There is something so depraved about the makeup wipes I used after I went out with you for the last time. The way they erased your touch from my face forever. The way they removed the crust of my mascara after I cried. The way my skin smelled like lemons instead of the smoke of the cigarette you held near my face.

Had it been this easy for you as well?

Did you erase me with an easy swipe? Did I no longer linger like a bitter aftertaste? Was your wipe efficient? Did I take at least half a pack to rub away? Was I stubborn?

Or did I give way to a docile erasure?

I keep imagining you trying to rub me away and failing. I live with the stolen parts of the people I've loved. And I leave parts of me with them. Did you find my pieces in you? Did you tear them out and trample on them? Was it easy to clean the mess?

I can no longer draw your face from memory, no longer remember the cadence of your voice, nor feel the warmth of your palm over mine.

This didn’t happen today, or yesterday. I just said it out loud today. Because all these days, I kept thinking that I could picture your face if I tried hard enough, or maybe remember the sound of your voice. I can’t.

Absence has eroded my memory. Absence makes you a deity. Waiting becomes ritual, love crystallizes into faith.

Because gods are untouchable anyways. They don’t answer, but you keep praying, because denouncing your faith doesn’t erase the doctrines you’ve etched into your bones.

I hope that I’m not easy to erase. That I, too, get to be the cruel god that doesn’t answer your penance.