She tasted like the honey I applied generously to my breakfast sprawled on the dining table. When the thick substance settles back in the jar, I swear, I can see her golden reflection in the syrup. I swirl my spoon deep in the deliciousness to disturb the likeliness and decide on the fact late nights and I don’t mix.

“We could make each other less lonely” she once spluttered through an exhale of a cigarette she tried so desperately to enjoy for aesthetic and artistic reasoning; there was nothing creative about the way she lent in doorways and looked absent, she knew that.

The smoking and the drinking might kill you but loving somebody incapable of reciprocation is a much more painful way to go. Our memories will soon turn sickly yellow and the ethereal pedestal I put you on will collapse.

Sundays were meant for an endless duvet and our bodies entangled in the euphoria of us, now I guess they are destined to be spent waiting for you to respond to the drunken text, or novella, I sent in my solitary, woozy state of 3am.

The bitterness of my black morning coffee does not compare to the way I felt when you sauntered outside with somebody else. I wish you were a surface wound that would heal eventually, instead your shell in buried deep in my skin and no matter how much I tear at my flesh I cannot go far enough with my blunted nails.

You brushed me off like cake crumbs and left a trail of my affection behind you, leading me on some curious journey with twists and turns aplenty. I think it just hurts that I was practice, the dough didn’t come out quite right. You will love the next one more fiercely, you will not fuck them over like with me. You have learned how to kiss, how to touch, how to make somebody feel wanted – you’ve adjusted the ingredients and added two cups of sugar instead of one, the extra sweetness might disguise the seared exterior. It just hurts that I taught you how to love someone who isn’t me, my recipe dog-eared for somebody else’s enjoyment.

– Molly Johnston