kissing booth

i build a kissing booth in 
my darkness. no one visits. i decide
i am raising money for a good cause.
my mouth, a piggy bank. they have
forsaken the penny & thus i will
only accept payment in pennies
from here forward. count yourself
into my mouth. i want copper.
i want a wire from me into the earth.
because the power grid is dying
i have been returning to the potato.
once i think we made a battery from one.
i buy hundreds to try & open 
just one light. someone comes from
really really far away for the kissing booth
& by the time they get here i am not longer
interested in money. i tell them 
they can have it all for free. i did that once
when i was selling my wings in a bedroom
without a window. the man smelled
like sidewalks. he was not as mean
as he could have been. we made it work.
when he was done he told me,
"i am sorry, i am stealing business."
he was another kissing booth attendee. 
i told him it was alright. he left 
out the window without any shoes.
from his shoes i made flower pots but
the flowers always smelled like him. 
i have never been good with my mouth.
could not whistle. could not yawn.
a boyfriend in high school once put
a bottle rocket between my teeth & said,
"go!" i did not catch fire. from then on
he knew i was not going to be a good wife.
still, we traded each other's eyelashes for years
until i got the courage to report him to
the council of kissing booths. he was 
forced to pay all the back fees of all
the kisses he took without paying. 
money is never enough. i used to have
a job where i almost made enough. 
i didn't know what to do with the brief
flash of stability so i bought toys.
played with them in the dim light of
my basement. buried the kissing booths
just for them to resurface in the front yard.
i didn't know what the neighbors would think.
lately i let it happen. i have a mouth & a jar.
why shouldn't i open it when i can? why shouldn't
a stranger come into my mouth 
& take his shoes off. i hope that other 
booth attendee is doing well. i hope his family
has pictures of him. that they know
only as much as they can bear.