Somebody’s Daughter
I am dazed in a stranger’s basement
While she goes upstairs to grab a fruit punch
(Kissing gets her parched)
And I notice her father has written “Be Safe”
In haint blue letters on the inside of the garage door.
Too late, Sir—
I’ve already been in her bed.
We twirled streamers through her sheets and now I’m a vampire
Tripping over a crucifix on his way out.
Didn’t you know what kinds of sins
Could transpire within your walls?
Your daughter could pierce her nipples or smoke crack or
(God forbid) hook up with me
From the comfort of her own home—
If you wanted full coverage,
You ought to have tattooed those words
On her eyeballs.
Even then, she’d have to blink.
My dad used to tell me to be safe too,
But when I turned 18,
I grew fangs and he handed me a key
And told me to just get home somehow.
Since then, I’ve made a habit of going out at night,
Sucking girls’ blood and turning them against their fathers.
I will say, though,
That I have just now noticed a new set of bite marks
On my neck.
My vision’s spinning and your daughter’s smiling down the stairs;
Her hand’s on the small of my back
And she’s steering me towards her car,
And I’m wishing we were back
Under your roof.
Far too late,
I’m realizing that the Be Safe sign
Wasn’t for your daughter.
Scott Sorensen is a sophomore at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, studying English while also performing standup, writing for the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern satire magazine, and helping edit the Stonefence Review. His work has previously appeared in Stonefence Review and Quibble Lit. Scott dreams of becoming the first Latvian man to win an MMA championship, which is pretty unlikely given the fact that he is not Latvian and has no idea how to fight.
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