There surely must be some evolutionary benefit for me constantly assuming the best in people.

Like a snake shedding its skin all the old layers of me left in the tight spaces along my path.

Each layer gone reveals something brighter and shinier. Or was it the same amount of shine of that old layer when it was new?

Is it better or just different?

I subconsciously opened the calculator on my phone. Like I was going to take the sum of me.

I try very hard to be good.
At everything.

But often I just want to be happy.
Happiness often feels like the string of a balloon slipping from my fingers.
So close to being captured as I watch it flutter away into the sky.

Loving after you is like rewatching a stand up special. I feel obligated to laugh because the room is, but the jokes no longer feel funny.

Loving after you is like rereading a book. I already know all the good parts. I reread the lines but they do not bring the same feeling. Only the memory of how I felt the first time they leaped off the page.

Loving after you is like Wholefood’s peach cobbler. A ghostly whisper of another thing. A should be delight immediately compared to a better memory in my grandma’s kitchen. Making me miss the creaking wood floors and her presence even more as I wonder if it’s worth the calories.

I am lonely.
I need to love someone.
But I am only lonely for the right love.
The good love.
The kind of love I know exists.
The kind that makes even the most basic of tasks feel magical.
The grocery store shopping joy love.
The can’t wait to just do nothing all day with you love.
I do not need a body to fill the void.
If anything it will make the void more obvious. Impossible to fill the entire hole.
It only serves of a reminder of how much better things could be.
It’s like a Wholefood’s peach cobbler.
All you do is compare it to your grandma’s and it makes you miss her more while you wonder if it’s worth the calories.

Maybe it’s for the best.
It probably is.
Just letting go of any hope of you.
Even the hope I don’t admit to myself.
I need to shut it all out.
I know logically you are wrong for me.
Now I need it to sink in.

Is there a world where you and I exist together?
It feels like there must be.
Somewhere in the dimensions of reality similar to this one.
In some, I stay in movies.
In some I never leave home.
In one, I’m married to Jason and we raise 7 kids in a Baptist church.
In another I’m an equine vet.
Another, a professional golfer.
And in another -  I am with you in two lawn chairs by a lake, cooking dinner over an open flame as we watch the sun go down & I kiss you good night.

Just not in this one.