"Can't Do Without You" by Scarlett Hume

VOICEMAIL POEMS

You’re like a paragraph in a book, he says, folding a dollar bill into an origami ring at the bar, and I’m not sure if it’s an insult. He slips the ring onto my forefinger: don’t get too excited. Should I apologize to you or myself or the woman who loved him before? I stay for the story. He is the only one who can make me laugh during an argument. We huddle in the doorway of the pub, passing the vape back and forth in the cold. He mocks my rotating flavors: watermelon, mango, strawberry. I tell him I miss my cigarettes but really, it’s just autumn again. Puff, puff. I’m rotting from the inside. Downing pills with an Old Fashioned. My heart is episodic, my brain one chemical imbalance after another. This unfurling is not what I wanted. He’s the head rush from the first good drag. The first sip of coffee to cure a hangover. I’m living at the bottom of the bottle and it’s beautiful here, all glass and no windows. Who is there left to quit for? The bodies in the lake, one of them mine. The bodies in his pool, all of them my lovers. I slaughter them to the gods of my wanting. I like the way he talks to his cats. Throws one over a shoulder and coos. I ache for this rough with my soft. A 4am kiss, a purpling bruise on my bicep. All those late night drives, always to him. We’re at the bar again. I’m nursing an unwanted Tito’s shot as he ignores me for a man with a matching DUI. He only notices when I storm away. Follows as I’m trying to hide so I give him a hard time because how dare he watch me bleed. Scar, I love you. He says my childhood nickname like he can hardly lift it. I’ve forgotten how it feels to be seen and still wanted. I can outrun anything, even love. I can shoehorn any ending I want, even with my heart in his chokehold. In this version, I fish my lovers’ bodies out of the pool for one last dance before burial. I lay my vapes on their graves instead of flowers. ————————————– Scarlett Hume called us from Washington, DC. voicemailpoems.org/submit/ facebook.com/voicemailpoems x.com/voicemailpoems bsky.app/profile/voicemailpoems.bsky.social instagram.com/voicemailpoems