You texted, “Let me know you got home safe,”
and I did.
Every time.
Even when the only thing I made it home from
was myself.
Even when “home” was just
the bathroom floor,
or a voice I borrowed to sound okay.

Even when I didn’t want to,
but thought maybe you’d notice
if I stopped.

You said, “You don’t have to tell me everything.”
So I didn’t.
But I left clues like codes in poems we both know you read
and buried my bruises under jokes you laughed at—
because it’s easier to be funny than fine.

When I listed you as my emergency contact,
I wasn’t being poetic—
I meant if I vanish,
you’d know where I haunt.
I meant if my throat closes,
you’d answer on the first ring
and not be drunk,
or walking through spring like it’s not violent,
or sleeping through the night like people who are safe do.
And if you were in bed with someone,
I still believe you’d get out for me.

And when you called me “dangerous,”
I almost said thank you.
Because isn’t that what a flare is?
Burning too loud to ignore?

I wanted to be yours.
Not your girl,
not your burden,
just yours—
like the worst idea you ever loved,
or your last cigarette,
or the dream that wakes you
with your mouth around my name
and your fists full of sheets.

You never called.
But my body still answers.
The phantom limbs of your apologies
twitching through me
like they still belong here.

You never called.
So I made you a myth.
That’s how it works, right?
If someone won’t come save you,
you turn them into a god
and burn in their name.

So here’s your update:
I got home safe.
Then I lit it on fire.
And now I haunt it.

I kept all your secrets.
hid them in my clavicle
next to my old poetry and
the night I almost died
but didn’t tell anyone
because it didn’t feel polite.

I never wanted to ruin you.
just wanted to be understood
in the original latin—
to stand in the fire with.
but you mistook the blaze
for a signal flare
and bailed.

I lit candles for you
like a saint or a fool—
same thing, really.
Wrote prayers in the margins
of receipts and prescriptions,
called it hope
because obsession sounded ugly.

Now I write like an arsonist
with nothing left to burn
but the drafts I never sent
and the version of me
who waited
for you to come back
smelling like smoke
but brave.

(because location is not a cure and I am still the problem)

The motorbikes don’t care if I’m sad.
The coffee is thick like secrets
and still I manage to spill it down my shirt
like a metaphor.
Like I’m trying to prove I’ve learned nothing.

I watch two women bargain in a language
I still haven’t learned—
I tell myself I’m soaking it in
but really, I’m just sweating through my bike-shorts under polyester dress
and writing poems in my head
about men who don’t know where I am.

I eat noodles at 9 AM
and think about what it means to be soft
in a place where everything is louder than me.
I walk past altars and incense
and pretend it’s for me.
That someone here might pray me into clarity.

I keep writing like I’m in a movie
about a girl who flees the country
to find peace
and ends up writing the same poem
with different weather.

I take pictures of lanterns and puddles
and temple steps
but the notes app still opens
to that one draft
with too many ellipses
and not enough closure.

I know I’m lucky to be here.
I know I’m lucky to be anywhere.
But even halfway across the world
with lychee tea on my chin
and house shoes that don’t fit—
I’m still writing like I’m in Connecticut
still craving something impossible
still carrying my ghosts
like they made it through customs.

I came all this way
and I’m still me.

That has to mean something.

It’s not that I like him.
It’s that I noticed he drinks oat milk
and I decided that meant he’s emotionally available
and a little bit broken
in a way I can fix
with eye contact
and carefully timed Instagram stories.

It’s not that I want him.
It’s that I saw the veins in his hands
and immediately imagined
what it would feel like
to destroy him
and then write the best poem of my life.

I don’t flirt.
I cast a spell and leave the room.
I curate a presence.
I drop one compliment like a trap
and then disappear for three days.

He posted a story with a girl
and I spiraled so hard
I almost became someone else.
I googled her.
Then I googled “how to stop googling her.”

I’m not in love—
I’m conducting research
on how quickly I can unravel
over someone who
has never asked me a single follow-up question.

I’ve named our future dog.
I’ve blocked him
just to see if it made him feel something.
I’ve unblocked him
in case it didn’t.

He doesn’t know it,
but he’s already been a metaphor
in four poems
and a villain
in one voice memo
I’ll never send
but might transcribe
for the memoir.

It’s not that I like him.
It’s that I have a deep, unhealed need
to be chosen
by someone
who never saw me coming
but somehow always knew
I’d ruin him beautifully.

He never even kissed me
and I still wake up
like I survived a car crash
I begged to happen.

I memorized the cadence of his typing bubble
like it was a heartbeat.
I stared at his “active now”
like it was Morse code for almost.

