NotoriusPoetry

She left before the coffee finished brewing,
a quick thanks-for-the-couch wave through the screen door,
heels already clicking toward the interview that mattered.
The house went quiet the way rooms do
after someone else’s perfume has drifted out.He padded barefoot to the bathroom to brush his teeth
and there they were,
crumpled pink cotton on the cold white tile,
one leg-hole still looped around itself like it hadn’t quite decided to let go.Not hidden. Not folded.
Just dropped, careless or deliberate,
the way you leave something when you’re already halfway gone.He crouched.
The fabric was still warm from her body,
damp at the gusset in a small dark oval
that carried the unmistakable musk of sleep,
morning, nerves, the long drive yesterday,
and whatever else had happened
between the moment she slipped them off
and the moment she stepped into the shower
and stepped out again without them.He didn’t pick them up right away.
He only stared, pulse loud in his ears,
while the old betrayal bloomed fresh behind his ribs.Because these were hers
not his ex’s, but close enough:
same brand, same soft rose shade
his ex used to wear when she wanted to be noticed,
the ones she’d leave on the dresser like bait.
And now here was the friend wearing them,
sleeping two rooms away from the bed
that still remembered his ex’s shape.He imagined her waking up,
sliding them down her thighs in the half-dark,
stepping out of them without looking back,
knowing exactly where they would land.
Imagined her standing under his showerhead,
water running over skin he had no right to picture,
then dressing again bare beneath the interview skirt
leaving this small pink evidence
like a signature.His fingers hovered.
He could smell her on them now—
clean sweat, faint citrus body wash,
the private salt of arousal or simply being alive
in a stranger’s house at dawn.He thought of pressing the cotton to his face,
breathing her in until the scent drowned out memory.
Thought of folding them into his pocket,
carrying them through the day like contraband.
Thought of texting his ex one line—
“Your friend forgot something”—
and attaching a photo that would burn through the screen.Instead he sat back against the tub,
staring at the pink heap
while the faucet dripped once, twice,
and the room slowly filled
with the low, ugly heat
of wanting what was never offered
and probably never meant.He still hasn’t moved them.
They lie there like a dropped gauntlet,
quietly daring him
to decide
whether this is accident,
invitation,
or simply the careless cruelty
of women who know
exactly what men will do
with whatever they leave behind.