looked up when someone they loved told them gullible was written on the ceiling, not because we didn’t get it, but because the fear of disappointing them was too scary, to stop selling them the fantasy–what would they do to me when it was gone? When I told them I knew what was what? I needed the radio delay before oh or I get it or that’s clever or, really, any combination that would result in that look that’s vacant in the mouth and sharp behind the eyes, or maybe it’s the other way around, but the one they make before they kiss you, the one we like in the same way we like loud house shows and sour candy and ghost stories, and I am captive when the bartender tells me he never knows why bright girls pretend to hide it, just don't get it, but you don’t fall so hard when you’re barely hovering like an angel two inches above the blacktop, ethereal enough but accessible enough. They can all swear they saw me–no, had me–in their palms, even just for a second, and I can't learn new tricks but I will always remember how to beg.