JUUL

        When your partner leaves you, he leaves you his JUUL. Not on purpose of course, but he won’t return for it. You know this for a fact.
        You examine its graphite sheen under your nightlight. Why did he love it so much? What secrets did they share? At dawn, you clean it and make it a nest out of a red silk jeweler’s pillow ringed with dried violets. You watch it for hours, pressing every 30 seconds on its cool hard body to watch it light up. You name him Carmine. He sleeps in your bed.
        Never does he protest, nor does he make grand promises to “work on himself” then forget. The quiet is good.
        Oh Carmine, your doux trésor, his frost-tinted lips part just enough for air to pass through, but this is no mark of frustration. In a moment of pure whimsy, it occurs to you to press your lips to his, and you do. His dark metal awakens to your tongue where you let him rest like wine before respirating his essence. Alert, titillated, you place him back on his pillow and sleep.
        Time passes and your tryst deepens. Your days grow sweeter, and more mentholy. Never though, do you say the word Love, for invoking its name would only diminish its mystery, a paltry abuse of magic. And besides, such a spell could never be requited, for Carmine never speaks, only breathes into your mouth, yet this quiet devotion is closer to the truth of Love than vaporous words. As your bond tightens you realize that speech is inessential, absurd, iniquitous to put the lips to any task other than intertwining.
        But who would understand this? Not your friends, certainly not your family. You live alone but even your dog’s hairs bristle in consternation when he sees you with Carmine. Perhaps he’s jealous. Yes, that must be it. He is losing your affection to a silent, still thing. Forget him! Go!
        But, you can’t. He needs you. Abandoning him would be too cruel. The thought of it makes your gut ache. When he looks at you, his languid eyes cast shame into your soul.
        So you move your relationship into the shadows. You kiss Carmine in the closet with the lights off, your heads full of candle smoke. Hiding it is less satisfying. You miss the feeling from the beginning, when the taste of your love was fresh. When the old dog dies you’ll live out your pleasure in the open, taking extravagant trips to Home Depot and spoiling your lover with volts and volts of indulgent electricity.
        But one day you touch him and he blinks, then goes dark. You put him to your lips and inhale, but his love has run dry. Picturing Pygmalion, you suck a last passionate kiss but can’t bring him back.
        You bury his corpse in the electronics graveyard in a cigar box you painted with battery acid. There, between a toaster and an exploded Galaxy Note 7, you lay violets and mints on his grave and leave him with a befitting silence.
        Bereft but resilient, your lungs continue their menial task of keeping you alive. But you, alone in your bed without your speedy nicotine coupe, can hardly go on.
        In theory, it is simple: a matter of leveraging your emptiness into action like the happy nihilist. Yes, you could’ve bought a charger and some pods, dug up a USB, and continued on with Carmine, but you didn’t fall in love to be a caretaker, your lover’s handmaiden. You wanted mystique. You desired desire itself, and now you must live in the memory and the pain of it, reliving to feel and feeling to re-live, until the day you stumble upon some shinier object of your alien want, to bring the oblivion back.
        “I love you,” you whisper, though no one is around but the dog.

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