Poetry By Melissa Boberg

         Alejandro Mallea CC




In My Fantasies I’m Wearing A Suede Jacket and a Really Cool Scarf

I already liked that song before you played it, and have I mentioned
I was in a commercial once? It made its rounds all the way to MTV but
Evidently nobody watches cable anymore, and
Evidently nobody on this F train recognizes MTV hips when they see them:
Like, unplug your headphones, you guys, these are celebrity curves, 
These are Cheesecake Factory Skinnylicious menu thighs! 
I left the house with a Post-It note at the hem of my dress
it’s just water retention! but it slid off somewhere,
I sweat like a fucking marine, and I want you to like looking at me.

You have the type of heart that probably swells when you like somebody 
But I’ve never seen you like that, and the thing is
I know I could be cooler, or more fun,
It’s just tough to focus on that while also
Looking thin and delicious and also
Remembering to answer you when you say something or even
Remembering to listen to you when you talk.
You were right about me from the beginning:
I’m like if somebody wrapped a stuffed bra around a clothespin and
I won’t make eye contact during sex, but that’s sort of because I’m always busy
Naming our kids after street signs in my head.

Don’t you think I know what a pill I’ve been?
It’s not like I’m completely clueless, I figured
You might tell me you were too smart to keep coming all the way out to Greenpoint
But what was I going to do, honestly,
Not take the shot? I got so sick the night we drank with your friends but
You were busy in the morning so I stole pills from your bathroom
And took the subway home. On the L, I realized
They were chocolate-covered Advil and I was like what the fuck, 
Are you twelve years old, you’re so, so, stupid and gross,
I think about that story all the time where you took your mom
To Panera Bread with your first-ever paycheck in ninth grade and
I want to melt myself into your mattress and inject you with a paralytic so
You can never leave. 

I wish you were here on the train and I wish you would
Really just go for it, reduce yourself to indulgence and I’m always looking for excuses
To pretend I was ever anything more than my primal instincts. 
When I told you I had the genes of a drug addict, you just looked at me 
Like you were glad my MetroCard was already in my hand. I know how to act like
I don’t want it, but you know that I do. My tongue is a park ranger
And your mouth is protected land I’ll smear with chocolate and acetaminophen,
What else would I be doing here? Under most conditions
I’d be revolted by an inability to swallow pills in a fully grown man but once
I saw a picture of Bella Hadid in those sunglasses you’re wearing. 

If I’m late to your place it’s because I jumped onto the tracks
Looking for the spark I need to burn myself down to the wax so
Then you can lather me into your skin like I’m oil and I’ll hang out
On your back all day under your cool fucking clothes, nose-deep
In the grooves of your vertebrate, looking around like so this is what it feels like
To be the hottest person on the F train. When somebody asks
About where you got that leather jacket hopefully you’ll get to talking and you’ll say
I used to have sex with this girl who was in an MTV commercial, she was alright, she was alright.

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Melissa Boberg is a writer based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her publications and other endeavors are indexed at www.melissaboberg.com