Tell me a nice story.
One where trust
and honesty are still a thing.

i’m disconnected from reality
and hemorrhaging anxiety

i don’t
belong here

i don’t
belong there

i don’t know if i
belong anywhere
anymore and i don’t know
if home is a real place
or just a wistful
concept shrouded in
the shadows of other
people’s perfect families

but i don’t
belong here

and i don’t
belong there

this town turned
into my town
and now i’m wandering
the sidewalks wondering
where i lost
myself

was it in the library
between the pages of
a book i’ll never
pick up again?

was it in the gas station
dropped with my pennies
and dimes for an
eleven pm cola?

or the grocery store
somewhere in piles of
scratch and dent produce
in the bins of beef bones
or hidden under loaves
of overpriced bread?

maybe in the liquor store
it got pushed behind
forgotten bottles on a
shelf so high you need a
ladder and a grabber to
reach what you’re looking for

i probably lost
myself somewhere in
the cafe on the corner
dropped in the oven
and burned to a crisp
inside the espresso machine
covered in a thick layer
of grounds and oil
under a table or tucked
in a stranger’s to go bag

or maybe it was simply
that i got dropped
on the sidewalk
kicked to the side with
an old beer can
and nobody ever noticed

maybe i lost myself
in what i call
my own home
in between floorboards
or in a crack
in the paint

but i don’t know
what happened
and i don’t know
how to fix it

all i know is that
i don’t belong here

i poured my heart out to you
through a blue rectangle box
h o p i n g your eyes would
light up just like your phone
screen did when my confession
got to you.

but, even though my thoughts
were obviously delivered—
my emotions were not conveyed
and all i received in return was
a simple but haunting, “okay.”

Leave me alone
I screamed it into the night

Leave me alone
I cried it into my pillows

Leave me alone
I begged it into the dark

Leave me alone

So they did

They left me alone