AUTHOR: Arianna
EDITOR: Kallie E. Sage
there’s an alphabet carpet in the living room, and the floors are slick with sunlight. there’s two tickets on the counter for a show neither of you wanted to see. but they were a gift. so you must go. together. you must go together, shoulders bumping to the synth beats.
plates lie unwashed in the sink, cracked at the edges—you'll buy new ones from IKEA tomorrow. there’s a Michael Jackson song playing on the TV. it’s an oldie. so you dance to it in a spinning pair like those celebrity couples you always admire. while the six month old baby sobs upstairs, clutching a worn out blue blankie. you are alive and well, I assume, because why wouldn’t you be?
the toddler spills juice in her pink shirt and you laugh, you laugh. do you like laughing? outside there’s no car in the driveway. perhaps you’re not home, then. maybe you’re already at IKEA, the fluorescent lights flickering, grabbing flimsy glasses you think you’ll replace in six months. you will not replace them in six months.
there’s a yellow car in the street in front of your house, blocking my view of the old beige roof. did you know them? are you in it? can you see me? in that universe, you are alive—listen. you are alive. your baby is pink and small and you just took a giggling photo of me in a tiara. your wonderful husband puts them to sleep as you sit on the couch.
the couch we no longer have, in the room that has no pictures of you, but you think that will soon change, because you live here. of course you live here. you stuck butterfly stickers on your daughter’s bedroom walls. you blend so well into the scene, or maybe not. you ask for a glass of iced tea. or Coke. or wine. I will never really know. I will never really hear you.
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