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Ammonia and lavender fill the air–– a mop in hand, she performed her usual tasks of cleanliness. How can three people accumulate this much dust and dirt? Mars wondered. Scrubbing away at the mahogany floors, she felt a sharp pain in her lower back, followed by a stream of red, trickling down her long legs; shuffling to the nearest bathroom.

Now there’s only two, bouncing around in Mars’ mind.

Dizzying into her mental cave, she clings to the walls; lifeless objects becoming her support––once again. She sways her way to the kitchen. Filling the glass; brimming with tap water, Mars swallows rapidly––suffocating herself. Wiping the drips off the corners of her traced lips; the shine of her ring blinds her eyes–– mocking her.

The one who bestowed the ring on her finger–– the one who uses union to constrict will soon be home. I have to cook dinner, she thought. Scrambling to prepare the meal for tonight–– like every night––her thin frame standing in the yellow kitchen; pauses. Clark, her husband of five years, slaves away––every weekday–– to sustain the roof over their heads while fulfilling the luxuries he wants. He never asks me for what I want, she thought as she prepared his favorite meal.

As Mars chops away, she looks at her wrinkled fingers, and sighs. Her hands once enjoyed her routine of keeping their home spotless. Ironing airplane creases on Clark’s suits; the hissing steam satisfied her ears–– the navy suit he wears every Tuesday was her favorite.

Banging the knife onto the kitchen counters, she exhales, Who am I kidding? This is bullshit.

Clark, in his navy suit, enters the yellow tiled kitchen with white marble counters; the aromas of allspice and garlic infusing with ginger and lemongrass; mingle into the air. Mars, setting up the table in the dining room, glances at her husband before finishing up.

In the center of the white counters, lay a decanter of aged whiskey, a mini ice pail, and tongs. The usual set up that Mars assembles every weekday–– but today she was missing one item.

Clark yells, “Why isn’t my glass here?!” Do I have to do everything, he thought.

Mars busts through the door frame, opens the cupboard, grabs his hi-ball glass, and slams it on the counter. The sharp clink makes Clark’s shoulders flinch. His thick brows rise into an arch; triggered. The fuck. She’s never shown aggression before, he pondered as he ingests the whiskey.

Her raspy voice calls over to Clark for dinner. He sluggishly appears before the six-seater dining table, sitting at the opposite end, directly facing Mars. She decorated the table in gold-rimmed dinnerware and centered in the middle was supper. Clark’s favorite: marinated steak with potatoes. In addition, Mars whipped up a new dish: spicy dumplings.

As Mars gets up to pass the steak, she asks the redundant, “How’s work today?” Clark wastes no time in unloading his recollections for the day; his bass-heavy voice drowning out Mars’ ears as she swirls the wine in her cup, creating a red whirlpool, sucking her in, waiting to coat her taste buds. His babbling subsides. She swigs, finally.

Silence; except for the scraping of utensils.

“Aren’t you going to ask how my day was?” Mars questions.

“Oh. Sorry, sweetie. How was your day?” he asks.

“Nothing eventful.”

“Then why’d you make me ask?”

“Because you never care to, sweetie.” taking her sip of wine.

He grumbles and shakes his head; releasing the fumes from his skull. Scoffing down the now-sour steak so he can swiftly leave the room. Mars picks up her glass and drinks the merlot.

Third time.

Clark takes notice and says, “Aren’t you pregnant? Stop drinking.”

“Shut up and eat the dumplings,” she snaps while gulping down the liquid.

Clark freezes. Holding his glass in midair–– his lips so close to taking a sip. His brows scrunched, What is up with her today? His stare fixed on Mars; her fox eyes not batting a lash, refusing to let go. He loses the stare-down, picks up the dumpling and shoves it into his mouth.

The sack of dough bursts with the flavors of numbing spice, garlic, and supple meat. He eats one more dumpling; drooling. Grabbing another. And another. The tender umami hindering his escape plan, turning him gluttonous.

Mars’ lips begin to curl; a twinkle of flames, a glimmer of contempt, gracing her eyes.

Clark takes a bite and looks into the dough pouch, curious of what composes such a delicacy. He sees green onions, minced shrimp, and flesh… “I had a miscarriage this morning.” Mars interrupted.

He spits out the half-chewed dumpling. Staring down at his plate. Speechless. Mars, holding onto her glass, motions her hand, in an attempt to extract the words out of her husband; who’s choking on reality. Clark jolts out of his seat, “W-wait what?! Why didn’t you tell me? Are you okay?”

Mars’ eyes widen, confused by his behavior; opens her doll-like mouth, “Well, 1 out of 8 pregnancies end in a miscarriage.” I wonder if that goes for marriages too, she thought. As though engulfed by static, Clark clenches his forehead; inhaling and exhaling, rupturing the air with his breath; threatening to combust.

