Bubble gum on my shoe reminds me of you.
Bright yellow flip-flops flipping and flopping,
Flip and flop, flipping and flopping up
The gum imprinted freeway.
Bubble gum on my shoe reminds me of you.
Cherryminted Berrytinted lips
On someone else’s mouth
Working someone else’s tongue and someone else’s teeth.
They’ve left traces of their dental work all over your body.
Chewed
And not swallowed
But spat back out again to stick to the bottom of my sandal, just
Like the sliding up and down lump
In the back of a throat.
Like the slow numbing sensation of a held smile
Like saliva sitting in the bitten cheek
Like words stuck between the tongue and the teeth.
Bubble gum on my shoe reminds me of you.
Nichole Squire 