I cannot stand you.
I found you sleeping in my memory,
curled up on a couch.
Each exhale whistled and turned to a hiss anytime you’d roll and shift.
Your foot kept slipping; your toe skid across my frontal lobe;
you’d heel kick my motivation into the occipital.
Sometimes your fingers would stretch into my temporal and tickle my emotion.
With each scratch, I’d sense and store you, categorize you with something sweet –
cherry laughter, coconut smile – because I didn’t know better.
You’d whisper my name just to see if it’d echo.
The vowels and consonants shimmied down your chin,
swerved around my cranium and slipped out my ear like a snake.
Your giggles rattled me.
I hated you.
You left and migraines settled on the couch. The cushions squeaked and sagged.
I hated them.
Awake at night, I’d search for your smile in my bare, brailed ceiling.
The glow in your eye made my stomach twist.
I’d roll on my side. The migraine would tumble forward.
It was months before the pain subsided.
Heels soon clicked, jewelry chimed.
I smelled perfume and tasted mint.
A suitcase spit out shirts and paperwork.
I started to miss you.
The heels sauntered,
hung paintings in my temporal.
Someone spoke softly
and slept on the floor. Sound waves filled
my mind like incense, spiraling up to
my intellectual ceiling.
Your giggle rattled.
Your sleeping pattern shifted.
I couldn’t remember your name.