“What did you do with it?” he furrowed his brows; dumbfounded by Mars’ laid-back demeanor.

She glances at the dumplings, then back at him.

Clark’s eyes dart back and forth; thoughts of panic flood his mind, paranoia in the words “dumplings”, echoing in his head.

“You didn’t…” as he covers his mouth; preventing vomit from spewing out. His body starts to shiver. His clothes; soaked from all bodily fluids as Mars clears up the dinner table. Her smile overtaking half her porcelain face.

Mars leans in to whisper in her husband’s ear, “I want a divorce.” before disappearing into the yellow kitchen.

Shortly after, Mars packed up her belongings and left with two suitcases. Clark lingered in the dining room gathering himself from such horrors. Dragging his feet into the kitchen, he stumbles upon a note left on the white counters–– right in the center––glistening. Reaching for the paper with his ex’s imprinted cursive; swallowing his anxiety, Clark scans the note:

The meat was pork. I flushed it down the toilet.

Five minutes was an impractical amount of time to wait for two little red lines to appear; especially since Ophelia had much better things to do with her time than sit on the dusty toilet seat, holding a white and pink stick between her legs. After all, it hadn’t been her wielding the small drugstore package like a baseball bat into her dilapidated bathroom.

It was Isidore, her cotton-candy blue haired ‘friend’ who’d broken into the studio, yelling a string of obscenities at the intoxicated resident, passed out in the pile of beige pillows center the chaotic apartment. A lengthy argument about their differing opinions on personal boundaries ensued thereafter, eventually leading to the topic causing Ophelia to be hauled off her ass into the equally cluttered bathroom.

Isidore, wearing her typical gothic attire and black apron dusted with dirt and fertilizer from the flower shop she owned, pulled stale cheese-sticks from a Pizza-Hut box that had laid around since the previous week. Ophelia had ordered them as a ‘required food item’ to go with the six pack of Bud-lite. She leaned against the doorless door frame and watched the slightly swaying woman on the toilet. The door had been blown off its hinges during one of Ophelia’s routine acid trips many months ago; and since things tended to stay broken around her place, no one had the will nor money anymore to replace it for the dysfunctional female living here.

“Toss me the bottle of wine on the sink, will you?” Ophelia said, as with one boney hand-pushed knotted moon-colored tendrils behind her ear, the other hand now the sole carrier for the ‘piss-stick’ (a term she coined moments before) she held.

She didn’t need to look up from her dazed focus on the pill-bottle and garbage covered concrete floor to know that a bottle of some sort of liquor took residency in the bathroom; it was her unspoken house law that mandated at least three bottles stocked in here just in case one of her ‘babysitters’ came in acting like it was the prohibition and replaced all her alcohol with water or various brewed probiotic tea. They would be too busy with the hurricane of flasks in the studio to come in the rarely used restroom to confiscate the ones hidden in the medicine cabinet, trash bin, hole in the wall, or toilet tank… and if they did, they would be depleted of enough energy to only snatch the decoy on the sink.

“You’re kidding right?” Violet eyes didn’t as much look at the presumably three-dollar bottle resting precariously against a rusted faucet and chipped sink bowl. “How, in this situation would you even think that I would consider that?”

“Because there is no way in hell there is a situation… I’m just doing this to humor you.” She leaned back against the seat, sickly pale-yellow eyes rolling skywards. Inhaling and exhaling exasperatedly, her black bralette, a matching set with the drawn-down thong, stretched across tattooed breasts with every labored breath. Inked wolves and snakes chased each other along her curves in a never-ending race.

Although she couldn’t win a memory contest, tell someone what she’d done thirty minutes before, or what day of the week it was… she knew that she had been blacked out for a large portion of the last year; meaning any sort of possibility there would be a second red line near impossible. This she was sure of, the increasing throbbing in her head confirming her suspicions.

“So, the voicemail you left earlier- screaming that you’d been throwing up, missed your period, and wanted to see Aggie has nothing to do with what you’re doing right now?”

“Funnily enough, I know that never happened,” Ophelia sighed. But, quickly glancing into the moldy tub to her right told a different story- a greenish-white stain crusted on the edge of the tub… a faint smell of bile wafting under her nose. Moments after this realization, she glared back at the other woman, brows furrowed. “That could be from drinking! And- uh, you know I don’t eat a lot anyways, and my flow’s always been irregular so- “

“And what about Aggie… you gave her up in June, and haven’t given any inclination thus far that you wanted to see her- not even when you’ve called drunk before.”

