Refutation.

The markings of a cat paw are left on my house slippers; moccasins I once bought, along with a denim skirt I ripped later that day, in the bathroom. Some hope of erasing the previous night's false endearment. He clung to me that night, all night, pulling me back in the morning. Not because it was me or my body beside him that he yearned for but because it was some person, anyone. We're doing the same again now, fucking again, more than a year later.

The paw imprint is where the beads used to be, on the moccasins.

She sat across the table the night of the dinner party and started rattling her necklace at me, without blinking, the stare of some fall into some vortex. You know that one. 'You okay?' I could stare back now, without flinching like I once did. Earlier we had locked ourselves away and she said something about our souls aligning and not having another like me. I told her the self importance she was trying to inflict wasn't working this time. She cried about being a bad person.

Anyhow, she kept rattling. The gross charm, a heart muscle, not the symbol of one. 'I have your beads in my heart'.