my black nail polish is slowly chipping
and this is the one time i don’t have anything
to say to anyone sitting around me.
it’s a strange contrast between the slowly building loneliness
i feel, and all my friends celebrating,
and all the families eating ice cream and laughing around me.
i see the reflection of you laughing in a handheld mirror they sell
at fentons that says “vote myrtle”
the ice cream that’s in front of you is melting faster and faster.
it’s a sweet and sticky and perfect mess but i need to clean this up,
but the napkins are out of sight and out of reach.
i’m older now and i realize that ice cream isn’t really considered dinner, but i am my own home and this is what i want
you know we could never have played house, no matter how much
we dreamed of each other in the beginning.
i know now that happiness costs more than the price
of a shared cookie connection sundae at night with you.
and i know now that maybe there are more things in the world
that can make me happy besides you
but i just can’t help but feel a little bit alone as
i struggle with half-fulfilled fantasies i still have about you
as i’m running alone to my car parked somewhere on piedmont ave
in the dead of winter (albeit oakland winter so it’s 60 degrees)
i don’t want to believe we were just built to fall apart,
but i know i’m smarter to believe that we could’ve last.