cookies

These cookies shouldn't remind me of you.

Of you you you you.

I get caught screaming your name,
but even when my chords are silent,
your color is all over my face and it stains my eyes
and you stain my sentences like red ink or black ink or blue ink
or a mad combination of all three.

These cookies shouldn't remind me of you.

You are 18 years in the making,
which means the oven was cooler than 345;
but everything you touch
hits 400.

These cookies shouldn't remind me of you.

Or the sugar lining your lips.
Or the shared candy boxes in the trunk.
Or you.

You didn't want this from me.

Back aches, bloody nails.

These cookies shouldn't remind me of you.

But there's two of them,
and one of me,
and I'm a last-minute email with 6 pages of promises on my desk.

I'm a list of ingredients,
cooked without care,
and I'm burning and burning and burning.

I'll stick to all the edges and crumble in your mouth.

And I'm dry and I'm bitter
but the ingredients are all the same.

These cookies shouldn't remind me of you,
but I'm eating them until my stomach screams.

Because I never say no
to a cookie.

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