I drafted messages like legislation.
Held back like it was holy.
Called it chemistry—
it was just inconsistency with good bone structure.

I Googled, “how to be wanted by someone
who never said they wanted you,”
and got ads for perfume.

I blamed Mercury.
I blamed my softness.
I blamed the ghost of the girl
who asked him to visit.
Kneeled down to ‘crazy boy ****’ like it was a prophecy.

He didn’t break my heart.
He drained it—
with a bend, sip, thanks
that left me lightheaded and poetic.

I told my therapist
he was a metaphor.
She said, “For what?”
I said, “For me.”

I should’ve burned something.
Instead I wrote fourteen poems
and shaved my legs
like closure was coming.

Now I bite down on his name
like it owes me blood.
I spit it out
like it’s still in my mouth
because somehow, it is.

I was a god once,
but I got bored
and turned myself into a girl
just to see what it felt like
to bleed on a schedule
and be underestimated at CVS.

I used to throw comets for fun.
Now I throw up from anxiety
and pretend it’s acid reflux.

I traded omniscience for online shopping.
Traded lightning bolts
for a Bic lighter
I keep losing in other people’s cars.

I used to be prayed to.
Now I pray I don’t get ghosted,
pray my Amazon Chase card wasn’t hacked,
pray I remember why I walked into the room.

I’ve lived for centuries.
You can tell by the way
I roll my eyes at time.

My bones know Latin.
My knees speak Morse.
My spine hums with prophecies
I keep forgetting to write down.

I was a god once.
But now I’m just really good at parties.
Really bad at sleeping.

Really into ChatGPT conversations
and spending 40 minutes at a time
inside my ear canal
with an inner-ear camera from Shein.

II watch body-cam arrest videos at 3AM
and wonder if I’d beg prettier on camera.
Sometimes everything that comes out of me
smells burnt.

I think I’d make a good Saint,
so I keep my eyes open for miracles—
but I only feel fire in my bones
when I’m overstimulated.
And I feel really sleepy the rest of the time.

I still have revelations,
but they only happen when I’m doom-scrolling.
I still search for splendors,
I just call them coping mechanisms now.

I make eye contact with hawks.
I smell rain before it happens.
I know who’s going to text me
before they do.
Then they don’t.

Sometimes I float—
but only in conversations.

I leave my body at least once a day.
Usually in traffic.
Sometimes while folding laundry.
Always when someone says,
“You don’t seem like the type to cry.”

I was a god once.
And now I’m this.
A walking myth in leggings.
A fallen star with a Dollar Tree receipt so long
it reads like scripture.

Don’t worship me.
Just don’t interrupt me
when I’m talking to the moon.

I brush my teeth like I’m getting ready for war.
Or I forget to for three days
until my canines are wearing sweaters.

Temu moisturizer like battle paint.
Who knows what’s in there.
Who cares.

Upside-down Claddagh on my ring finger like a threat.
And it might be.

I put my hair up like a woman with secrets—
on the days I brush it.
A bumpy bun the rest of the time.

I shed like a stripper.
I strip like a thief.

I walk out the garage door like I invented sorrow.
I get in my car
like every song from Reputation to Tortured Poets
was written for me.

I wave to strangers like I’m about to die.
Cross the street like it’s a choice.
Clock into work like I have a hit on my head.

I **** Elf Bars like they’ve got confessions inside,
and blow out like they won’t give me cancer—
because they can tell
I approach them with pure intentions
and a positive spirit.

I know how to make an exit
that feels like a funeral.
I know how to hold a coffee cup
like I’m accepting an award
no one else can see.

I take bites of dropped chocolate chip cookies
but spit them out before they ruin me.

I spend too long staring at my own reflection,
just to make sure I still exist.

I catalog new moles.
Curse the milia above my eyelids.
Buzz off my mustache.
Denounce my chin hairs.
I think thin.

Sometimes I blink
just to feel time move.

I keep novels in my bag like armor,
and a journal like a last will and testament.

The expensive pens from Amazon
that don’t crawl up my left hand
like a disease.
That don’t smudge the page
like I have something to hide.

I pay for Spotify.
Skip the songs that hurt.
Play the one that ruins me.

I cry on the train
like I’m filming something important.
Because I will be.

I want everything I feel
to mean something.
I want every single ache to echo.
I want my poems
reverberating in the minds of people
who are emotionally legendary.

I want the world to apologize
for not feeling it first.

Sometimes I walk
like I’m being watched
by everyone who’s ever left me.

Sometimes I smile
like I know something God doesn’t.

Sometimes I think I was born
just to document
what it means to be alive
in the most dramatic possible way.

Because I am the first girl
to ever feel anything.