Josh—a bottle of wine

There is a sort of gentleness; a sort of beauty in the empty bottle of wine sitting on my dresser amongst more innocent things

I never drank any; didn’t touch it except to remove it—but the idea of my dear cousin’s lips making prints on the glass is good, to me

The loops and curlicues of the cursive lettering remind me of somebody’s handwriting, probably a teacher or someone’s mother

My family writes too messily, too quickly—letters cramped around each other, bent toward the end of a sentence with perfect runner’s form

Josh, it says

Back to the bottle

Whoever’s handwriting that was—could’ve been—is high where the letters I know are low, coiling on the edges instead of sharp enough to break the line of ink

My cousin is twenty one, but the legal age in Canada is nineteen, so the way that she speaks about the taste is appreciative, familiar

The way she looks at me when the liquid slips past her tongue is fond, attentive, and it gives me a glimpse of the kind of person she is, late at night, with a boy or her friends or whoever she wants

First cousins obviously don’t feel that way about each other

But I understand her appeal

She’s a little prickly, dry and biting like the white wine she lets me drink out of the cap, but the possibility of softening is attractive—addictive. Makes you feel like you’ve won a sort of trophy, or given keys to an apartment seemingly locked for centuries; except no, it’s always been here, always inhabited, everyone just uses the back door.

That door is open to me. How lucky am I?

The bottle makes a clinking, crash-boom sound at the bottom of the trash can when I drop it in

The kitchen is quiet, eleven o’clock and dark outside

I walk back into my room and let the corner of the dresser rip a line in my hip and think of how she would laugh if she was here with me

It’s alright

I’ll tell her tomorrow