Hello, Goodbye

By Eva Ferguson

She tells me to breathe.

But my breath was taken when she first made herself known.

She dared walk into my home with those red boots and cynical smile.

Hello, she says.

She tells me to relax, but how can I relax when all that awaits is a blackening abyss?

She does not care about us.

And yet

She loves us.

She loves us so, she says. This is all for you, she says. Relax. Breathe.

Why have you come?

I have always been here, she says.

I am patient, I am caring, I am loving and all encompassing.

You need me, she says.

Do I?

Yes, she says.

She bears down on my chest.

Our chest.

I stare at her boots, a crisp blood red. She sees me stare and frowns.

You do not want me here, she says.

No.

I never have and never will.

We never have and never will.

And so she leaves, but forgets her bright red boots on my couch.

My breath stops.

She leaves.

Goodbye, she says.

Hello, I say.

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