This years tree, Jeremy Miranda

you show up at our door like a Christmas tree, spinning so fast you smear the lights. knocking knocking knocking knocking until you slump. cut to the silence. reverberating off every wall. we don’t dare fill it, swallowing words until they roil in the deepest parts of us. i can smell them in the dark, side by side reeking. fingerprints on the shower walls the only evidence of our knuckles. white. and despite all your scrubbing, i still see the red ring in the sink. i finally let you in at 8am. you sob and apologize until you fall asleep. i tell you we’ll get through it, then go to starbucks and decide to move out. actually, my stomach drops out. in one thud, as if it’s making room for something else.