My sweet mechanic Mark, sometime Hamlet 
& regional children’s entertainer, choked me 

dutifully for months before disclosing 
herpes and a suicide attempt. We paused sex 

so I could process, get tested. The Reddit thread 
was an uneven field, a vast regretful flex; playing in bed 

to deaden stress was Half Blood Prince, the end, 
where Lupin looks upon Bill, half-werewolf after his bite, 

and calls them “cursed wounds.” I washed my comforter; 
tide pods stuck in the crevices, making deep blue stains 

while runoff pooled next to the kibble bowl. Plastic shells, 
half-melted, welded themselves to whichever fibers 

weren’t wet, stiff concave stingrays preaching caution 
ninety minutes too late. 

I have done enough 
for the dirty dicks in my life: scheduled colposcopies 

for every strain of HPV, applied ointments, lost 
lap time at the pool. Addressing messes keeps me 

dry, it makes me wet, takes extra time, then all at once 
I’m all set. In Palm Desert for a week playing Scrabble 

on the patio with my parents, the tiles got grimy 
so my dad scooped them into a sieve like grains 

of rice, running tap water over them before fashioning 
a tiny drying rack. In minutes we’d have them back. Some messes 

are like that: a little miso-mascarpone on my track pad
that wipes off fast. I texted Mark a quick break-up, made new

airport pick-up plans. I didn’t want to leave at the first sign 
of pain, but my plane was boarding. We weren’t the same.