Splenda, please.

It was the sweetest
cup of coffee.
I loved it so much
and you did not.
I knew you liked
yours black.

*

She knew you liked your coffee
black, she knew
a lot of things, she
saw you when I couldn't
and I found you out on a Starbucks
receipt, black ink
graying out like
aging hair or
steam atop a kettle or
an evaporating lie.
A black lie thinning
into a white lie.

*

I see her one time
when the Starbucks barista
wrongly calls her name
after serving my drink.
She takes my coffee,
my white chocolate mocha.
She looks at me with
the blackest eyes.

*

This isn't what you think.

A Plea

how close did you want me?

( breathing back into you or two blocks away
arm around your waist or voice in a phone call
across your morning coffee or behind glass on your bedside picture frame
our toothbrush bristles meeting or our books in separate shelves
hands in hair or cold dead air
behind your eyelids when you blink or a silhouetted figure when you think )

how close did you want me?

( and if you wanted me that close,
why are you lightyears away? )

Oh no, Winona

Drink this in, my dirty queen said. She took the goblet and handed it to me. The wine was as red as the rubies in her cheeks and flecked with the gold from her irises.

There's ice in this, I said, eyebrows furrowed. Questioning! Why is there ice in my wine?

Those are diamonds! she exclaimed. Drink and sit on my throne.

Your throne? I repeat. Next to you?

With me, she said all certain but not meeting my eyes. Hers were too busy counting the rings on her fingers.

I took the goblet to my mouth and gulped down every drop. Diamonds sat on the bottom of it, and I took my place beside my queen. Her butterfly lips landed on my ear and my eyes fluttered shut like stilled wings.

Poison, poison, poison.