Wallpaper

The peeling wallpaper is a dirty mustard, stained with a hundred silver lines and lives and loves and losses. Your eyes trace their erratic shapes in minutes that stretch for miles, slowly cracking under the immense pressure of unspoken wishes. A car door slams, somewhere beyond the wall. A glistening tear finds your lips and your tongue quests out, momentarily filling your mouth with the ocean.

You drove across the country once, a silver streak that cut through its core, to its core. You never knew the country until you had cut it down, split it into parts, its shattered pieces each a black mirror of the whole. She had been with you, then. She had filled the car with roses and earthy laughter, stripped you back beneath your skin and sailed silver across your soul.

The stained wallpaper is reflected in your shattered eyes. The dusty air is pushed from your lungs, then pulled back in. There are traces of her still, in the distant smell of woodsmoke, the creak of the motel bed, the light fleeing the room. The car's engine has stopped. Heavy boots are dragging your future toward your past. The boots are black and grey. You know this.

She had left before, but always returned, trailing emerald and sapphire through the hallway and scrubbing her boots clean of rubies. When she last left, you knew it would be different. Silver sliced across your body and you fell apart while she turned and disappeared.

The door opens easily and the boots drag the future inside, gemstones shattering on the tiles. You inhale, pulling in the dusty air, now tinged with roses. She says nothing, and you reply in kind. Your future meets your past, one long and one short, and then the boots turn and disappear.

Rubies cover the bed, soaking into the sheets. A car door slams. The wallpaper is a dirty mustard, stained with a hundred and one silver lines and lives and loves and losses.