For months, I said (I lied) I didn't mind
the rolling home at 2am or 3,
the messing in the wardrobe. I was kind,
until the ghastly night he vommed on me.

"I didn't mean to!" Laughing, though, the git.
"Sod off!" I threw him out and locked the door.
It's time he changed, I muttered, or that's it!
He made his bed the grimy greenhouse floor.

Come morning, he was changed. He couldn't stand.
His skin was orange, slimy to the touch.
Was that a – yikes! – a suprapedal gland?
He lay there eating lettuce, far too much.

These days, he doesn't party. He's been clean,
albeit mucousy, since Hallowe'en.

---
Published in Snakeskin, October 2021.