Feb 2014
The television was on a loop playing a recording of Natural Born Killers
Our bodies and their contents laid naked and honest over the sheets
He breathed so heavily beside me
I could not say
He was not there
The crack in the window whistled cool air and the radiator over compensated at 80 degrees Fahrenheit, making the room an even 70.
The kitchen light was on.
The guest room light was on.
It was 5:10 in the morning
Too soon for the sun to overwhelm the hollow artificial light
I put on a shirt that I left there weeks ago
It smelled like his cigarette smoke
I brushed my teeth until the sink cloged, brimming with water and swirls of foamy yellow spit.
Lying with you after that cleansing reminded me of the first time I really saw poverty.
No facade, no escape
Too different to empathize
When he wakes up he’ll smile and touch me, he’ll say, “Hi, Baby”, even though I’m not Baby.
Those particular thoughts moved me with a bottomless felling,
So I got up.
Making my way to the kitchen, I turned off the light in the guest room
Not everything can shine
Somehow the kitchen always feels like the center of a home
Maybe because food is a thing that comes before love
The Donner’s loved.
Every inch of the kitchen was coated in foody grime
There was dirt down to every inch, in every crack
Nothing, not even the child could convince him to wipe it away.
That home felt small around us
I felt overstayed
If he woke up from deep sleep while I packed the few things I own
I know his eyes would tell me he didn’t understand
His protest would be angry
He would beg
I’d feel shameful but excited
There is no justification to stay where boxes half-stored and lazy intrude into your limited space,
Where the kitchen grows a layer of filth every time it greets you,
Where the walls close in every early morning when you get up for work and you do the dishes in the quiet.
The roses on the floor didn’t protest loudly,
But they insisted that I crawl back into bed where I belong
“You’re depressed, It will pass again,” they said.
The mercy he showed my flaws, the laughs we shared, his desperation and admiration, his love even though he recoiled, jaded when I couldn’t match him.
None of it could keep me there that morning
Our bodies and their contents laid naked and honest over the sheets
He breathed so heavily beside me
I could not say
He was not there
The crack in the window whistled cool air and the radiator over compensated at 80 degrees Fahrenheit, making the room an even 70.
The kitchen light was on.
The guest room light was on.
It was 5:10 in the morning
Too soon for the sun to overwhelm the hollow artificial light
I put on a shirt that I left there weeks ago
It smelled like his cigarette smoke
I brushed my teeth until the sink cloged, brimming with water and swirls of foamy yellow spit.
Lying with you after that cleansing reminded me of the first time I really saw poverty.
No facade, no escape
Too different to empathize
When he wakes up he’ll smile and touch me, he’ll say, “Hi, Baby”, even though I’m not Baby.
Those particular thoughts moved me with a bottomless felling,
So I got up.
Making my way to the kitchen, I turned off the light in the guest room
Not everything can shine
Somehow the kitchen always feels like the center of a home
Maybe because food is a thing that comes before love
The Donner’s loved.
Every inch of the kitchen was coated in foody grime
There was dirt down to every inch, in every crack
Nothing, not even the child could convince him to wipe it away.
That home felt small around us
I felt overstayed
If he woke up from deep sleep while I packed the few things I own
I know his eyes would tell me he didn’t understand
His protest would be angry
He would beg
I’d feel shameful but excited
There is no justification to stay where boxes half-stored and lazy intrude into your limited space,
Where the kitchen grows a layer of filth every time it greets you,
Where the walls close in every early morning when you get up for work and you do the dishes in the quiet.
The roses on the floor didn’t protest loudly,
But they insisted that I crawl back into bed where I belong
“You’re depressed, It will pass again,” they said.
The mercy he showed my flaws, the laughs we shared, his desperation and admiration, his love even though he recoiled, jaded when I couldn’t match him.
None of it could keep me there that morning
