I.
What I need you to know
about The Leaving
is that it will always feel like a toddler’s art project—
something done messily
with clumsy, filthy hands.
Everyone will tell you
how impressive it all is,
and how proud you should be,
as they place their clean palms
to their un-bruised chests
and stick The Leaving
up on the fridge.
And you will pack everything you own
into eleven boxes you stole
from the back of the grocery store
and move into an empty house
where you still flinch every time you hear a door open,
even if you are the one opening the door,
and you will stare at this muddle of paint
that is the rest of your life, and wonder–
what the fuck is this even supposed to be?
II.
Months later,
immediately after breaking down
in the Urgent Care lobby when you realize
“Name of Emergency Contact”
is a question you no longer know the answer to,
Limp Bizkit will come on the radio,
and somehow everything will be so much worse
than it was before the biscuit was limp,
and the child in the chair across from you
will start screaming
and covering her ears,
which seems entirely appropriate given the circumstances,
and you know that this image
would have made him laugh for hours,
and for a moment it is like he is right there,
and you will smile
until your cheekbone starts to ache
and you check the mirror
for bruising.
III.
I haven’t cooked chicken in four months.
The meat thermometer
ended up in one of his boxes,
and I have never been able to tell
just by looking
when something is finished.
I have terrible instincts about what is unsafe.
This is not a metaphor.
I am really afraid of food poisoning,
and I know that given an oven
and enough time
I would cook the chicken
until it was black and ashy,
and this is not a metaphor.
This is not about the way that my mother
taught me to check if meat was done,
by stabbing my knife into the thickest part,
not about how I didn’t even hear the timer go off
until the entire kitchen was on fire.
He seemed like such a nice guy,
everyone says,
as I tell them my new address,
as if you can tell from outside an oven
if the meat inside is poison.
IV.
I used to imagine all the time
what his ex-wife thought about me, and
she never knew my name.
Had no idea
the way I climbed inside his body
and convinced myself it was a place that I could live in,
but I thought of her constantly,
like a ghost that lived in our house.
That night that we fought about leaving the lights on,
the night that he threw the flour jar
and it exploded on the wall next to me,
I said I was sorry,
and then went into the bathroom,
and my entire body was covered in flour.
I remember thinking,
I look just like a ghost.
Just like a ghost that lives in our house.
And I laughed
and I laughed
and I laughed.