Winter break my boyfriend and I Drive downtown.
He buys incense
lets me pick out my favorite smell.
Coconut.
We get in the car
he lights a stick and hands it to me.
The smoke flipping over in the air,
rounding like winged bats.

I breathe it in as he turns the car wheel.
Twist the scents
between my fingers,
watch as the air fills with
pipe cleaner smoke.
Wiggling,
Convulsing.

The next week my
Ex-boyfriend decides
he loves me again.
Pulls me over at a party,
beckons me to sit on the stairs.
He tells me he loves me
through drunk tongue
and I watch the wooden panels
begin to twist and curve,
tug at my tattered limbs
until I am sitting.
He pulls my arm towards him,
asks me to love him again,
asks me why I don’t.

I think of the incense
as he pulls me closer,
the delicate flips of smoke,
the moment only a smell can give you.
I breathe in and can taste the coconut,
he pulls me into him,
the coconut smell,
our two bodies,
his lips singing to kiss mine,
but I think of the coconut.
Breathe in,
twist my fingers,
leave.

©DelaneyMiller