Atlantis

"It'll be quick.
I haven't gotten any in a few weeks."
Oh. So you slept with someone else?
"No."
It rolled off her tongue like muscle memory.
She said it while grabbing
for the only thing that mattered.
I felt sick to my stomach,
but my dick was screaming at me
to stop being so soft.
We fucked like dogs.
The look in her eyes said it all.
I knew she'd seen him again.
The San Diego resident with that apartment
and that fake appreciation for wine.
He probably told her I was swine.
A complete asshole that used her,
guess he might have been half right.
If it wasn't him it was the other one,
the one with a son and yellow walls.
She said he wasn't like me
he didn't smoke around her;
at least not real cigarettes.
When things got tense he'd smoke a filly;
it tasted like grape.
Or maybe she just met someone new.
A stranger at a bar
who she'd fuck in the parking lot.
But I'll never know,
see I was never good at pulling her teeth.
A year ago I would have fought,
would have dragged the dirty details
out of her.
Now I'm just numb.
I recognize defeat.
I've got no right to make her wait.
Marcellus said it was,
"Just pride fucking with me,
that sting."
I pulled out and she said,
"Love isn't just a series of hard-ons you know."
She rolled off me, my dick still throbbing and wet.
I zipped up my pants
and got out of the car.
Lit my last cigarette and walked along the park.
Her taillights, her eyes
were red on my back.
The words echoed in the sand,
through the wet grass and trees,
through the bleachers,
and through the other cars.
I stood on the diamond,
on the stump.
The grass always seemed greener
surrounded by that clay dirt.
"That slight sting, that's pride
fuckin' wit ya.
Fuck pride!
Pride only hurts, it never helps.
Fight through that shit."
I was Atlantis
in the middle of Los Angeles;
and frankly,
I didn't wanna be found.