Jealous

I am jealous of objects, not people, such as the fork that enters your
mouth. It draws light ridges on your lips while the cream of a warm
dessert remains on your tongue. It savors the metal like the meal
before it, like the liquid flowing past the seal your lips form on the
rim of a cup. I am jealous of your toothbrush as it gets to sweep the
stories and flavors of your day. Your shoes as they know where you’re
headed, and more importantly, where you’re from. I long to be your
purse that knows what you value and what needs to be saved. I’m
jealous of your clothes as they get to rub against you the entire day.
I’m jealous of your soap and even your own hands as they get to wash
you everyday. They get to speak with your aches and hear your showery
songs. I want a duel with your beer bottle, I want to fight with the
water down your throat. I want to pull the words that come out of your
mouth like floss between your teeth and eat them one by one.

I am jealous of objects, not people, because only objects can keep us
apart. After all the voices around us tire of themselves, the
incessant cackling, the attempts at disrupting, the strongly worded
advice, they all fall away and leave us standing, nothing between us
except fabric, then air, breaths that are hot as they are thick with
words through years and years building, yet remain mostly unsaid.

-Shakira Sison