She became a critic soon after him,
looking for ways to go wrong, feasting
on failure from wire-rimmed plates.

The anger stemmed from a hatred
of being hurt. Every silence was a pinpoint
of light to be extinguished
individually, carefully.
Perpetually. Forced laughter:
she was perpetually in motion.

That there would be no other, not ever,
was decided early as she learned to endure
and endured long enough to break
down and crumble in a rain of skin cells.
Critically certain, she proclaimed:

He will be the last, my last.
I will never face this feeling again.

And she sunk lower in the bathtub
or dug deeper under her blankets
as she waited for it to rain.
Trying to forget
his heartbeat or his voice,
(a low murmur),
his hands, his wrists,
his laughter, his lips,
his lies.

Maybe I could have married him.
She wondered if it would have been average--
a two star hotel, a B rated movie.
Average.
What had never been enough
was more than she dared to wish for.
She reread an old letter...
Added her epilogue:

Love leaves thick stains on your shirt
and a hole through the back of the throat.
Our hope was horribly misplaced.


...But she never learned.