You’ve got this way of making the ugliest things sound beautiful. You could take the grimmest words and wrap your tongue around them until they sound like they were sung from our church choir. All things dirty and melancholy that have gathered in your breast could leave your mouth smooth and fresh. I would taste them, and hold them against my ribs without realizing how truly macabre they are. I could watch every word fall from your mouth, and be so distracted by your perfectly straight teeth, that I’d never realize each adjunct was rolling around in the dirt at our feet.
Your mouth, it’s always been my favorite mouth. It is the color of peaches and sunsets, or maybe it’s just that every time I’ve kissed you, you’ve tasted like a summertime we spent playing games with each other. And maybe this all goes back to the fact that everything that has ever left your mouth has sounded so beautiful. That even if it’s not a great mouth, I’m sure there are thicker, softer, redder lips out there, it’s still handsome for everything it has ever whispered into the nape of my neck.
The last time I saw you, you were sitting in the passenger seat of my latest of old, beat-up sedans. You had rolled down the window, and the car was full of that fall smell: dying, mildewy leaves and browning grass. You smoked a cigarette and apologized in advance because you knew you’d break my heart. How, if I cried you’d be sad, and the only reason you’d be sad was because you actually loved me. But I was too sidetracked by that silver, matrimonial band on your finger, it kept my eyes from your mouth which usually distracted me from all its flowery, sullen remarks. So all those words, that usually sounded so beautiful, came out sounding exactly like they were meant to. They were a sharp pain in my sternum, they were ugly and bleak just as they were formulated.
You kissed me goodbye, you tasted like ashes and a bitter autumn. You used to have a way of making everything sound beautiful. But as I washed you away with pints of pumpkin ale and wild turkey, the bartender sounded just as comforting. And I realized that any old conman can make things sound beautiful just to make a few extra bucks.
