peanut butter

you were and are strolling through my phobic depths
each footstep, breath, leaf taken in
you've seen it and crushed it and shown it me in
full-frame, 35mm, HD, with so cinematic an eye
could you not have seen this coming?
you, pushed into me and me into you by some cosmic
force that ultimately you've given up on
or no longer find tragic or peaceful or lonely or serene
all of those arts of emulsion we almost mastered
you invoke yourself in my morning prayers,
rituals involving push-ups, peanut butter, rice protein
(chocolate flavored to mask the insecurity)
the simple act of unscrewing the jar can unscrew my ducts
and my breakfast will become salty
and i will consume far too much sodium
like your brother
who shakes before he tastes, who acts before he thinks.
returning to the task in my hand: breakfast, insurmountable.
bananas, broken by palm, coconut oil (an unsustainable balm),
in the protein, in the milk. my hand is stuck
on the oily lid of our teddie peanut butter,
your favorite and by extension mine,
refusing to open for me or desiring to prolong the struggle
how easy to blame a teddy bear instead of oily physics.
i sputter and bump and curse and cry
memories rubbing off on my shirt, permanent stains, spilling
over the counter, dirtying the floor, tightening my shoulders
grabbing at my jaw, and then
i move to the sink for a rubber glove. the smack of its
approval lines things up straight.
i pick up the jar, thinking i've made morton obsolete
and read:
"separation is natural."