brand new cherry limeade flavor

i tried a new flavor. you probably wouldn’t like it. then again, you never really like much of what i do. honestly there’s a part of me saying that i shouldn’t like it either, that cherry is a flavor i hate. but there’s something sweet & tangy, refreshing this time. i feel guilty. for tasting sweet things. for enjoying them. for not sharing with you. i feel guilty for leaving & not fighting more. i feel guilty for being alive & not by your side. i should have taken it to the grave. but the bond wasn’t right. it was like super gluing your fingers together or sticking your tongue to an icy pole. christmas is coming. the season of the archer. the season of the goat. yours & mine. it’s not ours. december is endings. it’s beginnings too. but right now it’s november, a curse. a stain upon the year. & if i take a moment to reflect over this last one, i am less disillusioned. the missing seems more ridiculous, more frivolous. i hate being wrong, but sometimes i wish i weren’t right. sometimes i wish i were worse at recognizing patterns, like my first grade teacher said. sometimes i wish santa could bring me the answers i seek a little too desperately. sitting in my piles of tarot cards & reciting metta meditations every morning. it brings peace, but not much clarity. i love my love but i don’t always understand it. don’t always understand why it is so unshakeable. why it persists. why it appears suddenly for a flavor i’ve always run from, tasting like medicine & childhood. there’s a tinge of fear. of my love going dried up, of being misplaced, thrown away, being wasted. of it exploding, destroying, ripping the roots from the soil. i want my love to be felt. to be valued. to be loved. i live in a clam shell. i am always so selfish. so self-contained & absorbed. i heard from you today, right as i took the first cherry-laden sip. i nearly had a panic attack even though i knew it was coming, eventually. i want you to be doing better. i want to know you’re okay. i want to pass you the bottle & see what you think. the love remains but the ache persists. the fear radiates. the discomfort simmers. & i want to ask you a thousand questions & tell you that i might be brewing a new love, but it’s too soon to know for sure & if it will be reciprocated & i don’t even know if the one i hold for you was ever really reciprocated. why did we use each other as canon fodder? why did we draw out each other’s venom with syringes then pump it like ammo into our nerf guns? i don’t understand it. we’re both capable of being better. i know it. just maybe not to each other. maybe we only know how to hold up mirrors & scream at the parts of ourselves we hate the most that reflect back. maybe we only know how to shatter pearl necklaces & cry in bathrooms & piss on the street. we make something ugly together. so hideous & deformed & raw. no amount of lipstick or blush can cover it, hide it. i am sorry i let you down & i am numb you let me down. but mostly i’m angry i let me down. that i played the role of doormat so well. there’s a moment in the future when we’ve both made our amends. maybe then our love won’t feel like arsenic & anvils. maybe then we’ll have given it to others who turn it to cherry limeade & whipped cream & fried oreos. & we can pass each other on the streets with tender smiles & no black licorice or jealous malice. maybe one day our love will not be our nooses, our overdoses — the death of us.