Making Out in the Theatre After School
Prose poetry by Charles Spring
Velvet curtains our Caucasian silk lips contorted backstage next to wood shaving-covered steps. We wrap ourselves in the stitching, but my hands shake on your thinned waist. You whisper Did you lose more weight? I answer Am I doing this right? Our lips veer, my head light. Where am I? My moan mic’d with no audience but this sophomore who hickied my neck three days ago. We aren’t supposed to see each other without my mom knowing. You pull away, I clutch you near.Don’t leave me. What if when you leave, you don’t text back? Tangled in felt mesh, mixed on musical wood creaking to the beat of brazen young lovers figuring out why they need to touch just to speak. Pull my hair and call me bitch. I moan again but you resist. We’ll be late. When we separate, I grin a thin pinned smile. My mouth sours as my cheeks shrink. You notice my thinning portrait take center stage. Did you eat today? The stage carousels my capacious stomach. Are we in love yet? I ask with only the light of the lobby peering in. If my lips asked am I thin enough, I’m sorry.
About the writer
Charles Spring is a gay, nonbinary writer and college graduate from Tampa’s University of South Florida. Majoring in Creative Writing, his repertoire is eclectic. He uses writing to explore his personal life experiences, but also enjoys world building, fantasy, and comedy screenplay writing. While he is a Florida native, Charles decided to move to Boston, Massachusetts after graduating to start a writing career in unfamiliar territory. When he is not writing or working, he enjoys being reclusive in his room full of 58 stuffed animals or walking around the Charles River on sunny days. His dream is to one day live permanently in New York City to begin writing for television and ultimately having his own show. Until then, he enjoys late night writing sessions with fast food and Final Fantasy OSTs in the background “because feels.”
|