the chai

In this drawn out blank slate state of denial, I ate the popcorn my mom bought. Ive been asking her for popcorn for months. Some junk food, once please. So she buys a solitary bag. Im not complaining. But I was distracting myself, and it tasted so good, and its almost gone already. I thought about how Im going to want popcorn tomorrow too. Stop eating now or youll run out. Just make this last the week.

Just last the week. Today was a sickening day. Today was clasping hands and throwing myself against the wall, my head pounding against your knees. Today was hugs when I could feel you trembling, and jello-legs. Today was lying on your bed all in a huddle, breathes in tandem, the whoosh of relief. Safe on this island of a bed, holding you on with my arms. My arms that were so crushed underneath your legs I could feel my heart pounding in them. Or maybe it was your heart. Clinging to the sheets, and to the bed, and to your legs so hard I couldnt tell your heart from mine. Your breathes from mine. The aching cave inside your stomach from mine. Today was the relief of your bright voice, the only one I could hear, clawing tightly to the phone as waves and undulations of people and sound rushed by. Today was the forgetting, and the phantom stabs in the heart of remembering. The rushing to the bathroom to throw up, but Im so empty. Today was being on the bed, and picturing the face, his white face and now just his impression in the pillow. A concave hollow into the pillow. The concave hollow into your heart. The what ifs and the what nows and the final realization that truth trumps even the most stubborn denial. It was the face, and the hole, it was those hands and those breathes, it was my heart beat and yours and his wasnt there. It was the passion and the fading and the falling and the breathing and the holes and the caves and the throwing myself against the wall. It was clinging to your hand until I could feel you there, it was mixing up your heartbeat with mine. It was those fluid blue eyes, it was those green, it was the pure tones, the white skin, the white breath, the white frost, it bit me and I turned white and he turned ghostly and then there was running to the bathroom to throw up, there was no more bed of safety, there was no more denial and there even is no more hollow impression in the pillow.

I put the popcorn back and reached for the chai we have in the fridge. Just last the week. I swished the contents of the bottle and there was none. We had run out of chai. We had run out of time. I ran to the bathroom to throw up

Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here