My favorite place to meet them was the food court at the mall of america.
Even then, I wet my lips and whimpered my eyes and watched them catch my scent across a veranda.

my jeans were skin tight, my thighs were still teenaged and all I wanted was a room key for a shopping spree.

Sometimes I’d let a sucker hang out of my mouth as I’d ride the escalators, a smoke signal of sorts, an invitation to approach, an invitation to spoil me rotten

We’d go to all my favorite stores and they’d use their American Express black cards to buy me whatever I wanted, no questions asked, just an unspoken handshake agreement, plausible deniability until the deal was sealed

sometimes we’d go back to their cars in the empty parts of the parking ramp

trick or treat I guess

Aching from a shallow throat

the mall was right by the airport, so a lot of lonesome pilot type would occupy the holiday inns and the la quintas and marriots and hiltons and super 8s.

I'd wade past a disinterested concierge, up the burgundy steps, the kind of place that will always smell like old cigarette smoke

Phil would encourage me to try a new lotion, he’d buy a few bottles and take me back to his hotel room. He always stayed in there one attached to the mall and I’d pretend to be his son if anybody asked
But they didn't

Kenneth had a big body, the kind I could hide under, and he would put his weight over me and enter me and crush me in the yellow light

One we’ll call Adam insisted I swallow a mystery pill if wanted to get paid and I was terrified but I did it anyway, Oh come on, it’s just viagra he sighed, as if my teenage virility wasn’t intrinsic to our transaction

Aching from a shallow throat

Have you seen the guts of a megamall? A mall is like a tooth, half hidden in the gums of the earth, and the roots are parking garages and fire escape routes and private entrances. One of the security guards I’d gained the favor of would play look out for me if I wanted to bring somebody down in the depths, all he wanted to do was watch.
So I let him.

I made myself a well
all for pennies tossed by strange men:
Open wide and seemingly bottomless,
Deceptively accumulative
Rich with it

At the end of the night i’d take my spending money and shopping bags and smoke ditch weed on top of the western parking ramp, one of my favorite places to recline and consider the perks of anonymity and I’d watch the sun go down while the other side of the horizon would glow from the airport.

And wait for my grandma to pick me up

Aching from a shallow throat