The Journalist (Rising Action)

Without the kindofs and littlebits,
I almost told her she was beautiful.

"You're kind of a little bit attractive.
Just a little." she wrote to my morning.

And her half-assed sweetness was not
enough to keep my chauvinistic distance.

She thought she knew what she was doing,
slowly shaving my bare barren masculinity,

each razorstroke a call she did not pick up,
trying to teach me something unlearnable.

So I began to submit to her subtle saveface
insecurities like petals to a sweltering day.

I would reply quietly to her two-am texts of
"You up..," a question without a questionmark.

And no matter what she thinks, she is not
Just Another girl to challenge me because of

the reality that too few do. Too few girls
are actually slouching women. So she acts,

and I counter with my equal and opposite reacts,
our arrogance serving as both trench and bunker.

When I saw her again, I didn't know which would
suffice in satisfying our apparent awkwardnesses:

tenderness or antagonism, tenderness and antagonism;
a hug and a peck-- or a smack across the face?