hello,
i hope your evening
is filled with
stubbed toes
burnt supper
spilled milk.

in the morning, i hope
you forget your office keys
your coffee until it's gone cold
your lunch
your password.

i hope this email
finds you well!

once in awhile,
i wish there was
someone else to
do the dishes,
make the coffee

but living alone,
truly being alone,
is one of the most
peaceful, luxurious
experiences

of my life,
and i'd take every
***** dish, every
empty coffee cup -

my true regret
is not learning this
particular lesson
a little sooner

i write about you all the time,
but i almost never keep it,
torn up or deleted,
or saved in some file to be
lost to the abyss of fracture
and finality, where i keep
all my other thoughts
of you.

you didn't tell me
about your fifth dui
but i found out anyway

you didn't tell me
you hid your feed from me,
or mine from you
but i found out anyway

you didn't tell me
when you married
that awful woman
but i found out anyway

you did tell me
i'd have a bedroom
a second family
a place, always

had a knack for
hiding the truth
telling the lie
the false promise

you've fought hard
to be nothing
and no one to me

hope you relish
your victory

i spent much of my
early twenties
convinced
my existence could be
pathologized,
explained neatly
by an icd-10 code,
convinced i was
maybe bipolar
maybe borderline
maybe something
anything
because a diagnosis meant
answers
a plan
relief...

the years since
softened my mind,
changed me,
healed me,
revealed the corrosive
nature of pain,
how i held onto it
for years and years
because it was
all i had left.

i put it down,
i said my goodbyes.
i don't google
diagnoses
anymore.

it was a saturday, slow,
an early dark
dripping in my boots
i was a fool
to believe this
might simply end
with a whimper
when endings, for me,
are typically punctuated  
with a bang
a forest fire
a collapsed galaxy

i remember the
ripples of time
spreading out from
my fingertips
and i thought i might die
and it was terrifying
and then it was

silence
peace
a pool of
luxurious
nothingness

and then i was awake
left to wonder how survival
could feel like
such a punishment

i wish i had steady hands.
i wish my voice never shook,
never stumbled.
i wish i was more patient,
less tired.
i wish i complimented strangers,
paid for their coffee once in awhile.
i wish i could say i never yelled
at my cats or thought
unkind things.
i wish i could say i've never
done wrong, never cheated,
never lied.
i wish i was clean,
unblemished.
i wish i didn't have this temper,
wish i'd learned to control it
sooner.
i wish i could be many things,
a great deal of them softer,
more of them stronger.
i wish i could forgive myself
for all the things i am and am not,
i wish pathological perfection
didn't break down at the most minor
mistake.
i wish i could give myself the grace
i'd give anyone else,
the room for their humanity.
i wish i could stop feeling indebted,
permanently deserving of some ever so
slight punishment.
i wish i could forgive myself for who
i was at my most hurt.
i wish i could be proud of myself for
everything i've become
since.