I wake up at 3 AM like a corpse reanimating,
heart doing running start round-offs,
lungs filled with something thick, something that lingers.

Some nights, I think I wake up screaming,
I check my phone like a widow at the shoreline,
I check my texts but no one has asked if I’m okay.

You said: I think you like that I hurt you.
And I should have laughed,
should have told you—
I don’t like the pain, I just like the proof that you were here.
You saw forever and let it rot in your hands.

But all I did was blink,
felt my pulse stutter like a dying lightbulb.
I didn’t want to give you another thing to run from.

Now, I pace the house like a ghost with unfinished business,
whispering things I should have said into the silence.
I still talk to you like you’re in the room,
like you’re just beyond the veil,
like maybe if I say your name right,
you’ll knock once for yes.

If I say I’m over it, will the algorithm believe me?
If I change your name to "him," will it still cut?
If I don’t tell them it’s real,
will they call it a masterpiece?

The government declared me a national treasure,
which makes sense, considering how often I’ve been looted.

They only protect what they’ve already taken.
They don’t call it a treasure until it’s out of reach.

Still, I’ll accept the honor,
stand solemnly in the museum of myself,
polished plaque, velvet ropes,
tour guides whispering about the brilliance,
the tragedy,
the fact that I never returned
my library books on time.

Let them gawk.
Let them write essays on my impact.
Let them carve my likeness in stone
and forget to dust it.

I can see the exhibits already—

Here lies her bad decisions.
Here’s the time she thought forever meant forever.
Behind the glass, her old texts on display.
A plaque reading: God, look at the way she begged.

The government has declared me a national treasure.

They say I belong to the people now,
but the people didn’t see me at 3 AM,
barefoot in the kitchen,
chewing on the past like gristle.

I imagine my face on a postage stamp,
licked and sent to places I’ll never go.

I imagine my face carved into a coin,
slipped into vending machines, spat back out.

Or etched into history books next to the words—
Fell but never quite landed.
Loved, but only in hindsight.

Do I get a holiday? A moment of silence?

Or a biopic where they cast someone prettier,
softer, easier to root for?

Or will you just name your daughter after me
and pretend it’s a coincidence?

Rise when I enter the room.
You owe me that much.

I step out of cabs like a kept woman,
like someone who has never once
had to chase anything down.

My skin glows like old money,
like generational wealth,
like I was never stupid enough
to beg in the first place.

I walk past mirrors like they owe me something,
like they should be grateful
to hold my reflection
for even a second.

Gold hoops, collarbones like carved marble,
lipstick the color of a closed door.
I lean into the frame just to see it—
how time has made me rarer,
like something kept behind glass,
like something men whisper prices for.

My laugh costs more than your rent,
my absence is designer,
tailored to fit only me.

I wear silk for no reason.
I order the cocktail with the longest name,
just because I can.
I walk into rooms like I invented them.

God, I look so expensive now.
You can't even afford to miss me properly.

I’ll send you a postcard when I get over you.
I just hope you know it won’t be soon.

It’ll say something vague, something nonchalant—
The weather’s nice, the men are kind,
none of them look like you.
Paris is overrated.
Hope you’re well. Hope I mean that someday.
Wish you weren’t here.

It’ll be from somewhere ridiculous—
the French Riviera, a ghost town in Nevada,
a cruise ship I’m not on,
a gas station in Ohio at 3 AM,
where even the clerk looks tired of my ghosts.

I will sign it with my full name,
so you remember how it used to sound in your mouth,
but I won’t send it to your real address.
I’ll send it to a random house in a town
I’ve never been to.

Let some stranger in Arkansas
trace my handwriting and wonder
who I loved enough
to haunt like this.

You will not find me staring wistfully into the distance,
a shadowed enigma,
a woman of few words.

No.

You will find me leaning forward in conversation,
hands flailing,
explaining in vivid detail
why the texture of grapes
is both deeply upsetting
and a miracle of modern biology.

You will find me launching into a 15-minute tangent
about why ceiling fans make rooms feel colder
but don’t actually change the temperature,
and how this is a metaphor for human relationships
if you think about it hard enough.

I tried to be unknowable.
I tried to be quiet.

But the world is so stupid,
and I have things to say.

The first inhale said, You should be wearing sunglasses at night.
The second said, You are not in love, but someone is in love with you.
The third said, You are dangerous in all the right ways.

I exhaled and saw my future
in the glow of the streetlights.
It was dark.
It was mysterious.
It was doomed.

I smoked the whole thing.
I am now in a different emotional tax bracket.

And suddenly,
I understood
why the femme fatale
never makes it out alive.

(Because you never did know how to say goodbye right.)

I set a place for you anyway.
A ghost seat at my table,
a shadow in the doorway,
a wine glass smudged
with the shape of an absence.

You were always late
to your own consequences,
drifting in just in time
to miss me leaving,
staring at my taillights
like you thought
they were stars to wish on.

I should have stopped
writing you into the story,
should have let you fade
to a footnote,
a forgotten guest
on a list I never mailed—

but instead,
I keep setting the table
like love is a dinner party
and you just got lost
on the way.