The next day I wake up in the afternoon
in the house I am still growing up in.
I run my fingers across my tired face
as a reflection stares back, emotionless.
There is violet lipstick smeared across my cheek.
I do not remember whose mouth put it there.
It stays like a bruise I cannot wash off,
a simple reminder of the night before.
I try to think of ways to explain to you
that I let you down.
I think of all the ways I could cut the wires
that hold us together.
I think of drowning myself.
I let you down.
I let it all go.
I let it all go down,
down into my throat then it dripped into my stomach.
I swallowed all my regret,
and let a warm ache radiate through me.
I sit in the shower and let water burn my skin.
I think of drowning myself.
I cannot wash his touch off me.
His fingerprints still line my jaw.
His lips cut across my throat like a surgeon
flaying my skin open,
leaving us both breathless
as I choked on my own blood.

I rest my head on the tile floor
and imagine myself explaining
the boys who were wearing lipstick,
and bumming smokes off of strangers,
and a cold basement,
and walking with a boy to find my friends,
and wishing he was you.
He wasn’t you.
I think of drowning myself.
He wasn’t you.

I pick up my phone and
try to work up the courage to call.
I work up the courage to explain
the loneliness on my breath mixing with the beer on his,
to explain his hands tangled up in my hair,
my hands running up and down his spine,
pulling him further between us.
I put the phone down.
I chew my fingernails bloody,
I wait twelve more hours
to finally call.