i have this fantasy where:

1.
i leave you, because i can; because you would, if you could. a short story: i have become extraordinarily good at predicting your movements but only during the night when you think i am not awake. it is tuesday, 3.46am, and here is 3.49: you make coffee, you pour it down the sink and graduate to whiskey before you'd even begun, you lay your head down upon the kitchen table, and you cry, oh you cry until you're wasted on every front. it is 3.47 and you are kicking off the bedsheets.

2.
i have *** with another man, right in front of you—it doesn't matter who. he is sober, clean, and loving; he holds me afterwards. you clench your fists and drink yourself a path to apathy. chances are you want to **** him, too. but you don't. i do.

3.
he got my hair, and my bone structure, and you never asked a single question.

4.
i gather all your alcohol and your cigars, and, with every one of us still in it, i burn down the house. in my last moments, i am cleaning ash from the floors, hopeless, helpless, a lamb to the stove and an old queen to the guillotine: i am hoping you will go before me.