Monuments

When we kiss, my lips are pinched by your crooked front teeth.

I close my eyes and think of the day when you will loose your desire, no longer wanting to have sex in the living room, in your shoes, pants dropped around your ankles like a child, with me running to the large bay windows to pull the milky white curtains, shielding the neighbors from our intimacy.

You refer to me as “ young and healthy,” like a farm animal.

I hear your footsteps echoing on the stairs at half past noon, walking slowly down the long hallway that leads to the kitchen, your stride giving away your intentions before you even open the door. I know by the way you scuff your shoes against the pavement what mood you’re in.

I stand trapped behind the door, listening.

In the back of my mind I am always building a case against you. During our time together I carve monuments out of the reasons why I should leave you.

And yet I stay.

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Rimma Kranet is a Russian-American fiction writer with a Bachelor’s Degree in English from University of California Los Angeles. Her short fiction has appeared in Brilliant Flash Fiction, Construction Lit, Club Plum ,Coal Hill Review, Change Seven Magazine, EcoTheo,The Common Breath, Drunk Monkey , and is forthcoming in The Short Vigorous Roots: A Contemporary Flash Fiction Collection of Migrant Voices. She resides between Florence, Italy and Los Angeles, California.