Four PM/ Starbucks shift ends, my hair is so dirty I decide to leave my hat on even on my way home from work/ This is my sixth month living with you/ It is now March and my daily ritual in your car for the past three months has been screaming on the top of my lungs/ I smell of burnt coffee and burnt ciggarettes and I do not want to go inside/ Just one minute before I have to go inside/ I decide to stop in a church parking lot near your house/ This became my next ritual/ I never put this together until now, but maybe I was praying/ Asking myself to forgive myself/ Asking myself to not forgive you too much/ You did not come home until next morning and I didn't sleep that night, but atleast I havent had insomia since the eight months ago that I decided to leave you/ Each of your stumbled footsteps from the first floor of the apartment building made the stairwell and my heart thump/ Open the front door, slam the front door, open the curtain, that was suppossed to be our bedroom door, but was really just a curtain, step on top of me, in bed, roll your heavy body over mine/ I hate the way your mouth smells when you drink rum, lift your brick of an arm, and the only reason I know you are still alive is because your body still smells alive with piss and pore-soaked rum/ I can not escape from this now/ This has become my ritual/ This has become my prayer/ And even now/ When there are no footsteps, no more unvacuumed carpets, unrolled ciggarettes, and blasting television at two am, I pray for my own forgiveness/
