A city full of pain pills and tattoos defend me

The way he reached into her pocket for the key made her think of trying on swimsuits in junior high. Saturday and the backs of her thighs sticking to the Marlboro-soaked naugahyde as her grandfather cursed at old women in Camrys clutching a cigarette between his teeth and the steering wheel in his mottled brown hands. Foghat mumbling out of the speaker between the glovebox and the "Fuck it right off there, Grandma!"s and the smoggy exhalations of passing busses. The trip to the mall when she smoked some of his stolen cigarettes with her friend Stormy and wore the lipgloss her mother asked her not to wear. Shimmying into swimsuits in a cold dressing room lit by flickering green flourescent lights, she and Stormy had admonished their own bodies while cattily complimenting one another on how no, really, no, no I am th fat one. Just look at this cottage cheese! Buying swimsuits that were never meant to be swam in. Swimsuits intended for languishg about in and sipping sun-warmed Diet Cokes while licking nuclear-orange powder from their thirteen-year-old fingertips with each time their hands emerged from the family-sized bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. Swimming suits meant to sell their wares to the boys who pierced their ears in March and walked around the pool in June wearing cologne and hats and sporting hoop earrings and their best attempt at swagger while leaving their shirts in the car.
The way he reached into her pocket for the key reminded her of making out between popsicle bites and finding third base to be more fun than Stormy had described. It made her grateful that the groceries were in her arms and not his.