> "Some places don't hold memories. They hold corpses of your old self."
The door creaks open like it knows I shouldn't be here.
The apartment we shared in Berlin still smells like cinnamon and gunpowder.
I take a step inside. The ghosts welcome me.
There's a bullet hole in the wall behind the bookshelf. You left it there as a joke. I never laughed.
The kitchen is spotless. That's how I know you haven't been here.
You don't clean. You erase.
---
I drop my bag by the door. I still have the key.
You probably meant to change the locks. You probably didn't.
Because you knew I'd come back.
I walk through the rooms like I'm searching for a body. My body.
The girl who believed you was murdered here.
I find her ghost in the mirror.
---
"I thought you'd stay gone," you say from the doorway.
"I thought you'd rot."
"You kept the key."
"I kept the trauma."
---
You walk in like you own the air. Like Berlin never burned us both.
"You shouldn't be here," you say.
"Neither should you."
"I needed to remember."
"Remember what?"
"How it felt to have you under me."
---
I slap you. Again.
This time, you catch my wrist. Pull me in.
Your lips brush my ear.
"I still dream about your screams."
"Get out."
"I will. After I remind you why you married me."
---
You push me against the wall. The same wall I cried against the night you disappeared.
I should shove you off.
Instead, I kiss you. Because I hate you. Because I love you.
Because I'm still not free.
---