pickle juice

The cold February air charges through the door as you walk in, 

stomping and shaking the once delicate snowflakes onto our floor.

You said it’s a frosty one out, I sit at the table staring at you.

It’s half past 7, you got off at 5. 

The days somehow are longer than they used to be.

I am eating pickles from the jar in front of me.

I used to cook, 

filling the kitchen air with life and warmth, 

giggling as you’d admire me from the chair I sit in now. 

Silently, I stare as you peel off your layers by the door,

Remembering how it felt to be the one doing that.

I offer you a pickle.

Your head shakes, repelling the fragile snowflakes down.

You go on to say how full you are,

you “stopped for taco bell on the way home.”

I can’t stop a withered “oh” from escaping my lips.

While I swallow the last remaining pickle in the jar,

you go to our room.

I sit and stare, at the pickle juice

lingering in the jar, once full of so much more.