The night you told me,
I have never felt so free,
I suffocated.

On really good days
I'll leave a crisp five
In the back pocket
Of my ratty blue jeans.

That way when my future self
Feels as fragile as spun sugar
But tastes like burned bitterness
And needs to shake herself awake
Drag herself from chore to chore,
Convince herself that collapsing isn’t a cure,
[Though doesn’t the cold tiled floor feel refreshing?]
She’ll only have clothed in comfort:

         Her baggy gray sweatshirt,
         Consuming her body whole,  
         Making her shapeless,
         So maybe she can shape shift,
         Into a bird or a bat or a pterodactyl,
         And make the most of her new wingspan,
         Flying further from her fractured reality,
         Into a fabulously far-fetched fantasy.

        Her ratty blue jeans haphazardly thrown on,
        So worn that there are holes in the knees,
        Frayed hemline attesting to the tired trampling,
        But when she tries to shove a ***** tissue,
        Into the back pocket hoping it’s mere placement,
        Is enough to leave the memory behind her,
        She’ll stumble upon a long forgotten monetary love note.

Yes, you do love yourself,
Yes, I know it’s rough now,
In fact, I guessed it way back when,
But life is just a series of juxtapositions,
And maybe you’re in a hole dug so deep,
That you’ve burrowed out into China,
And now look, really look,
You’ve got a world of exploring to do!
But if you’re not yet strong enough to
Climb the Great Wall,
Don’t you worry,
Building endurance takes some time,
But until then,
Here’s a crisp five,
Go buy a Kit-Kat,
A can of Sprite,
And a cheap horror flick,
And never forget,
I always love you.

3 AM and the famed
“World’s Best Coffee”
Isn’t doing the trick.

Dawn at diners
Is where the lonely
Gather for company
‘Cause we’re tired of
Laying alone on a bed
Too big for one
Too small for our thoughts
Too much of a reminder.

[Your imprint still fresh,
An outline to the right side of my pillowcase,
And some nights,
When I’m consumed by thoughts of you,
I’ll crawl into the depression,
And let the space engulf me,
Until I remember that,
Just ‘cause you laid on the right side,
Didn’t mean you were always right,
And a strange metaphorical hope
Bubbles out of me,
When I remember that
Hearts tilt to the left,
But, when you left,
It was quite heartless.]

We prefer indistinct strangers
Who we secretly hope
Have stranger problems
That maybe they’ll share
To make ours seem more bearable
But, more often than not,
We sit in a shared silence
Fatigued, insomniac, alone together,
The (lonely) only chatter with the night shift waitress.