XXVII. Etiquette For Erasure.

I spent the morning destroying evidence.

Tucking yesterday out of sight,

disguising neglect as devotion,

aligning ambience edge to edge—

dust, too, wanting to be touched softly.

By first knock,

the scene is set.

I take my place

among the obedient things.

“I’m so sorry for the mess,” I say.

The room gleams, forgetting history.

Curtains kneel in pressed command.

One mug left to stand:

decoy for chaos, O throat of porcelain,

the ghost of spontaneity rehearsed.

Still,

with my chosen face,

the scene wavers.

I imagine betrayal domestic:

cabinets unhinged, authentic.

White sheets unspool their seams,

and with them, all that seems.

A good hostess leaves no room for want,

and I am

a good hostess.

I polish what’s long overlooked:

the table, the mirrors, the ache.

The forks, the knives, the self.

All arranged to suggest

I have never cut anything open.

Light candles for comfort I’ll never claim,

stir the soup till it forgets its name.

Everything fixed for your arrival,

everything I’d lived with

broken.

I spent the morning destroying evidence.

The world applauds the disappearing act.

How neatly I vanish,

how neatly I am destroyed.

I bow. Again.

For what it’s worth,

-Charlene Iris

One thought at a time.

One truth at a time. 

Because some epiphanies stay with you.