I consider telling her to leave every morning as she climbs back into bed from doing whatever she does in there each morning. I know for a fact it's not brushing her teeth. Sometimes I stare at the bits of built up food that get stuck at the base of her gums. Like I said before, the common cliche describes her perfectly- "like a trainwreck, you can't look away." I was always the one to point that out to someone- that they have food stuck in between their teeth. But with her, I just stare at it. Sometimes I get lost in the closing off her lips over her dirty teeth that I do not hear a word that she's saying.

No, this Karen, she's not one for personal hygiene. I'd like to tell her the truth. That I really can't stand every thing she does.

But I do stand it. She's still here. Her ugly Aerosmith t-shirt and nasty hair. I never liked Aerosmith, anyways.

I could tell her the truth. Maybe she'd leave. I was just looking for that fuck so I could get some sleep. You said it yourself. It's a remedy.

But I'm standing it. I keep lying to her. Maybe I do like her. And that's why I lie. To keep her around.

I put up with the things that caused me to not have roommates. Or consistent lovers.

She leaves the empty toilet paper roll on the dispenser, stacking the new roll on top of it. She puts the forks back in the drawer in opposite directions as the ones that were neatly put in their on my day to do dishes.

She walks around with a towel turban on her head, even after her hair is long dried. Not only does she kick her shoes off as she walks in the door, one somewhere between the door and the coffee table, and the other mysteriously always under the corner of the couch, but she pulls off her socks, balls them together and pushes them into the couch crack before sitting down. There's probably two month's worth of dirty socks under the cushions. I've given up.