Apartment D.

Apartment D

by james bezerra

Remember that apartment where

the fiberglass was wilting in the shower?

That always seemed dark, but in a kind of sexy cave sort of way?

And always had the wet smell of cigarette smoke,

even in the mornings;

the way everything smells like pine on a hot afternoon in the forest?

The apartment where you came over with plastic grocery sacks

because your mom had taken you shopping and bought us food,

because we didn’t have any

and you pulled out a plastic jug of Early Times,

which we’d neither ever heard of before,

and said, “Mom says

we can mix it with stuff”

and changed my life?

For better or worse.

That apartment where,

when we couldn’t pay PG&E,

the neighbors let us run that orange extension cord

from their balcony across to ours?

And how it hung there slack and low in the middle,

sagging over the dumpsters and the flies.

How we could only plug in one thing at a time?

And how the music stopped if you had to blow dry your hair?

That apartment where,

the cat occasionally caught on fire?

She never did learn she couldn’t stroke

a candle with her tail?

And how we sat up, all of us,

all night, most nights, 
with just the CD player plugged in

and finger tips

strumming guitar strings lit by tea lights and

glowing Marlboro tips

and how the breeze through the open windows blew the smoke out through the kitchen?

Where everyone who came over always brought ice,

just in case the refrigerator was out again,

and because we always seemed to need ice?

Do you remember that apartment?

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