twenty year old skin

By John Verion

Twenty year old skin is luminescent.

She's 21. Just old enough to buy a drink. Has no idea what the world holds. Has no concept that within 10 years she will probably be unhappily married and that within twenty years perhaps divorced for the first time.

Twenty year old skin that glows nearly white against a black sweater when she bends over to hold her cue. Twenty year old smile that flashes across twenty year old cheeks and dances between twenty year old eyes.

A twenty year old teasing laugh that thinks she has the world by the balls. A twenty year old mouth that plays smartly with a man and yet wants to be loud enough to scare away her still lingering twenty year olds insecurity.

Twenty year old sass over twenty year old ass. With a grin and wink she offers to teach a twenty year olds dance.

21. Old enough, but too young. Old enough to drink, too young to drink in a bar alone. She looks great in a twenty year old body -- somehow like a bulging red tomato on the vine.

They tell her I am divorced and she pouts sympathetically. She has no idea what she is playing with. They laugh. Twenty year old wisdom doesn't belong in a twenty year old body. I laugh and shake my head. She stirs my drink with her finger -- I saw that in a movie twenty years ago. I leave it for the twenty year old.

The four man bill comes, she quibbles over the math. She can't even remember that she drank half of it herself. She lost her purse under her chair and can't work the snap. So who wants to the give the twenty year old a ride home?

Outside in the air holding up twenty year old hair, she leans against the wall and gives the bar back half of their drinks. In twenty years she's never done that... not ever! She waits for a cab in a twenty year olds heels covered with white from the salt on the ice. I'll bet she hates that tomorrow.

She makes half of what a twenty year old needs to drive the car a twenty year old wants when she lives alone in a new apartment. No roomie -- she can't stand how immature other twenty year olds are. She spends half of the half she makes supporting a lifestyle she can't afford and in her twenty year old mind she will work overtime forever to make up the difference. Its worth it to the twenty year old with a twenty times 10 CD changer in the trunk and a remote starter.

She smokes cigarettes she'll wish she'd quit in twenty years. Smokes and chews gum in perfect twenty year old teeth her parents worked over twenty years and paid in installments no twenty year old can appreciate.

We're getting cold and her coat's at home because a twenty year old doesn't wear one anymore. She gets in the cab and flashes twenty year old leg and for the first time this evening its not intentional. She can't pull the door handle without laughing at a joke you'd have to be drunk or twenty to understand.

I'm holding her license and her keys and the twenty year old has no idea she left them on the curb while she combed the puke from her hair. I drop it all in the envelope the bartender gives me and put a half roll of stamps on its face. Maybe she'll get it in a few days -- I hope it doesn't take twenty years.

Twenty year old skin is like snow before the foot prints, before the melting salt, and before the piss of life has turned it yellow.

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