Livid, then the jogging man pushing his child with cerebral palsy glided beside me, and I felt sick with petty spite.

I ran to the building for the nearest bathroom and vomited back every saccharine word I ever breathed into your mouth.

Excuse the blood, the ulcers you left are raw today.

I haven’t eaten joy or devoured love since while putting your blouse back on, I came up behind you and kissed the back of your neck and whispered that next to your eyes, that was my favorite part of your body.

I washed the spite and ***** out of my mouth with tap water and shame, they both tasted metallic against my tongue, like biting too hard and the jolt of tines on teeth.

I bit the fork and tasted regret and chipped enamel.

Is that what his tongue tastes like for you?

When you kiss his neck, does part of you still ******* skin?

The smell of the ocean that you only ever visited once, but every day for more than a year.

Do your fingers ever expect to tangle themselves in the seaweed of my curly hair?

I've been trying to remember your scent. You smelled of running through apple orchards, the sweat and the blossoms on the air whipping between trees and seaweed curls, the ocean.

I can only remember the taste of sea salt and chipped teeth.

But when you taste his lips, do you ever taste the salt of me?

Do you ever smell the ocean in the air, the ocean on my lips?