Residue - Olivia Stephani

I didn’t know what gunpowder tasted like until you touched me but it was sour like the milk from her lips and the juices from the rotting pomegranate you left defiled on the kitchen table. Sweet like the honey that drips from the comb and onto your silver tongue but sweet as in sweet and sweet and sour. More sour than sweet some days but always the same and never changing. While I stay like the pomegranate on the kitchen table but that was her not me, right? And I am her and the touch was never sweet but always vinegar poured down my throat until it filled my mouth and spilled from the corners making its way down my neck and onto the peaks of my chest, gravity pulling it to the floor. And I would follow the vinegar down down down until there was nothing but the puddle and yes, it was sour and yes I liked it. I didn’t like it? Oh okay well I didn’t like it.

The lights look brighter from down here dangling above me, staring at me, taunting me like they know I want to touch them while vinegar pours from my eyes. And there’s the gun on the table but it’s just out of reach so if only the juices flood then it will float and float it did and I had it in my hand but the shot is empty as I go to turn it on myself and nothing comes out but vapor from barrels that smell of sweat and brine and nothing sweet and I wish I never knew her milk.