2003-03-24 - 8:47 p.m.

“Saturday Night - A Pleasant Evening with Aisha” As addressed to Aisha (By the way, in hindsight I'm a fool):

You called me from down the street in Davis by way of a Pasadena phone

number. You’d been drinking. You’d be drinking more. We shout. We flirt. We

read poetry. We shout. We flirt. You heckle my poetry. We shout. We flirt.

You drunkenly recite your poetry. We wrestle inside of a joke – you ground

me, foot on my chest like an Amazon warrior conquering new land. We scribble

on the walls. We talk with Dan the birthday-boy. You tell me I’m a genius. I

feel rum, and kalhua, and vodka all at once as you kiss the back of my neck

and run away.

And then we walk outside and you yell, “Dan.” We walk down Sycamore and down

streets that have no names because I don’t know their names. We walk through

dark suburban alleyways. You shouting, “Dan,” because we don’t know that Dan

was buying his first bottle of Vodka – legally – while not even being 21 for

two hours. We went to the park. Conquered the playground. Spun our history

from mouth to ear as we drunkenly spun on a tire. At 2:30 in the morning we

met a cokehead. You want to be a cokehead, at least for one night. We smell

the citrus scent of lemon grass. We smell more flowers without names because

I do not know their names. I want to lean over and smell the Gerbera daisy

tucked behind your ear. You yell, “Dan,” but we’re more than a mile from

where he is.

We walk to your dorm and talk of Saddam Hussein and your mother’s homeland

that fought long bloody wars against Saddam Hussein. My homeland invests a

few weeks of war against the regime of Saddam Hussein once a decade.

We are at 324 Ryerson for maybe three, maybe two, or maybe four minutes

before we go down to AmPm, named so because it is open all through the Am

and all through the pm. It’s three something in the morning. You tell me I’m

a genius. With food in hand we’re locked out of your dorm room. You walk to

another building without a name because I don’t know its name to borrow a

moment of time from a friend with a key.

Up at your dorm room we trade childhood war stories, the scars of our

lifetime. You hate your father and I hate your father too, because you hate

him. I beg you to give me poetry that I can show the world. You show me

pictures of you strangled by modesty in a scarf. Your war stories twist all

those pillars of modesty into hypocrisy. And you hate your father because he

thinks you are a liar. And I hate your father because he thinks you are a

liar and that makes him a liar. A liar with his fatherhood. A liar with his

faith. Just as the Imams that lied to themselves and to their Allah as they

touched you. I show you more of the words I’ve written in my lifetime. You

tell me I’m a genius because I’m honest. I use your name in the third person

and I love it. You lay down on your roommate’s bed. Your roommate said don’t

lay on her bed but she left for somewhere in the world without a name

because I don’t know its name.

I’ve told you I’m going to write you a poem. You stare at me with your gun

barrel eyes and put your hand in mine. I crawl into bed with you. A moment

passes. I kiss you. And then I kiss you. And you kiss me and hours pass

while you’re naked except for a bunched by I Love L.A. T-shirt. I stare at

your body and think of the poetry I’ll write you. I don’t close my eyes

enough when I kiss your body. When I touch your body. Your entire body/ I

tell you that you’re beautiful. Whenever you are honest you should admit

that to yourself. We hold each other as tight as two bodies can be. If we

could skin each other to be even closer maybe we would, but we’re not

supposed to be on your roommate’s bed and that would be a bloody beautiful

mess. You whisper in my ears, ‘I love you Rob Roy.” Your breath leaves my

earlobe wet with alcohol. I say, “You’re a genius, Aisha.” We kiss and we

kiss and we kiss. You lick my earlobe as if you were curing my case of the

gun-in-mouth blues. As realize as my hands grip your tits that I’m touching

my desire. That my cock, my dick, has been touched by my desire. That I’ve

buried my mouth between your legs and licked the pussy, the cunt, of my

desire. Oh fuck, I’ve written you a lonely ode. Tell me I’m a genius again

while your dark eyes stay closed through out most of the night. But when

those beautiful eyes are open they have the power of life and death when

they stare me down.

I kiss you and you kiss me. I sleep for a few hours but the clanking in the

dorms wakes me up and I have to touch you more. I’ve been sleeping with my

shoes on and my pants on. I have to touch you more. I strip down to only my

socks. I touch you more.

You look at the sunlight coming in from the window. You have to be going to

Pasadena soon. I have to go to work soon.

For another hour we lay together, touching each other, and kissing each

other in various and wonderful places. You’ve kissed my scar that’s ripped

across the top of my head beside my Mohawk that you like. I kiss you

everywhere, including the red star that I drew on your neck while you said

that you’d be my girlfriend and Dan’s girlfriend for a week. That I drew

before you ever screamed, “Dan,” out loud into the two AM streets of Davis.

Before I promised you poetry. And then when I couldn’t wait any longer I got

up and got dressed and kissed your shoulder, just an inch of your naked

body. And you said, “I had a pleasant evening, Rob Roy.” I walked to work

and you left for Pasadena where you would be for the next week.

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