Ten minutes

Ten minutes pass,
and I’m brushing my teeth again,
forty-four times a day
just to rinse you from my skin—
but still,
a hundred and forty-four times
I’m thinking of you.

Every tick of the clock
feels like a match
striking in my chest,
a flare of you
burning
where I can’t reach.

And then the thought—
you with somebody else—
it drags claws
across my mind,
splinters my lungs,
makes even the rinse
taste of ashes.

I don’t like that.
I don’t like that at all.

So I count
brushstrokes,
heartbeats,
days,
waiting for the fire
to go out,
but you keep
burning me clean.

by Onnaya