#107

it’s not so much that I hate you. Just that I can’t trust you. Yesterday I was reading our grocery list and you added dishwasher detergent. We don’t have a dishwasher.
Without prompting, you said you bought some berry flavored tums at the store. The label said mint. Maybe it was an honest mistake, but when I showed you the label, you still insisted they were berry!
But then you accidentally shredded my sweater in the wash, and said you gave it to a homeless man. I found it in the trash.
You told me stories of your high school basketball team placing third in the state. Imagine my confusion when I found out you placed second. Your lies have no reason.
So when you say you love me, I just don’t know.

thirtyeight

I had a dream about you for the first time in as long as I can remember. There was a bonfire, and there were many other people, but I can't recall any of them. Only you. And the things I said. The most horrible, vile things I've said and didn't think to say before. The look on your face was all I needed, and my heart exploded with joy. I had never wanted to hurt anyone more in such a vicious manner than I did in that moment, just you and me. It was everything I think other people consider heaven to be.

I can't decide if this makes me a bad person in real life.

#106

the room was well lit, but it smelled heavy and dark, like paint fumes without the mind-liberating qualities.
they pulled down the sheet, thicker than i expected, not a 250 count, like my ones at home. i nodded that it was him, yes, at least, it was him based on the only picture i'd ever seen.
strange that they called me, the only still-relevant phone number in his rolodex (and who still uses a rolodex?) even though i was too young to remember ever meeting him and my phone number had changed 8 times since then.
strange that a life can be so innocuous that your own nephew is unaffected by the blue of your lips, the odd, cold pallor of your skin.
they covered him and escorted me out of the room. condolences and slips of paper were handed to me in the same moment, and i accepted both before heading out the door.
the day was well lit, but not like the room, but everything still smelled heavy and dark. i looked at my phone, wondering who to call, who to tell about my very bizarre day, the way i felt suddenly hungry, and realized there was not a single person who would understand.

thirtyseven

"You asked me once, in an exasperated sigh, if I believed in anything at all, and I replied with something cynical and funny and we laughed."

The coffee burned a little bit, not enough cream.

"It's been a while, or long enough at least, and I think you've seen what I meant, and why I said it."

I don't even so much like coffee.

"And now, I still have the same answer but I don't think it's as funny anymore."

#105

There were days he wished he was a smoker. Standing outside, staring out at nothing, never knowing what to do with his hands, nervously sliding them into his pockets, feeling chapstick, feeling an old straw wrapper, feeling a loose thread. Then pulling his hands out, one, then the other.
His coworkers would come out with a casual, mumbled hello, sliding a white cigarette, sometimes the first in the pack, sometimes the lonely last. A flash of fire, a calm and satisfied sigh with the first drag in the middle of a long day.
He licked his lips, shoved one hand in his pocket, another through his thinning hair.

#104

she was free-floating and beautiful, the front of her skirt tied up in a knot to escape imminent bike chain fate. the back of it flapping behind her in cascades of earthy yellow, tan, sunburnt orange. her shoulders, freckled, shades of pink and brown, lines running across her back, detailing every shirt, every dress she had worn that summer.
the wheels kicked up dirt behind her and she practiced riding, one hand, no hands; steering with her bare feet now.
she laughed and it trickled up the sky.
her neighbor paused from hanging clothes on the line, saw the girl, took a moment to turn her palms up and smile at the open sky.

thirtysix

The bricks of the old corner pub were cold to the touch, and the rain was quiet enough that you could only hear it in your heart. Cars hummed by as I leaned my forehead against the wall. I could see the paint chipping around the foundation, white flecks scattered on the sidewalk around my feet. I don’t think this is the way things are supposed to be.