"He starts it off, as they always do, by saying, “I still want to be friends” but I am already on..."

“He starts it off, as they always do, by saying,

“I still want to be friends” but I am already

on the next subway, the next taxi, the next whatever.

I am thinking about dinner that night, or the next night:

Angus beef, sauteed chicken, mahi mahi fish tacos.

I am thinking about the coffee pot and runner’s knee

and how much money I have in my savings. I am

thinking about hypothermia and missing bodies;

all the knives in my bed. I am thinking about how

the very word promise sounds more like an undoing.

I am thinking about the easiness of mouths.

How they open. How they give so much but also

about how they take away the things our minds

have committed to that permanent place of the brain,

where memories continue to rattle around long after

we’ve stopped shaking. I am thinking about how

he has turned me into a lake and I’ve never learned

how to swim. I am thinking about how I now have to

unlearn all of his secrets. Become a tourist to his body

again, blink against the hurt. I am thinking about

expensive hair cuts and retail therapy, dressing room

girls who are used to outlandish requests from customers.

I am thinking that this isn’t a dress my mother

would approve of, but honey, I look so good in red.”

- Kristina Haynes, “The Breakup Sweats” (via fleurishes)