I’m sitting on the couch next to my best friend Kelli
when another wave of girls dressed in sleeveless crop tops
and ripped skinny jeans walks into the room carrying
flasks and Juuls and vapes and the hanging smoke
that was already around me has turned a fluorescent
green like the ceiling light that can change to red
if you ask Alexa without slurring your words too much.
I’m already over it, and it makes me wonder how Gatsby
threw so many parties; but then again, he wasn’t throwing
them to get drunk and put off his stats homework. A girl
I don’t know sits next to me with a bottle in her hand
and is amused by the Juul sitting on the coffee table--
so amused that she grabs it and slurs “whooz iz thiz?”
before she takes a hit and puffs a cirrus cloud of smoke
into my face, followed by, “it’z almost empty anyway.”
What an oddity, I think as I sip water from my cherry coke
bottle that I have refilled at least six times, that a person
could be so drunk that she might decide to share her spit
with a proper stranger. Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t
mind drunkenness. After all, Kelli’s straight and because
she’s plastered, she’s sitting next to me squeezing
my hand into the rips of her jeans because I said I was cold
and she wanted to warm me up, and I’m trying to explain
to her that might not be the best idea considering I’m “that”
lesbian at our school and people might just think she is the
partner of “that” lesbian, and she yells back at me, “I don’t
care what people think of me, Shell Bell,” and, “I’d be proud
to be dating you,” so I leave my hand. I guess people
probably won’t notice anyway. My roommate is too busy
on the couch opposite me making out with a boy she didn’t
know before this exact moment in time and now I’m thinking
again, what is with all this exchanging of wet DNA particles
from one party-goer to the next? Maybe I’m just peeved
because the girl I came here to see is not coming and
I’m sitting in a cloud of green vapor feeling like Gatsby
as he stares out from the dock, except I’m staring
at the door even though I know Daisy will not be the one
to walk through it if it should open. Vape girl starts to touch
everything on the coffee table and in the morning I would
tell myself I wish I would have paid more attention to her
because the host’s vape was stolen that night and that was
the end of the 25th St. house parties. Probably a good thing.
And when My Nick Carraway notices me staring at the door
across the room she leans herself over and whispers, “I’m tired,
we should leave.” And so I stand up with her, because I remember
how this green light that surrounds me now evaded Gatsby,
even when he thought he had it, even when Daisy did show up
to his party. So we beat on out the door, quite possibly into the past.
when another wave of girls dressed in sleeveless crop tops
and ripped skinny jeans walks into the room carrying
flasks and Juuls and vapes and the hanging smoke
that was already around me has turned a fluorescent
green like the ceiling light that can change to red
if you ask Alexa without slurring your words too much.
I’m already over it, and it makes me wonder how Gatsby
threw so many parties; but then again, he wasn’t throwing
them to get drunk and put off his stats homework. A girl
I don’t know sits next to me with a bottle in her hand
and is amused by the Juul sitting on the coffee table--
so amused that she grabs it and slurs “whooz iz thiz?”
before she takes a hit and puffs a cirrus cloud of smoke
into my face, followed by, “it’z almost empty anyway.”
What an oddity, I think as I sip water from my cherry coke
bottle that I have refilled at least six times, that a person
could be so drunk that she might decide to share her spit
with a proper stranger. Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t
mind drunkenness. After all, Kelli’s straight and because
she’s plastered, she’s sitting next to me squeezing
my hand into the rips of her jeans because I said I was cold
and she wanted to warm me up, and I’m trying to explain
to her that might not be the best idea considering I’m “that”
lesbian at our school and people might just think she is the
partner of “that” lesbian, and she yells back at me, “I don’t
care what people think of me, Shell Bell,” and, “I’d be proud
to be dating you,” so I leave my hand. I guess people
probably won’t notice anyway. My roommate is too busy
on the couch opposite me making out with a boy she didn’t
know before this exact moment in time and now I’m thinking
again, what is with all this exchanging of wet DNA particles
from one party-goer to the next? Maybe I’m just peeved
because the girl I came here to see is not coming and
I’m sitting in a cloud of green vapor feeling like Gatsby
as he stares out from the dock, except I’m staring
at the door even though I know Daisy will not be the one
to walk through it if it should open. Vape girl starts to touch
everything on the coffee table and in the morning I would
tell myself I wish I would have paid more attention to her
because the host’s vape was stolen that night and that was
the end of the 25th St. house parties. Probably a good thing.
And when My Nick Carraway notices me staring at the door
across the room she leans herself over and whispers, “I’m tired,
we should leave.” And so I stand up with her, because I remember
how this green light that surrounds me now evaded Gatsby,
even when he thought he had it, even when Daisy did show up
to his party. So we beat on out the door, quite possibly into the past.