To Wendy, Who Left a False Eyelash on the Toilet Seat by Casey Smith
Associate poetry editor Kenley Alligood on today’s bonus poem: Maybe all of us, like the speaker of this poem, have met someone like Wendy, a truly unapologetic whirlwind of a person. Or maybe it’s that we all kind of want to. In “To Wendy…” Casey Smith has given us a voice which is wryly funny and deeply sincere, self deprecating and endearing. So here’s to Wendy. We hope you love her as much as we do.
To Wendy, Who Left a False Eyelash on the Toilet Seat
I am sitting on the tacky floor of a frathouse bathroom
in a town I have never been in, ten drinks drunk—maybe
twelve? I didn’t watch them mix the punch, but dear god,
forgive me, because I wore my best lipstick for this, and it
was not worth it, like, at all. I don’t think the boy without a face
whose hair I just pulled would give a fuck if the deep red
blurred down my chin, and you
certainly didn’t: you, Wendy, the reason that for a brief
moment I was only the second-drunkest person
in this tilted-on-its-axis bathroom. You,
who I didn’t notice because you were stripped naked on your side
in the tub in an effort to keep the vomit off your velvet dress,
and the white of your skin blended in with the white of the enamel. You
were inhumanly quiet while I was dry-heaving into
the toilet, which was really polite because I don’t like people watching
me get sick. When I pulled the lever down, you rested
your cleft chin on the rim. You were like, Do you have your phone?
and you were so cute, honestly—cute
in a way that only girls can be, so much cuter than most of the
dumb boys at this fucking party, even if I was beginning to feel the cold
of your vomit seeping into the grout underneath my knees,
and I was like, Do you need to make a call?
and you were like, I think I’m dying,
and if I’m dying, I want to hear The New York Dolls one last time,
and I said, Can I keep you from dying?
and you said, Play “Trash.”
Wendy, time bends in places like this with people like you, your
French toes tapping along to the swirling guitars,
every once in a while, wandering
off and latching onto the bass from outside that rattled through
the gap between the door and the ground. The entire ghastly room
was leaning in to look at you, myself included: the mirror was sliding off the wall
to catch you, the ceiling light fluttered like a nervous heart,
the cabinet doors were about to come unhinged
just to get a glimpse, and I was like, I like your eyebrows.
You held the hem of my skirt between your finger and thumb,
and you were like, I like your clothes! and I was like, H&M,
and you were like, You’re an angel.
Before the music ended, all your friends rocketed
in like, Ohmygodwendy,wethoughtyouweredead, so I handed one of them
your drippy, pink-stained bundle of clothes while the others scooped you
up, got you dressed, herded you outside.
I was like, I’m glad you didn’t—the door slammed.
Casey Smith is a poet from Lexington, South Carolina, and the prose editor for Winthrop University's literary magazine, The Anthology.
