I wallow on the bathroom tiles, a red dot in this white universe. My solitude is writhing in a pain I never understood. I think about the red bird flapping its wings, making a path for itself in the brightness of the white, of the ice, of the snow, landing on our tree, us naked, watching it. The two of us in bed, the two of us in the kitchen, the two of us on the balcony. We were enclosed points, the red birds visiting us. To miss is a feeling of impotence that traps and rips me open, there’s nothing else, just a mistimed entity that drowns between my thighs. I’d like to see its head emerge from my vagina. There’s silence. Maybe we can be together again, I’d kiss his hands and never complain again, ever again, I’m a woman who complains about everything, but I wouldn’t complain about him again. I laugh at myself. It isn’t true. Everything would be the same. I get up from the tiles, someone’s rung the bell, I blow my nose, my swollen eyes, someone save me, I’m falling. It’s the man from the gas company, I’m about to tell him I want to blow him, I want to kiss him, that he should spend the night with me, please. I walk out with a shirt and no bra, tits free. He looks at me and I want to tell him to replace the gas and get in my bed. The man asks if I’m alone, but an alarm sounds in that question, and the neighbor says I need a cylinder, and I grab a breast, scratch it, and pay him three dollars to watch him carry the tank, his fingers are iron cookies, his fingers are hard fingers, like his cock must be. The shirt made of light, sweaty fabric, the cylinder on his shoulder. I want a strong man, I’m sick of the weaklings. And he leaves. I’m the one who closes the door. I’m the broken thing that falls apart so easily.