Things I Learned About You Over Breakfast by Lauren Snell

your bottom teeth are crowded like the buildings in the city. as I watched you talk your lips moving with every word every expression I decided that I’d like to make homes out of each and every one of them. ________

it was the longest time I had ever had you in front of me besides the very beginning that I do not speak of three years ago. we smiled over the table you had black coffee and I arnold palmer I learned about your roots your parents your siblings. they shared the same mundane first names like yours. later I laughed when you told me your fathers word for an erection was a ‘chubby’ and I wondered later that night how could people as normal and nice as your parents seemed to be down in houston ever create somebody as troubled and as beautiful as you? ________ sometimes you bite your nails when you are anxious ________

you paid for breakfast just like men do or the men used to do in the movies. ________

there was something about myself that I discovered over breakfast maybe it was before or after or right now. it became very clear like the crystals I’d collect as a young girl that in the history of all the desirables I’ve endured in my existence there was not one that could even compare to how much I wanted you.