I’m sitting on the couch
watching a horror movie

and eating Pad Thai
with crushed peanuts,

even though I am allergic.
So what if my throat shrinks

when the one thing
I really need to talk about

is a decade old
and growing.

Words tumble in my mouth,
clunky and expired

like bodies in an industrial dryer.
A memory looping, looping.

I think about Brandy
in I Still Know

What You Did Last Summer,
how her scream fell out

with the dead laundress,
but snagged

at Mekhi’s spontaneous
tracheotomy.

Like Miss Norwood,
I’ve developed calluses

on my fingers from counting
how many times I’ve relived

a drunken summer party.
How many times I had too many

wine coolers washed down
with agave-flavored peer pressure.

My throat closes up
when I remember how

I walked into that room voluntarily,
his tongue the only hook in my lip.

Our clothes the only dirty
linen tumbling.

Dreadlocked Jack Black
was stoned when he died,

garden shears
piercing his Hawaiian shirt.

I too have been impaled
while intoxicated.

And I can tell you
senses are not dulled,

but alive and kicking
the sheets off the bed.

Sometimes your friend
is the man in the slicker,

holding an ice hook
to your trembling body

daring you to move
on from the summer.

As I spoon rice noodles
into my mouth

I taste the sweet nuttiness
and watch the credits roll.