cw: alcoholism, rehab
I wore plastic heart-shaped sunglasses 
from the dollar store paired with fault lines 

around my mouth. Amy Winehouse bluesed on the radio 
as I crawled through the cavernous hill country 

to find you. At your rehab, no, no, no, 
recovery center, you asked how’s school and I said good 

though I’d spent sophomore year bumming time 
and menthols from strangers and excavating 

the lyrics of every song I loved to sing with you 
from the cavities of liner notes in our big book of CDs. 

Your rehab dorm was a grotto dank with second hand
smoky quartz and pamphlets with titles like Nothing Changes 

if Nothing Changes. Your roommate drank cocktails 
of vanilla extract and Listerine and I imagined gargling with shards 

of creme brûlée. It had only been two weeks since you drove 
me to school with a Big Gulp of cabernet in the cupholder. 

I thought I was good at keeping secrets but I was so sick, already, 
of therapists embellished in amethyst lecturing me on how to heal. 

When you [blank] I feel [blank] and [blank]. 
Mom, when you drink I feel blank and like joining you. 

When you returned I bleached my hair blonde and wore faux-fur 
coats paired with chunky gemstones and stalagmites 

of fingers clenched tight around sparkling bottlenecks. 
The light at the mouth of the cave 

was a mirror. I was yours and you were mine 
and we were the same, life-drunk junebugs
spelunking through unrelenting hurricanes, only twelve steps 
from safety in any direction. But for the grace of you go I. 

Ten years later when it was my turn to go, I asked 
if you were getting back at me and you said no, no, no.

You’re getting back at yourself.
Pepper Cunningham (she/her) is a writer and teacher who hails from Texas but now calls home the mountains of Vilcabamba, Ecuador. She spends her free time writing by the river, making collages, and marveling at the sheer amount of unrecognizable beetles and butterflies that live in her garden. Pepper is currently the Translation Editor at MAYDAY Magazine. She can be found on Twitter @pepwriteswords.
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