waiting room thoughts branch like veins!

    future divides:
        before treatment;
            during treatment!
                after treatment?
            during treatment!
                before treatment;
    present loops back...

cells multiply (like fears) in darkness:
    each division a new timeline|
        each moment splits into maybe~
            and what-if!
                and please.

time curves through the white room:
    yesterday's blood count;
        tomorrow's possibilities~
            today's needle!
                memory fires: age seven,
                    first bee sting;
                        now thirty-three,
                            first infusion?

thoughts spiral into patterns:
    statistics become prayers!
        prayers become bargains;
            bargains become acceptance:
                acceptance becomes hope~

mother's hand on shoulder transmits:
    courage through skin!
        fear through bones;
            love through time...
                strength through blood~

waiting room clock ticks sideways:
    past and future collide|
        in this sterile now!
            where moments branch
                like veins
                    like choices
                        like cells
                            like hope~

Woke at seven, sky still black
impressed by my own wreckage
surfaced again at five p.m.
darkness waiting, not as dreary
as I'd feared

Fat and hollow simultaneously
craving processed salvation
McVegan on the brain
dressed, checked the dead letters
pointed the car toward fast food
but something turned the wheel at the roundabout
first exit instead of third
into pitch darkness, away
from everything

Farm fields stretched like empty plates
on both sides of asphalt
suburbs blinked behind me
light patches catching low clouds
like distant explosions
in a war I wasn't fighting

Empty road
Empty stomach
Empty night

Parked under Örtofta's single lamp
let videos wash over me
scroll through apps like prayer beads
until the absurdity
caught up

Drive back with Grimes on
spacecraft-sliding through dark
compromise in supermarket plastic bags:
no burger, no fries
just Pringles, chocolate circles
twin Coke Zeros
lemon-bitter as always

Beat Saber slash and miss
reflexes dulled by age old entropy
movements thick as honey
humbled by simple light

Crack a beer
sweat cooling
wonder what a day
to feel so much
of nothing

Hippocampus activation observed during
memory formation (Smith et al., 2023)
u up? been thinking bout that summer
when we mapped constellations on ur roof

Dopamine receptor density increases
with repeated stimulus exposure
miss u like crazy rn ngl
brain literally won't shut up about u

Amygdala shows heightened response
to emotional memory retrieval
message deleted
message deleted
message deleted
i still have ur hoodie

you're telling me you jumped off a cliff
(metaphorically speaking of course
I have to specify or people get weird about it)
because someone said you wouldn't?

and now you're sad about the falling part?
which is, admittedly, the main part of cliff-jumping
but still

I'm very sorry to hear that the direct and
predictable results of your actions happened to you
(that's a lie, I'm not sorry at all
my grandpa's goldfish taught me about gravity
before he died of totally unrelated causes)

anyway here's me doing a backflip
off this emotional ledge
into a pool of expired milk
because that's just the kind of day we're having

ps: your shoelaces are untied
pps: you're not wearing shoes
ppps: neither am I
(that's metaphorical too, probably)

seventeen and stupid
in class dreaming of recess
writing notes to each other
back and forth
like an analog MSN messenger
thinking this would last forever
what a joke

now I'm here
nineteen years later
still checking your Facebook
like some kind of forensic investigator
of happiness
trying to figure out where the body is buried

I just want to be rich and *******
the same girl forever
but instead I'm here
writing bad poetry
drinking warm beer
while you're out there
living your best life
married
or whatever

remember how we used to
share earbuds in Portuguese class?
now I can't even listen
to those songs anymore
(the outfield - your love)
(the kooks - naive)
(vanessa & ben - boa sorte)
without feeling like
I'm being stabbed
by a mechanical pencil

funny how memory works
like that
like a tooth that won't stop
aching
even after
it's been pulled out

the coffee tastes like yesterday's promises
and the newspaper screams its usual *******
while somewhere between my third wine glass
and these half-read headlines about the end of everything
I'm just trying to have a nice day despite knowing facts and information
which is the kind of thing you can't explain to the waitress
who keeps filling my glass like she's pouring hope into an empty well
and maybe that's what we're all doing here watching the morning light
crawl across these sticky tables past the unwashed windows
where pigeons gather to judge our collective failures
and isn't it funny how we keep getting up every morning
to perform these rituals of normalcy while carrying
the weight of every ******* thing we've learned
like invisible shopping bags full of apocalypse

my inner rebel keeps getting
passive-aggressive emails from HR
about proper thought etiquette
and unauthorized emotional overtime

tried to have an original thought once
but my brain's quality control
sent it back with red markup
and seventeen required signatures

guilt installed itself as malware
in my psychological operating system
now even my daydreams come with
trigger warnings and safety waivers

society handed me a script
for my own internal monologue
(apparently my stream of consciousness
needed better production values)

my feral thoughts wear business casual
and file their tax returns on time
while my civilized side howls at the moon
through a professionally crafted powerpoint

freedom called but I had to decline
too busy alphabetizing my anxieties
and scheduling my spontaneity
for next quarter's performance review