I only dreamt of your death—saw the news on Instagram—but now I am crying three dimensional tears for missing you like you are buried under dirt and shit, stiff like hard candy. After waking from the dream I kept scrolling and read about a blonde influencer who professionally fakes niceties. For $32 per word she would send a personalized note in her perfect bubble gum hand to anyone you wanted, plus shipping. I almost ordered one for you, but $201.75 was too much to let you know that I was glad you weren’t dead. Then came the ugly rest: Smooth Operator (the live version), the deep plum liquid lipstick you gave me, love letters made out of playlists, a mustard crushed velvet couch on the internet that looked like the one in our second apartment, smoking in your bed on the silk sheets that I hated. They were deep golden. At the lake we did mushrooms for the first time. We laid face to face on a pull out couch, picking dirt out of each other’s teeth while friends around us were floating their come downs on thick clouds. The Medusa tattoo on your shoulder winked at me and all of her snakes laughed. The wall behind you was alive with yellow, shining a sour pineapple spotlight for you—you were glowing, girl. In our last June together, I came home from a shift at the grocery store to find a place with no pulse: you left me for a pre-war building on campus with other students whose parents paid the rent. I knew I was losing a best friend, but you could’ve told me you were taking the cat.

M. Price lives in Richmond, Virginia with her cat, Babycat. She writes and dances away the bullshit. You can find her forthcoming work in Rejection Letters and on Twitter @notmywurst.