No 7: CHERRY SUNDAE

PHOTO BY LUCIA AUERBACH

LUCIA AUERBACH

Heartbroken girls speak an undecipherable language with the other heartbroken girls 

Only she can hear at the given moment

It’s wet

and raw

and hot

and skin

on skin

and she leaves

with blush brighter than before

I will always love myself the most when I’m heartbroken

I become the girl I was

Painting my legs at night

And gluing pennies to the floor,

Encountering everything for the first time.

I always forget how much I miss her

I love that girl

She knew nothing

Yet felt everything

I mimic her when I walk into grocery stores:

(Her favorite place)

Disheveled and smirking

When the behaved look my way

She is unchained

And irritable and 

The most loving girl you’ll ever meet.

I love heartbroken girls

Because it’s the only consistency we’ll ever have.

Abandonment is the only constant.

They say it’s change,

But most people,

Frankly,

Stay the same.

They always leave

Her smile bursts into laughter

As she lays on the floor of the dental office.

She keeps laughing as blood pools in her open mouth.

She starts coughing 

And spurting blood onto the floor.

Her teeth are pulled one at a time

As the horn section adds another chair

It’s a symphony and her neck is

Dyed red 

And she is toothless

And grinning

And has never known anything at all.

She is grinning in the mirror

She carves poetry into the sides of her hands.

Biblically, she’ll arrive at the party and use that same smirk to find somewhere to sleep that night.

She knows her lips are soft

She can’t wait for him to know too

But she gets to the party and recalls her heartbreak

And then flys to London to find the one who taught her

I thought I loved, yet I never did.

Dye my skin with cherries or blood when I die.

It won’t make a difference to me.

I won’t know.

I’ll never find out.