The ginger on your plate smelled feebly of the rain last summer when
your parents visited weekly with smiles on their faces showing the kind of solidarity
even you dared to expect during this
roughest of times –
but they couldn't convince you of your
right to worth and you
never wandered back to that light down
by the river
where all the magic happened before you swallowed the bullet and slit your noose
and you fell out of love with life
in all honesty, everything died with your
first drops of blood kissing
linoleum, staining your heartstrings and straining the surface of water left
in everyone's chest after a meal with
that bitch – guilt
and while the ginger between the delicate rows of fish stunk of the bygone
songs, the lyrics like rotting carcasses
with just enough light left
in the eyes to make you believe for even
a minute
that there is any sweet melancholy left,
the wasabi
cleansed the air with the odor of iodine
and the tea smelled like a gunshot