Log from a frat party

Log From a Frat Party

By Abby Thatcher

“Get home safe Woman Kissing Sisyphus”

— Ivan Ilyin

Each instance a rejection,

and yet I pick up the boulder

and roll it up the hill

to the next girl in a sequined top.

Each time a no and each time

a lesson in what I should be saying.

I still mean the compliment,

you’re still beautiful,

but my spirit chips with each endeavor.

8 attempts and 8 rejections,

I begin to feel like the creepy man.

Who lets a girl act like this?

The end of the night,

a girl comes to me and says

“you’re the most beautiful girl at this party”

and I’d been looking at her the whole time,

wondering how she danced so freely,

A perpetual floater in my peripheral

because l never learned how to dance

for a place like this

and I ask her to kiss.

We do.

Her teeth hit mine

and I wonder whose fault it is,

the clash of bone reverberating in my soul.

Did she have the same night?

A rejection for each girl she talked to,

her roommate begging her to leave?

I give her my Instagram

and try not to hit the teeth this time

but she instead bites my chin.

It’s not my fault.

Sisyphus rolls the boulder up the hill,

and we must imagine me happy.