The laundry thumps. Almost done.
I remember this, the litany of decontamination.
My voice never raised but your heart would faint.
I remember our most romantic evenings
spent in sterile hospital cells of your vacillating puberty.
The buzzer’ll ring soon. Not soon enough.
Cleaning feels maternal somehow,
cold-pressed onto me like prehistoric fossils of mistake.
Some men hug not to hold but to burrow into muscle
like ticks bloated on strength.
They say things change to remain the same.
I’ve got towels to fold yet, and a bed to make.
When the laundry's done, I'll be good to go,
as well rid of you as of static hell clingwrap sheets.
(The first line was all I got done in the classroom prompt. Then I spoke with Professor Edwards after and took her fantastic line "prehistoric fossil of mistake" and tried to wrap my feelings about this breakup into something that felt a part of outdated gender roles to me. He based his proposal on the fact that I cleaned his house for him once, from top to bottom. So that's where this came from. There's probably more I could go into; I need to work on expanding and then stripping down.)
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