She did not mean
to die on that couch.
She had purchased
it to give comfort.
Two of her good friends
had helped her carry it
up the stairs.
But she couldn’t move.
There was no way
she could drag her body
to some place more appropriate
like sprawled across the hardwood floor,
or slumped over the kitchen table.
Head on cushion,
body pressed against
that soft but supportive back,
no wonder she was furious.
When Jake came home,
he’d see her lying there
and figure she’d just dozed off.
Even if he saw the empty vial
on the carpet, the tell-tale syringe.
There’d be no immediate “Oh my God!”
The truth would come
to him slowly,
like blood trickling from a wound.
He could sit back in the matching chair.
maybe even describe his day,
his plans for tomorrow.
Her last breath
was something of an apology,
that the calm, the light, showed
face and chest and limbs as living things.
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