One hand fumbling under my skirt, pulling the fabric up, cinching it tight. Unexpected, yet perfectly typical. I’m glad I didn’t spend the night, though I had been considering it. (Plenty of places to sleep, many of them unmolested, a vague promise of breakfast.) I’ve been almost naked in that kitchen, fishing in the cupboard for a glass after a shower. Part of me knows that part of me belongs. I’ve been talked about in every room.
Cigarettes, beer bottles, black velvet curtains in every doorway – the place I fell asleep wearing the head and skin of a bear – the bed made of sticks, the bed made of stone. Rarely do I feel absolved, yet in this case, it’s beyond any retraction. There is no reason to ask, there is no longer any breakdown. How we always had a pillow that was mine. Always the brightest flowers. The rejection close to shame. I considered the smell of fire and smoke still in my hair as we stood there in the street, bodies pressed together, waiting for my ride home to finish her goodbyes, feeling tired, (indifferent), and unable to remember what it felt like to be in love.