I never loved you.

I peel the skin from my orange. My practiced hand deftly removes the skin in one piece. It expands like a mottled corkscrew, perfect for the lip of a giant margarita glass. I wish I had a giant margarita. It’s hot today and a giant margarita would be very refreshing. I would drink and swim and drink until I couldn’t swim any longer, and then I would be drunk. I wish I was drunk. I’m not, and my orange sucks. It is dry and tasteless, a product of poor breeding.

I ask you to take a walk with me but your feet are made of sand. I promise to bring an umbrella with us just in case. In case we decide to go to the beach, which we do, and lucky for us my umbrella is very large. I turn it on its head and we use it as a boat. We decide to float to Hawaii, but we never make it there, of course. Your feet get wet and they disintegrate, detaching from your body; they turn into small islands while you sink.

For awhile I live on these islands. Every night I dream of you sinking. Every day I wake up and sculpt a giant sand cathedral where every angel on every spire has your face until the wind blows. I know that if I leave the island the dreams will stop and I will forget you. But there is a beauty in the forgetting. And I will probably drown before I get anywhere significant, never to peel another orange again.