Aggie, the bright eyed four-year-old in the polaroid’s tucked away in drawers; white pigtails pinned with butterfly clips. Six months ago, after weeks of fighting in family court against the man who’d written his name in hundreds of thin white lines along Ophelia’s back, CPS had whisked Aggie away from the studio and to an adoptive family- neither mother and father deemed fit enough for custody. Visiting rights were few and far between.

Dolls were still stuffed in the closet, a toothpaste-crusted child’s toothbrush and gummy vitamins sat on the chipped sink adjacent to the decoy bottle of wine. A whale bath-toy lay beached in the tub, now growing mold out of its spout. Ophelia could hear the chiming bells of her daughter’s giggles as she popped soapy bubbles in the tub- the little seal toy that came as a set with the whale in her other stubby hand.

These memories Ophelia could remember; there was a white fluffy bathmat where her bare feet now touched the floor, and the place had only looked decrepit back then. When she had first signed the lease on the studio, it still smelled clean- not like sweat, smoke and late-night drinking.

It was two years into the lease that the days became foggy, or forgotten entirely. The hot water was turned off, and Aggie would go weeks without a bath, because she’d cry because the water was too cold; and since the heat had also been shut off, when she got out, it would take hours under blankets to get warm again. Ophelia could barely feed Aggie, so she started drinking at the bar when she was on shift, and stole pub-mix when she could for herself, without the hard-ass boss looking- leaving the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the little one.

Ophelia even knew somewhere in her mind that sometimes, the woman standing across from her would drop the little girl off after she’d been babysitting her all day at the flower shop, and find her passed out in the bathroom, a few times also close to overdosing on her antidepressants. And when Aggie had been taken away, the occurrence of finding Ophelia blacked out became a daily ordeal.

Maybe it was true. Maybe she had left a voicemail and said all those things.

“Hey, it’s been five minutes,” Isidore dropped the empty box on the floor, snapping Ophelia out of her hazed thought. The woman on the toilet hadn’t registered the few tears that had escaped her eyes, and the slight tremor in her hands.  “Do you want me to check it, or you? Because you went silent there for a sec… and you’re practically holding it like it’s got the plague…”

Without a verbal answer, Ophelia pulled up the arm that had dropped to the side up to her reclined head, fingers slightly sticky.

Two red lines.

She slowly stood up, pulled up her underwear and walked out the doorless bathroom, shoving the pregnancy test into her friend’s hands as she went.

“There’s at least four bottles in there… can you take five minutes while I get dressed and throw them out?”

A lady at the store was returning her purchases today. She returned all except one. Gummy bears. At least that’s what she told me. She couldn’t return those, because she craved them every night lately, she said. What an interesting craving. She told me it wasn’t chocolate she craved or any other sweet candy, it was just gummy bears. She then proceeded to tell me that she also craves sweet and salty things. Very much so. In fact, her face lit up when she talked about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I started to think about how much I’ve always loved that combination, irresistible at times. Tried to recall the taste on the tip of my tongue. She told me that she has lots of jelly in her fridge, but none are quite as satisfying to use for spreading as the Welch’s grape packets. With packets, they can be used up with one use. That’s what she liked most, she told me. Using jars of jelly, you can just never be too sure. That gave me something to think about. I mean, how often do we think about simple things such as that? I listened with curiosity, I enjoyed this conversation, loved every moment while it lasted, and never wanted it to end. The conversation of types that you remember, not an everyday basic conversation, you know. Grateful for those and more to come. 

after Kelli Russell Agodon, Love Waltz with Fireworks 

A few months ago, I was sitting in a cafe

with my friend, enjoying a latte and

talking about what the future would hold

I was volunteering at bustling soup suppers,

serving smiling gray-haired patrons

and laughing with people I love

I was wrapping my arms around my friend in

a reckless embrace, never worried that

something so simple could be taken away.

Making pancakes in the afternoon, study sessions

in a quiet cafe, walks around the mall.

Morning coffee meetups and lunch dates.

Don’t take this for granted, I want to whisper

into the ear of my old self, who could never

see what was coming.

Not just to her, but to everyone. A new couple,

holding hands as they walk, a grandchild, wrapping

his little arms around his grandmother’s waist.

A comic bookstore owner, greeting customers and chatting

about the latest issue. The woman browsing the aisles

at the bookstore, looking for a new cookbook to try.

The colorful, emotional, vibrant world that I was lucky

enough to experience, stolen away by

an invisible thief. A thief who steals life.

A thief who locked everyone inside their homes.

Hid their faces behind stifling facemasks.

Stole their freedom and their livelihood.

I long for the day when that thief is apprehended,

when doors can open again, when we have a

newfound appreciation for all that we lost.

