another one-shot! if you've read Cologne, consider this a continuation!

enjoy!

-endless


red wine

Red wine is your favorite.

You used to tell me that it brought you comfort. The bottles spoke to you in a way that I never could.

It was the drink of the entire night at our wedding. I remember you saying "The finest wine for the finest girl" and I knew our vows were true. I knew you would love me like neither of us had before, that you give me the world. That you would give me our three children. That you would provide for us, for our boys, for me, in the best way you knew how.

Each time the cork snaps, I feel a vibration in my body. I feel you behind me, your hands over mine, helping me and saying "you loosened it" with the brightest laugh I've ever heard. One of our boys has your laugh. It's kind, warm, sweet, but it's something he can never do as well as you.

The smooth liquid cascading down my throat reminds me of when we made love. I was always too delicate; too posh; too breakable. But you took me in for what I am, what I was with you, and you molded me into your finest bottle yet.

I buy one every spring. It finds its way into my grocery cart every time.

It's like a crimson poison. I drink it too seldomly, but also too often. I feel it running down my throat and imagine it's you. Imagine it's your flesh finding mine, your lips colliding with mine, your being melding with mine.

I down bottle after bottle to try and forget you. It's all I can do nowadays. Try to forget you. Try to forget what we had. Try to not look at our sons and see you in each of them.

And I know it doesn't bring you back. It will never bring you back. Neither the cologne, neither the wine.

You are forever gone. I am forever with you. I am forever in an abyss of loss, a reminder of what I've lost and what I've allowed to slip through the cracks of my poor discretion. You made me lack judgment, logic, scarcity. You made me lack humanity.

But God, did I lean into that inhumanity like it was just another piece of your complicated love. Your complicated self. Your desire to love and your desire to run.

There are days where the sun shines bright, and it catches a wall of red wine. It catches them in the perfect angle so that the sun glimmers off, creating rainbows across the ragged carpet. Creating the longing I wish I no longer sought, the craving for you that I wish I could fucking stop.

Red wine is your favorite.

Whenever it calls, I listen.