The Black Napkin Volume 1 Issue 4 | Page 48

42

HEARTBREAKER, AN ACCOUNT OF A CURSE

1.

I forgive her skeleton in the middle of a cemetery and taste the lavender. She is pushed against her father’s tomb, reaching for me, wild flowers defying death in it’s most primal form. I am wide awake for the first time.

2.

She is history of red cherries and avocado organs, raised from spit soaked lips and gooey cupid’s bow. I said the right wrong words and she took what she got. I say her name with my lungs, it’s the only way I know how to. All we are is dreams across telephone lines past midnight and I wake up day drunk. I can imagine the slur of her vowels over my ribcage and the phone burns my ring finger. I hang up with false promises.

3.

Angel, at night, you have stars in the crease of your eyes, all blue bright heaven, but come morning, your halo is a ring of hellfire, a place I will be buried in. The bible never had a happy ending for people like us.

4.

The truth is trapped in my lungs, fragmenting on the I LOVE YOU I can’t say back because I haven’t learned how yet. She tries to teach me but instead, I kiss her with lies, carve out her grave with my teeth, and command ‘sweetheart you have to let me go’. I am whisper quiet and all sin.

5.

My best friend pushed me against the gray tile of the girls bathroom and told me I’m cursed. She smelled like lemon drops and her skin was just as hard. She said, “you always want what you can’t have. and you’ve done it again.” I wake up with your flannel around my neck, ready to jump.

6.

Ten minutes. Ten. One for each hundred miles I put between us when I left. You need to remember, Texas would be bad for the olive verdant in your skin. You are all sticky orange juice down my wrist and heaven bound. Where I come from, we ache bad omens and suck on sweet tea like demon blood. I harvest witches and your body is a temple. It’s not a good combination and you deserved better.