THE EXTENT WHICH WE GO TO ESCAPE

It was a shame that we got so very high and drove so far
to go dance at a club where we were by far the prettiest people
who owned the most expensive shoes and the boys we came with
committed the most illegal acts and that made them holier
than thou.
the bartender gave us our drinks for free, for he wanted us to laugh
and talk to him in low coy words
but to his dismay I gave him my coldest "Why thank you"
and made sure
I lingered beautifully in the smoke in front of him long enough
to infuriate
him by taking extra long extra making him watch me light
my french cigarette,
take a long, heavenly drag, and with that drop it to the floor
underneath my long legs.
I turned and sauntered off thinking he was probably scuttling along 
to grab it
just as I opened the bathroom door or maybe he wasn't maybe
he wanted his bar to burn down
at this point.
I glanced in the mirror and saw a girl putting on lipstick which
made her look worse
possibly
a girl who thought herself to be glamorous
especially because she took such measure to put only the most 
glamorous
designer drugs into her size 6 body that she shoved into a size 4 
skirt not knowing
that she would look better if she opted for the bigger size and just
cut off the tags that 
loved to shout 'SIZE 6! SIZE 6!' in the most exclamatory fashion
but little did she know
her glamorous drugs were mostly laxatives and they were cut with
baby oil, but it was
worth her boyfriend's paycheck because at least
she was not ingesting
high doses of reality, for then she would surely die
as I felt I was going to if I couldn't get into a stall to pee
and miraculously a girl finally
stopped puking and I pushed past her
and threw the door closed
the usual graffiti on the back of the institution-like powder
blue door
unusually proclaimed He USED to LOVE You and in my hazy
state full of 300 micrograms of separate actuality that simple scrawl
in black permanent 
marker with no punctuation brought back so many memories
and I realized I was in 
love once long ago
long ago with something good and pure and my life now was just a
distraction pulling 
my attention away from the joy I could have had and I suddenly
knew why
the girl was throwing up...
and we drove so far.

Suzanne Lanza
2001