Temptation Comes

Temptation comes in all the usual forms,

The hourglass and the V and dirty, green currency,

But sometimes it comes for us in plain clothes–

The short, clipped, cutting exit-words

From a conversation that thought it was already over;

You couldn't help but know they're unnecessary,

But they always sound so delicious on the tongue.

There's the teacher's unattended stack of hall passes,

A little yellow pad that looks like a YOLO pad from here.

The outsized snooze button on everyone's alarm clock

Somehow looms even larger in the morning than the night before.

There's the third slice of pizza, the second slice of cake,

and that lunch date with your ex that you should never, ever make.

The only thing all temptations have in common

Is that they taste breathless.