TheNoTell

Don’t look now- Damian Rogers

It’s like when you eat sour candy,
how the sugar-coated acid
twists your tongue into a knot.

At the Ambassador Roller Rink
no one would slow-skate with me.

A boy rolled over to you during the power ballad
and I turned into a pillar of salt.

No, that’s wrong. I mean, I felt a lot like a sand dune. Or like
that baby food jar our family member filled with volcanic ash.

I asked the DJ to help me prove I knew the secret moves
for transforming my body into four different letters—

Y: raise your hands to the sky.
M: touch your shoulders like a mountain range.
C: pull your belly toward the door.
A: place your palms over your head and pray.

He said no. He said we don’t play that song.

I said oh. I said wait, hold on;
I am changing into someone
completely different and better.

When I turned you were holding hands with a stranger,
the handle of his comb waved from his back pocket like a flag.

You vanished behind him like a rabbit 
hopping back into his magician’s black hat.

Then someone released the balloons.