Girl Items

by Christina Delia


I like to shove things in MY POCKETS.  MY HANDS, for instance.  When we go out to a club or a bar, I take MY GIRL ITEMS with me.  I do not take a purse.  Instead, I put in MY POCKETS:

      1. MINTS
      2. LIP GLOSS
      3. I.D.
      4. WALLET (with silver chain that loops through MY PANTS)

      I do not own a cell phone.  Everyone has one, but I still think they're too flashy.  I don't like to draw attention to MYSELF; that's why I use CLEAR GEL DEODORANT.  It's made me the secure young woman I am today.  No more chalky whiteness on MY CHIC BLACK SWEATERS and CHEAP DRESS PANTS.  Now I can go back to doubting THE GUY hovering over MY GIN AND TONIC, instead of THE GAL I know MYSELF to be.  He looks like The Type to try to slip Something in Someone Else's drink.  There is a tattoo on his arm.  A pot leaf and the word, "Lessa."  I think that perhaps he cannot spell.  I poke him and he smiles, leans in, a little too close to MY GIN.  I grab for it, place it on MY OTHER SIDE, next to the pumpkin-colored girl who is complaining about how her boyfriend hates her tan, her thighs.

      I poke THE GUY.
      "Who is Lessa"?
      GRINS (dopey, lopsided, somehow enticing)
      "You're a good kisser?"
      "Lessa!"
      I POINT AT HIS POT LEAF.  HE LOOKS DOWN AT HIMSELF.
      "Oh, she's my drug dealer.  Well, we broke up."
      (WARNING SIGN!  FEAR OF COMMITMENT!)
      "I'm sorry."
      "Yeah."
      I look around at MY FRIENDS talking to other guys, no one you'd find for keeps.  This one looks okay by his human shell, but I wouldn't know what to do with him.  When I was a little girl I once poked at a slug with a stick until MY MOM came outside and yelled.  She put it on a leaf and placed it over the neighbor's fence, for safe-keeping.

      (PROBABLY ON THE REBOUND.  I THINK HE'S FUNNY.  SLUG FUNNY.)

      I put MY HANDS in MY POCKETS and pull out MY MINTS.  I offer them to him, and he takes a few, looking me up and up and seeming like he wants to get down.  I reach out for MY MINTS, but he says

      "Let me"

      and places MY MINTS with His Hands in MY POCKET, touching on MY GIRL ITEMS.  He pulls out MY LIP GLOSS and says "hemp-flavored?"  
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