It all started on
a Monday;
the contents of the pot dribbled
onto the floor,
flooding the newly polished tiles
with a voluminous
dark gloop.
The gloop was a mistake,
a recipe
gone wrong
from the mass of ingredients
forced to boil together.
Just like her life.
Spread out so thin
that she was barely a droplet of herself.
Working through the week,
she swept up the gloop
into heavy-duty sacks and buried it
among the mountains
of other people’s waste.
But for years after,
the gloop’s dark stain
remained.