All Gone by Rickey Rivers, Jr.

She said, “Think of me every time you sleep in your bed.”

I hated that, so I threw the bed out.

Then, I considered the other rooms,

The kitchen floor, the bathroom sink, the couch.

It was time to remodel.

Out went everything with her smell on it,

everything with dead skin and her hair on it,

everything that used to have her underwear on it.

After some time, finally she was gone,

all of her.

I was safe and sound.

At least, I thought as much.

A bit of her lingered,

because of course I hadn’t considered my tongue.

Rickey Rivers Jr was born and raised in Mobile Alabama. He is a writer and cancer survivor. He likes a lot of stuff. You don’t care about the details. He has been previously published in Fabula Argentea, ARTPOST magazine, the anthology Chronos, Enchanted Conversations Magazine, (among other publications). Check out some stuff from him here, https://storiesyoumightlike.wordpress.com/. You may or may not find something you like there and that’s a promise. Twitter.com/storiesyoumight