The second time her brother left she ate a 14 oz. tin of cherry pie filling and washed it down with 500 mL of chocolate milk. The sound of water boiling became accusatory. Her daily shower rasped like steel brushes against her skin until her pores were naked and raw. Steam accosted her nostrils with fizzling explosions of odourlessness. Images refracted where no boundary conditions existed. She pressed her tongue against her alveolar ridge and waited.

The second time her brother left was promiseless. A wink and a whisper in the midnight twilight fire. An echoey song sung into the body of a guitar and twisted into columns of humming summer bugs. Bricks and cinderblocks breathing ash onto melting rubber soles. A kiss dropped on the forehead at evening’s end. A piece of chewing gum meant to chase cheap beer off her tongue.

The second time her brother left her feet tapped impatiently under the table. Her fork dropped again and again. Into her lap and to the floor. Onto her plate, into her lap and to the floor. Against her glass, onto her plate, into her lap and to the floor. She was eating peas that the fork staccato skipped past in jazz solo rhythms. She didn’t ask to be excused.

When all these things jumble, the way all these things tumble like messy closets through open doors, and hopes or homes are not where you left them. It isn’t this. It’s the hitch of a breath on a nail you never pounded in. The hammer of a throbbing thumb and blisters pressing against pebbles in your heels. It isn’t this. The whir and shudder of drills through plaster casts of old-you-new-you-fake-you-true-you. The sawdust dripping from limbs measured once and cut twice. It isn’t this. You know.