once

She stands at the window, black lace topped thigh highs and white underware. She wears your shirt, opened at the front. She opens the shutters, folding them in with her chapped hands. She presses up against the glass, still damp with your heat. Her dull gaze reflects back into the room. She stands beside the unmade bed, iron framed, cold and rusted. It is she who you loved. You believed, that at one time, she loved you. …. It was her youth, her beauty, her fierceness. But now, what is it? What remains? She was the one, the only light in the room. The way she drank beers from the corner of her mouth, the way she creamed your coffee, the way she squeezed the tube of tooth paste… all these intimacies, silent yet deafening, are what slowly destroyed your marriage.