11PM at the IHOP

by Philipe AbiYouness

You take twenty minutes
to decide on your order.
 
In a house renowned for 
one thing,
 
you are torn
between yourself. 
 
Your salad, you say, 
is not fresh,
 
so you send it back. 
I don’t remember
 
what I was reaching for, 
or if you grabbed my wrist.
 
It could not have been salt or syrup
because I was eating a crepe.
 
What I remember next is 
how blue 
 
the booths were. 
How the Rite Aid was still closed. 
 
Across the street the sign read,
“under repair.”
 
“I don’t know,”
I said because I really did not know
 
why. Yes. These are new. 
 
I knew there was something
that was trying to get out
 
or swallow the outside in,
maybe there were gremlins
 
on the tip of my skin
that I was trying to send back.  
 
You can be so extreme sometimes. 
Five cigarettes at dinner
 
is a little dramatic, no?