Matti Gleason

It's easy!

under the guise of solo cups filled to the brim with cheap beer straight from the keg to think
everything is ok
chilling with a blunt in your hand not noticing you had spilled said beer down your shirt and now
you’ve entered a wet t-shirt contest for the frat boys'
pleasure
because the boys pay attention to you, they still want you. because you’re still nice, polite, and
young
and you just need that gratification to erase what your mom said about your weight last week on
the first phone call you’ve had in about a month
you’re just drunk enough for them to glance your way, but not drunk enough to feel disgust fill
your mouth like vomit at their glance
it doesn’t matter if they call you a slut after it’s done, it’s still your conquest and it means your
pretty enough or fuckable enough, it doesn’t matter which
you don’t even need to come and that’s ok because they were never going to make you anyway
you just like the heartache you feel the next morning, the inevitable heartbreak because a piece
of you will always be with them even if they forget you and ask what’s your name
but this is your favorite part
because it gives you a reason to be sad when sometimes you don’t need a reason at all
the times when you reach for
Boys, Blunts, Booze (BBB)
because you don’t understand your mind and it plays tricks on you all the time
and for a little while, you can control your pain only until the next time
it’s easy! to be happy

Matti lives in Eugene, Oregon, and is as rare to find in the wild as Bigfoot herself. She is working on her debut novel, which will probably never be published, and her chapbook, which she hopes to publish soon. She is about to start her second bachelor's degree at the University of Oregon at the prime age of twenty-five because she lacks direction in her life.

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