in the morning, when I am still pulsing in shades of fever dream, seeing the day burn to color by cracked kitchen light— I will wonder what your face must look like sleeping, staying. how quickly you would tire of the sick girl, spinning plates and spitting crazy across the coffees. how quickly the jewelry box sprung open: you watch the ballerina bleed out from her knees & you learn you never really knew her, at all. how quickly you would slip out of the theater, gripping the untossed rose stem, spilling red to your elbow. how it is not the same. how you’d splash all over the car seat, scream it her fault for crying at your absence at curtain call, for tapping at the window, for smoothing out the rose petals on the drive home— tell me again how this was not what you signed up for. slam the box shut, throw her into the attic and run for the getaway car. your hands hide their wispy scars well. I was never here. I will never come back, will brush my teeth with honey, call out sick & fade—
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