L(eft)overs
Taylor Fedorchak There was always evidence that I wasn’t the only one to live with you in the Mulberry house: tack marks remaining in jade bedroom walls. Stains from you, dried on kitchen chairs before we met. American Airlines tags still on your luggage, from the trip to Florida with her. My moonstone ring under your bed for months, lying with the small, clear hair clip I found between the mattress and the wall (there prior to the ring, to me). How I waited until you were at work to grab it. How I washed my hands after throwing it away. Every light blue hair tie that wasn’t mine, I slowly did the same with. Is that weird for you? The photo framed on the mantel from Thanksgiving two years ago. Me excluded. Because it would have bothered her. Like both of us at the bar on the same night. Me hoping to God we didn’t have to use the bathroom at the same time. Her head turning. The length of time you and I were gone from the table. My hands vibrating as I tried to touch up my pumpkin lipstick in the visor mirror. Then you, writing Taylor in block letters with pencil, covering the paper tablecloth. Tic-tac-toe as a distraction. But no to the earlier question, I can’t pretend there aren’t pictures of me like this. Except wearing a blood- speckled nurse costume, smiling with my arm around my former. His paintings drying in my storage unit for months. |
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About the Author: Taylor Fedorchak lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore. In Spring 2016, she received her BA in English from Salisbury University. Her work appears in decomP, Red Earth Review, Arkana, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and Glass: A Journal of Poetry.