I should have worn sneakers.
That part of my skin between my big toe and the other is gonna split.
I use too much calf when I walk.
I’m going to miss this dog when I leave.

“Hey pup,” says the man placing a red and white model plane into the trunk of his white car next to the other red and white model planes.

We talk about dogs, his dogs, a rotweiler-greyhound mix with enormous legs and another one he doesn't like as much.

The second he’s only watching for a friend, and there’s no way he can keep it.

It fights his dog and jumps on the table and eats all the food in the kitchen and eats the sofa.

“Leave a piece of meat on the table? Forget about it.”

He is short and stout and slow-speaking and if any other seventeen-year-old girl was in my shoes they would stare straight forward and refuse to look this man in the eye.

They would call him a molester, a rapist, a pervert, all for trying to start a conversation in the motherfucking park.

He gets into his car. “Nice talking to you” and I know it’s been nice because I can tell no one has listened to him all day.

Art:

maryhoulihan.blogspot.com