Khaki

I peeled the turtleneck off and it clung like a bad idea. Khaki over the chair. I stood in the doorway of the bedroom and did not go in. The bed had opinions. I brushed my teeth until my gums hurt and still tasted cotton from a hoodie. Failure has a flavor. It is not like chicken. It is not like anything you would order on purpose.

The trunk still lined with a story I would have to burn before James asked how the weekend was and I said, once more, same old. I practiced the two words in the dark kitchen. They sounded like a faucet. They sounded like a man who had not spent a night under a cheap gold light. They sounded like payroll.

I smoked a second cigarette under the window because one had not finished the job. The missing shingles did not move. A porch light two doors down clicked off on a timer that believed in order. I did not. I went to bed in a house that still smelled like vinyl and rain, and I told the ceiling that the hobby was a joke, and the ceiling, like the windshield, declined to argue.

Mira’s eyes stayed. That was the part I could not flush.