EROTICA.

[save The George Tavern]

I’m waiting to order a drink at the George’s tavern

The bar is short, the crowd is panicked

How else will they order their IPAs

Transfer money from savings to checkings to pay

The girl behind me has “totally written a cool erotica”

Her friends gush and moan

Thighs clasped as they chit chat about feminist theories

I scan the pub for a suitor of the night

Not too hot not too weird

The type you have to have a second glance at

And please no Guinness drinkers with beards 

Admit the sea of baby bangs and ironic baseball hats

I’m a critical cliche

But not in their way, in a totally cool way

The bar is humbling as I wait to order a drink

Conversation has dried up

Change the barrel- the keg please

“So how do you find… the pub?”

“No I don’t come here a lot”

The band announce their last song

And the crowd take it as an invitation to shuffle listlessly into the smoking hub

I avoid eye contact with an ex I never really dated

Get touched up by one I didn’t really date either

The barman comes my way

Cheap erotica has turned into a one woman male gaze play

I think about punching not ex in the face

And the consequences I’d have to face the next day

But the barman has asked me what I want to drink

Thanks, a pint of Peroni please