12/21 Porcupines Dilemma

12/21 Porcupines Dilemma

I used to be one tough cookie.
I’d give you a cavity and a root canal with my eyes.
I used to only watch the nature programs on TV about animals that ripped each other to shreds.
I’d laugh.
I used to have a Mohawk.
My Dad told me a young woman shouldn’t do that to her hair.
It’s too masculine.
So I began calling it a woman’s Mohawk.
Wo-hawk.
I liked that I had to duck to get into the L train to go back to Brooklyn.
So I had a Wohawk and you had a Mohawk.
And we met on a rooftop on the Fourth of July cause we saw each other’s hair through a sea of anti-voluminous do’s.
And before the sunset, there were fireworks.
Like Sharks swimming to each other on a rough sea we parted the ocean of people.
I touched your Mo and you touched my Woah, but you really touched my heart.
You called me Porcupine and I called you Hedgehog.
We were Native American
We were punk rock
We were weirdos
We were tough cookies
Steel Sinckerdoodles
Leather Gingerbread Men
Two tough cookies.
Your apartment smelled like matches and looked like a bomb shelter.
It was a cool night and we shut the windows and sat on the bed.
Not touching. But so close.
Staring contest.
My skin tightens and a chill runs down my spine. It sprints down my legs and back up my sides. It completes its marathon at my mouth and I’m covered in goose bumps.
So is he.
National Geographic needs to do a bit on Porcupines and Hedgehogs.
To touch you and prick you? Or watch you shiver?
That night I froze.
Sacrificed heat so we wouldn’t inflict damage upon each other.
Two tough cookies are too sharp to keep each other warm.