the counter is slick with it now—
that dark, bursting purple where the skin gave way,
and i am watching my fingers turn the color of a bruise
while i pretend we're just having breakfast.
i am trying to breathe softly so i don’t shake the table.
i am keeping my arms pressed tight against my ribs
because i know what i do to clean spaces;
i leave a film on the glass,
a thumbprint on the white paint,
a trailing, dark blue line that tells everyone
exactly where the disaster went.
let me tell you how it happens:
the room tilts sixty degrees to the left,
and suddenly i'm standing five feet behind my own shoulders,
watching a girl who looks exactly like me try to pass for human.
i'm narrating her from a safe distance.
see how she holds the fork?
see how she smiles so the seams don’t split?
see how she just keeps reading so it seems like she's there?
the music in the cafe is muffled and distorted like it's not even real,
your voice is a wire stringing together words i used to know,
but right now, you are just a beautiful shape moving in the fog.
i want to tell you to look at my hands.
they're covered in the mess of my own undoing.
i want to say: run while your coat doesn't smell like my smoke.
you haven’t looked for the door yet.
but i am already calculating the distance between your boots
and the threshold, measuring the exact depth of the dent
i will leave in your chest when you finally realize
that the sweetness was just a thin coat of glaze over an engine
that runs too hot to hold.
because eventually, the air will thin out and you will look down.
you will see that i am not a morning luxury.
i am a slow-burning emergency in a pleated paper liner,
leaving a sticky, violet ink on your knuckles
that won't come out with cold water.
but the blue is leaking through the bottom of the bag now.
it’s on your jeans. it’s on the map.
and the fear isn't that i will burn the kitchen down—
the fear is the sound of your car pulling out of the gravel
while i am still stuck up here, floating near the ceiling,
watching the girl at the table realize she is entirely alone—
terrified that if i move even an inch to care for you,
i will accidentally split you down the middle
and turn your quiet afternoons into another room
where the static won't stop screaming.
i am waiting for the look on your face—
the sudden, quiet pivot where the curiosity turns into caution,
where you realize the muffin is mostly charcoal,
and the orange was always bitter at the core.
you are still here right now.
the air between us is still clear.
but my god, i am so tired of apologizing for the stain
before the juice has even left the rind.
look, i wanted to give you a pastry.
i wanted to be the girl who hands you a warm bag
and lets you leave with a mouthful of sugar.
instead, i am offering you a smoke inhalation warning.
i am handing you a receipt for a building that isn't there anymore,
and asking you to love the ash.
don't look at the floor.
please don't look at what dropped between us.
if i stay loud enough, if i keep the sugar spinning in the air,
maybe you won't notice that the person you sat down with
is already halfway out of her body,
screaming at you to stay from a room three miles away.
so excuse the soot on the apron.
excuse the way my sugar crunches like glass under your boots.
i swore i was going to feed you,
but the light caught the curtains,
and i am still floating up by the smoke detector,
watching you decide if you're going to choke or run.
from up here, the expression you have looks so peaceful.
from up here, i can see the exact exit route you're going to take
the second the smoke gets into your eyes.