I Will Never Cook Breakfast

by Karen Ashburner

If you fuck me I will never cook breakfast. There will never be a pot of hot coffee smelling of hazelnuts, or the aroma of melted butter and warm maple syrup hanging in the air to awaken you. There will always be dishes in the sink and clothes on the floor and scribbles on the wall made from dollar-store crayons. That thing you gave me for Christmas that I loved will always be lost under a pile of magazines I have never read. If you have sex with me I will always compare some spectacular thing you did in bed to a completely unrelated thing I once saw in a painting by an obscure modernist no one has heard of; the comparison to the unrelated thing will turn you into a legend with your friends and embarrass your family and be something you always hide from your grandchildren. If you move in with me I will never make lists before we go shopping for food; I will always shop for food when I am hungry; the food I buy will be expensive and easily spoiled if left on the counter or not cooked immediately. I will always leave the food out on the counter to spoil because I will find something beautiful in the rot to admire. If you leave me I will write allegorical paragraphs about the rot; I will remember what immediately spoiled as something exquisitely beautiful; and for the rest of my life I will protect and cradle my broken heart in metaphor, and allow the world to watch.

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Karen Ashburner lives and works in North Carolina. A list of her publications can be found at www.karenashburner.com. You can follow her on Twitter @sweetrocketsky.