SoMa Literary Review

Denny's

By Steven Hoadley

I didn't quite know what to make of her.
We sat in that cheap restaurant
surrounded by the old and broken
and the young and stupid.

We drank beer and Diet Pepsi.
Me - bedraggled, beaten and bothered.
Her - taut, tight and glowing.

She said she was attracted to me.

Was it my bad skin or my stuttering speech?
Perhaps she liked what I said earlier,
which I'd long forgotten.

"I don't like your writing," she said.
"I don't either," I answered.

I finished my beer.
she sipped her Pepsi through a straw.

"Why do you write about such terrible things?"
"Because I don't know about any nice things."

She talked incessantly.
I stared shamelessly.

"I like you," she said.
"That'll change," I answered.

She laughed.
I didn't.

I called her the next day.

No answer.

Also by Steven Hoadley on SoMa Literary Review:

The Life and Daily Death of Sam Mackie

Episode One: Thoroughly Bad James

Episode Two: Even Jesus Farted
Episode Three: A Love Story

Episode Four: Dave's Dementia

Episode Five: The Last Straw

Bedtime, Barbra Streisand can Shove Her Memories up Her Ass,
A Midnight Poem That Had to be Written Before Sleep Could Be Had, One Year,
Sunday Morning Coffee, The Rejection, A Reason to Move, The San Ramon War Protest, 86'd Again, Youth, Denny's, Karma, Suffering of an Idiot & Poem for all Western Civilization