I may have never been the light of your life but you were mine. Recently when people voice the word ‘therapy’, it elicits in me a feral sort of anger. It's a routine: rage, panic, and exhaustion.

My mother’s quaint china dishes have found a steady home on my sienna wooden floors. Please understand why I taste acid and rancid flesh when I think of your hazel eyes and strong arms. My Tracy Chapman record echoes monotonously out to me, but the blood simmering in the grooves of my brain fills my ears with a sound that displeases my auditory senses. It sounds like static from a broken radio. The wind howls through the cracks of my windows and sometimes it cajoles the door open. Somehow, my penchant for you never fails to disappoint me as my eyes flit up for the briefest second to see if you've arrived. I use my teacups as wine flutes and my heart as a pincushion, but maybe your broad shoulders and firm chest could shelter me from myself. My desk stands proudly in the corner of the room. Enrobed in dust and half-eaten pizza slices, it stands proof of what you've done to me. Mr. Teddy is taking a nap. His cottony, soft, white insides poke out in tufts from under the patchwork.
Another one bites the dust.

The poison seeps through the gaps in between my teeth and panic swallows me like an ocean. If you want, I would clad your feet in my shoes but I have never been one to chase after something so I cannot fathom how to explain to you why they have holes on their soles, much like my soul. The towel pools at my feet as I feel the heat behind my eyelids start to cool. Exhaustion sweeps over me like a summer breeze. I can hear fast cars as the put me to sleep.
It smells like petrichor; wet earth after the storm.