spit drenched flame.

Pitch black night.

Heart darker still.

She sits erasing the traces of his existence from her memories.

One clean sweep, and one night dressed in white linen is gone.

Then a tear filled good bye in the street, hugging and kissing, regardless of convention and the prying eyes of the neighborhood, is slowly disintegrated into residue.

There are no tears. They have all been shed while what she sits ridding herself off was still worthwhile. Now there is only the stench of lingering emotions that are not welcome here anymore.

Feverishly she condemns whatever she remembers. Each moment buried in its separate grave. Each grave unmarked and indistinguishable. Each grave meant never to be visited, never to be irrigated by the salty water of her eyes. Each one formed simply to hold tethered to oblivion a past that reeks of heartbreak and pain.

Not the kind she’s suffered, no. Those are being surrendered to fate in a different graveyard in a different land in a different life by a different heart. These graves are for what she has wrought. For what cannot be forgiven so must be forgotten. Must be erased.

Wipe clean the slate so she can re-sow the seeds of dreams and aspirations for another, with another.

Nothing cherished, nothing retained.

So that she may march on into the future free of tell tale scars. Adorn a new skin that doesn’t have his lips marked all over it. So that every time a new kiss from a new mouth is planted on her flesh, it doesn’t feel like betrayal. Heals instead of hurting.

And so she sits, scraping away her life. Hoping, dreaming of a new beginning. Of starting over. Of being free, and new, and unoccupied. To be charming enough for someone else, and pious enough for herself. Of knowing that life holds too much promise to be whiled away in the pursuit of a commitment, of a love that ceases to be invigorating anymore. She looks to the future as she pries her finger off the past.

Somewhere far away, a man wakes up from a memory.

Feeling like a candle burning out.