five minutes

The bottle–

to be spun–

was the only relic left over

from that kid’s game.

This fare was so much more mature

It would take us several bases beyond

whatever spin the bottle could have.

Once the rules were lain out

We fell upon that closet

like vulture-wolves

We cleared it of shoes and shoe racks and jackets and boxes.

Even The Grand Canyon wasn’t vast enough

to make room for our blossoming lust and curioisity

But this dank closet, with it’s ugly brown carpet

it was close enough.

We fell into a ritual, then

Boys spinning the bottle

girls squeeling, then debating over

whether it pointed at them or a neighbor

The couple

brought together by fate

would join hands– or not–

and close the closet door behind them.

The borderline nerd

with the calculator-watch

was granted a sudden cool

as the time keeper.

When five minutes wore itself into nothing

we’d count down like our liquored up parents on New Years Eve

“five… Four… THREE… TWO!… ONE!!!”

We’d throw open that door.

They’d tumbled out

or disengage lips

or hurriedly pull hands out of clothes

or hurriedly throw back on clothes.

I hung back

I hugged the shadows.

My heart pounded.

in fear and anticipation.

The only thing worse

than taking my five minutes in paradise

would have been the loss of face

resulting from denying the bottle’s gravitational pull on me.

So I spun the thing

it wobbled around

a handfull of rotations

and slowed, and slowed, and slowed endlessly.

As if she were true north and it were a magnet

the bottled pointed to that girl I didn’t know…

she was a sophisticated creation, far beyond my everyday reach.

She smiled a lie that said she’d been hoping it’d be me.

Catcalls and howls at this pairing painted my ears red.

(Never mind that there’d been catcalls and howls at all the pairings before)

She took me by the wrist and led me in

I tingled where she took me by the wrist and led me in.

Dark, but not dark as I’d've expected.

My shoulder blades propped by the uneven wall.

I grin and reach out for her, clumsy.

“Wait– do you want to do this?”

“Yes” I lie and then

“No” I admit

“Do you?” I settle on.

She shakes her head.

Our five minutes stretched out in time

like a wardrobe into Narnian space.

She told me things

that I promised myself would never leave that closet.

But they still shape me today

in ways

that groping, fondling, indulging our lust

never would have.

The countdown so soon

Creeps up under the crack in the door.

I am struck with panic.

We have broken the rules.

But she is in my arms and in my arms.

Her arms find their way beneath my shirt on my bare back.

Her mouth and my mouth

oh!

Those last precious seconds

last five minutes more

at least.

That was the last time we ever kissed like that. I never saw her again.

But she is still with me