I never had the guts to rip a one-night-stand off
or actually, I never thought of doing it at all, back when I was single.
I hear stories from girls about how they usually sneak a twenty or a hundred
out of a guy’s wallet while he’s sleeping, because they think they’ve earned it somehow
and maybe they have, and I’m the one with the problem,
missed opportunities.

I know there have been a few times that I’ve checked my own wallet
before leaving a man’s bed, just in case he thought
he was owed something for being nice enough to fuck me.
And if a guy came back to my place, I always made sure to cram my own wallet
under the bathroom sink, behind the tampons and the towels
just in case.

____
Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press), In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy (Alien Buddha Press,) all published in 2018.

Photography by Alyssa Yankwitt.