Evening Coffee

If I had to kill myself, I would do it in October.

The first time I loved was in the fall of 2017. The first time I broke my own heart was in the fall of 2023. I would start the month thinking about when I wrote a song for my first love because I did not know any other way to contain what I had felt. Then I would think about the day he left. And I would mix a drop of poison in my evening coffee.

Memory by memory, drop by drop, I take in a little bit of poison every day as the month goes on.
Every day, a new remembrance of an old memory. Every day, a drop of the same poison.

I would think about the girl I spent five hours with, in the forbidden cemetery of our hometown. I would think about the sunset being reflected in her hazel eyes and how my heart raced when she held my hand. And I would mix another drop of poison in my evening coffee.

I would think about the boy I first gave my body to and how I let him have it even after I changed my mind. I would think about the sunrises we watched together, the cigarettes we shared, the arguments we had and the pain we caused each other. And I would mix another drop of poison in my evening coffee.

If I had to kill myself, I would do it in October. Accumulating painful poison in my body, drop by drop, just so that I would get to live out every memory of every day of this month, one last time— if I had to kill myself, I would do it in October, but I would do it slowly.

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