i’ll always be here

i hate
the reasons i'm alive

Hell is normal people,
If you are not one of them anymore.

“sorry” means you regret it
and you won’t do it again.
you may regret it,
i don’t know.

but you always do it again.

i have a cousin
who leaves for college
in two years.
she’s always wanted a pet.
since she was little,
elementary school.
her mother
(my aunt)
always told her
(and her little brother
who’s in seventh grade)
that she wasn’t old enough for a pet
and that they could get one—
a cat, or a dog, maybe—
when she was older.
she didn’t stop asking.
now she’s sixteen.
her mother now tells her
that she’s too old to get a pet.
that there’s no point anymore
since she’ll be moving out soon.
there was nowhere in between.
no goldilocks zone.
she was never just the “right” age to have a pet.

i don’t know what this is a metaphor for,
but there’s a bigger picture here,
i know it.

all of this will just be a memory in the morning,
they say.
but what if
that’s what i’m scared of?
of not remembering?
of being vulnerable?
of not remembering being vulnerable?
of just...
forgetting?
because, well,
how would you even know if
you’re going insane?
would you know?
would i know?
but then again,
would forgetting—
just... forgetting—
really be the worst thing?