A day that keeps running farther away,

a day that we may never catch.

Out of the mug’s cracked ceramic lip soft steam billowed through stale air

hissing that this promise just given, that you hope to be kept, is forgotten,

forfeit among their stressful schedules and slipping thoughts. Again. No chicken

coop built, no hike past pine trees, no clean sink – the beard

hair and chunks of soap remain. A journal of every wish come true

turns absently through its blank pages. You try to circle back, underline one part

that came true.  Nothing here. Inside your brain blooms with gray paint circling the

empty future you’re working on. Your whole life you’ve wondered what

color would show up if one word of theirs were kept, just one. But there is

nothing in the gray, not even black. Coward, you’ve your own color – paint a path back.

after Kim Addonizio 

I want a collection of lipsticks.

One in every single shade.

Colors that wrap around my lips-

and decorate the words they speak.

I want to be able to pick

from sweet cherry reds, candy pinks, and nutty browns-

so that I can coordinate the shades to my mood swings.

I want people to stare at my mouth and dream about popsicle flavors

Demands and promises outlined in flushed watermelon kisses

And I want all my lipsticks in a glossy finish.

So that my lips will leave a mark

on every surface they grace.

So that when I kiss you,

They’ll be no mistaking my popular pout.

The fact was obvious when I laid eyes on you.

I wanted your sense of fashion on my feet,

I could already hear your glistening gum bottoms making music with the gravel,

I could already feel slithering laces grasping your tongue to compress me tightly around your hollow body.

I want your saturated colors fluttering through the vivid air as we take a stroll through the streets of Seattle.

I want the attention of civilians, admiring this impeccable art piece roaming the streets.

I want… you.

after Kelli Russel Adagon

It’s like hugging a stranger.

I know this person is much like me,

they too come from a mother’s womb, why must I be scared?

It’s like

the sandwich I bite into turns out to be filled with buttercream and bananas,

Not a bad thing, quite pleasant

but not what I thought.

One of those roads less traveled by—

Unsure of what it holds and its blind walkway

I trip. That damned twist in my trail.

May the dirt I taste tickle my tastebuds, giggling a promise.

Could it be that all spontaneous situations

lead to possibility?

An outcome I never imagined, but still just as cozy.

We tend to burrow away once we stray from the path,

when it’s not what we told ourselves

That house dog turns into a doe.

I do not wish to encounter the unplanned,

it is not a familiar face.

Why would I want to say hello?

But when I meet its eye contact, there’s tranquility.

That doe continues to drink its pond water

knowing the rustle of that leaf could mean

life or death.

But as I live only through my calendar and planner,

My life becomes trapped

by its dates and orders, time suffocates my lungs.

Once we let go of our guide, once our grasp is released

can we appreciate the comfort in endless options.

The excitement,

how lovely that water tastes.

after Ilya Kaminsky, Author's Prayer

To understand their words, you need to forget

the blazing beat of your chest.

The self-taught rhythm, a single ember keeping the flame alive.

Life of language, with smoke that squeezes one’s personal circle.

To understand their phrases, you need to char this tiger strength shadow

choking your words and reaching for alien ones,

that seem to hum a love song

without letting out a note.

I am listening to their phrases. They twirl at a distance,

ribbons following the wind, dressed in peacock-like hues that avert the eyes.

Idle in this chamber,

sounds bounce off thick concrete,

a self-taught rhythm, invading

and edging only to reach my ears

while language waits outside the door.

Messy but simple.

There is the me, outside with charred shadows

and there is the me, who only knows the fear of scorching, hot steps.

before Leaving Sarajevo, April 21, 1995

Cold windy night

In a lonely station, the rain.

I clutch my bag and cry

In gray Belgrade.

It takes forever when I wait train

to take me out

of my life.

Roundabout of my mistake

in the brain underground.

That day I visit

your mom seals my destiny,

stick like a cachet,

my puckered wound.

Mother teacher, neat writing.

“I have a friend in the city you are visiting.

This address might help. Take it.”

Doe eyes gaze –

her knowing. These hands that bring a coffee mug.

The body that has carried you and nourished you.

I took the sip,

the worm liquid had taste

of your lips.

I let her ask me whatever. Her voice with perfect pause.

She listens.

How do I manage to leave Sarajevo in war?

And where do we meet each other?

Glance at her library.

“Anna Karenina” of course.

For a moment

her presence

and the train coming

gives a sense of a plan, relief.

She pulls out

your wedding album

and you stand there in front,

well balanced ski – coach

like you did on the enemy line.

And I stumble out

dug in my sorrow,

sobbing: back, back, back,

but drugging myself forward.

Then a train whistle sound

like a pretext:

New chapter, new chapter, new chapter.