Each step down her apartment stairway seemed shorter than the last,
Forcing me to trip down half of it.
Was it due to my hangover or my still being drunk?
Who is to say?

What I know is that I will never see that face again.
Though pretty and round,
Hopeful and sweet,
She never deserved a drifter like me.

She knew what this was when I found her at the bar.
The three other girls could’ve been hints.
But she still chose to laugh at my jokes and give me her name.
She chose to believe this was love, though it was only a game.

Her brown hair hung over her shoulder,
A fan forcing the fluttering I thought couldn’t be real.
But she was: I could feel her skin against mine
And her sweat drip on my chest.

Our panting breaths synced into one entangled harmony,
Each dependent on the other to form a song from jazz.
I began to hold her as the human she was...
The shower quickly washed that away.

I lent her my sweater
To keep her warm for the night,
Because Lord knows I wasn’t going to.
I’m never seeing that sweater again.