It’s not me, it’s you.
It was always you.
When we met, you were Sarah Huckabee Sanders, but once you opened your pie hole and started spewing hatred wrapped inside a lie wrapped inside a mistruth wrapped inside deceit, you earned the endearing nickname “Suckabee.” And while I never thought it would last, I always thought it would be a bit longer. (And don’t look at me like that; your boss doesn’t even know how long you’ve been there.)
Anyway, you were a constant in a torrential downpour of windy, rain-filled lies. Sure, it was a smelly, windy rain, like when a fish dies in the ocean and the breeze picks up the rotted fish guts and blows the smell into your stomach, but you were a beacon. A puss-filled beacon surrounded by lies flies.
And, while I could never depend on you for the truth, I could depend on you to be steady at the podium, making up stories, spinning legitimate questions into a beautiful web of sordid tales while shaming reporters for questioning your misdirections. You were a master manipulator and a perpetual victim of your own creation for the “three-and-a-half years” (according to the president) that you worked in the White House. I knew things were rocky when the press conferences stopped. I knew once we stopped talking—well, I never really said much since you did all the blabbering—that things weren’t going well.
I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss your perpetual gas face, you know that face you’d make where it looked like you just downed a queso-and-bean-filled, jalapeño-laced burrito and it wasn’t until you got to the podium that it hit you that it was a bad choice. And that cute thing you would do, no matter what you were asked—you know the look you’d do where it looks like you’ve watched a snail hump a penny on the punishing hot asphalt and you can’t figure out if it’s gross or just another example of Satan’s humanity.
And how can I forget the pursed lips? For years, I didn’t even realize you had a top lip because of the way you pursed that shit.
So, below is my breakup mixtape for you, my dear Suckabee. I hear you’re moving back to Arkansas. I hope you buy a farmhouse. I hope you grow your own food. I hope you become a hermit, and that isn’t my bitterness speaking; I really hope I never see you again.
“Smooth Operator,” Sade
This song speaks to you. It speaks to the relationship that we had. It speaks to the you that you always were and the person I wanted you to be. I begged you for honesty and instead I got... you already know what I got. Wiktionary describes a smooth operator as “A person who accomplishes tasks with efficiency and grace, especially one with verbal skills who is persuasive in interpersonal relationships, negotiation, etc. (idiomatic) A skillful, manipulative person, con artist, or clever scoundrel.” I think we know who this fits.
“Is It a Crime,” Sade
Yes, we are going back to Sade as this song fits your entire stay in the White House, and I don’t care about the lyrics, just the title: “Is it a crime” to willfully and knowingly lie to the American public? Was it a crime when you denied knowledge of the president’s hush money payments to the women he’d slept with, even though the president admitted to the payments?
“Someone Like You,” Adele
Never mind, I’m sure Trump will find someone like you. Someone who is willing to lose all credibility and turn their name to boo booooooooooo. Don’t forget me, you said, settling Trump in his coffin bed. Sometimes, you could’ve told the truth, but then, you lied instead... or whatever Adele said.
“Somebody That I Used to Know,” Gotye (featuring Kimbra)
Gotye sings: “Told myself that you were right for me / But felt so lonely in your company...” I think every White House journalist knows this feeling, amirite?
“A House Is Not a Home,” Luther Vandross
For over 90 days, you refused to talk to me. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t there waiting to hear from you, just hoping you’d say something. A podium is still a podium even if there’s no one there to lie and shit. Also, when Luther sings “dum dum dum dum dum,” I felt that shit.
“Working Day and Night,” Michael Jackson
I know it seems odd to have an upbeat Michael Jackson ditty on a breakup playlist, but this isn’t so much an ode to our relationship as it is an ode to the time you told America Trump created more jobs for African Americans than Obama, when, in real life, Obama created four times as many as Trump.
“Irreplaceable,” Beyoncé
“To the left...to the left...”
“Bitch Bye!” M-City J.R.
I think this kind of sums it up.