Remains

7/18: She is crushed, then incinerated.

7/19: I find out about that.

7/20: I search through her house for something…
that particular thing, that something that was close to her and will keep her close to me
despite the unfathomable absence of her in this house.

Beneath the tissues and cotton balls and cu-tips, I find this.
Her lipstick is pressed against it.

3 and a 1/2 decades later,
it still is.