poem of the day 09.20.13

guinness

we were all eighteen years-old

just out of high school

we were going to the beach in delaware

to drink beer and fuck eighteen year-old girls

right out of their bikini bottoms

calvin was going to have his sister

buy us a case of guinness

so that we could celebrate being eighteen

by drinking good beer in delaware

and fucking eighteen year-old girls

in colby’s uncle’s trailer

when we left for the beach

calvin snuck the case of guinness in a gym bag

and slid it into colby’s trunk

while his mother lectured us boys about

drinking beer at the beach

and tried to warn us off of eighteen year-old girls

because calvin’s mother didn’t want a drunk for a son

or a grandkid before her fiftieth birthday

but none of us listened to her

we were too excited to get out of high school

too excited to get out of pittsburgh for the week

anxious for the beach and beer

and the firm bodies of eighteen year-old girls

when we got to the beach

colby flipped open his trunk and slid out the gym bag

we crowded around a table

and opened it like we were unveiling a treasure

it wasn’t a case of guinness

it was a case of genesee cream ale in dented cans

calvin, said his sister must’ve misheard him

still, we had a couple cans anyway

and celebrated being eighteen

it didn’t get any better for us at the beach

because most of the eighteen year-old girls were still in school

the beach was littered with older, sagging couples

college women who were out of our league

so we drove around delaware

we bought a used television set

and sat at colby’s uncle’s trailer drinking the genesee

and watching tv

that night i got a horrible pain in my testicles

it kept me up all night and into the morning

i laid on the couch watching tv

and thinking that i was going to die

when colby woke up he joked that maybe it was the shitty beer

that caused my pains

still, my old man had to drive five hours

from pittsburgh to delaware to pick me up

we hid the genesee back in calvin’s gym bag

which was a shame because the first thing my old man said

when he got to delaware was

i could sure use a beer

and he couldn’t even have one at home

because the pain in my testicles got so bad

we had to go straight to the emergency room

the doctor said that it could be a twisted vein

or a venereal disease

which made me think about

all of those eighteen year-old girls

i wouldn’t be fucking in colby’s uncle’s trailer

the beer i wouldn’t be drinking because i needed surgery

i was less picky about genesee versus guinness

while in a hospital gown

when i woke up from the surgery

my parents and the doctor told me

that the vein had been twisted

and that i’d lost a testicle

i’d still be able to have kids, the doctor said

while i wondered how’d explain having one nut

to an eighteen year-old girl

or one that was older

when calvin and colby came back from the beach

they visited me

colby said the week was pretty much a drag

calvin said they still had a few can of guinness left

genesee, colby reminded him

it was still good, calvin said

i told them that i’d had a hernia operation

instead of losing a testicle

because i didn’t know how to explain that shit

to two eighteen year-old guys

then we all talked about being out of high school

and being eighteen years-old

and how many eighteen year-old girls there were in pittsburgh

for us to try and fuck all summer

before colby went away to college

and calvin went and got a full-time job

for some trucking company located down

by a make-shift beach on the allegheny river