It’s raining really hard here

because of course it is



I watch The Office to try and cheer myself up

but it’s Season Two where Jim is in unrequited love with Pam

and this predictably makes me feel really bad,

bad enough to prematurely spur on my already planned trip to the store

for beer and razor blades,

the beer because I’m out and

the razor blades because I found out that my pocket knife is pretty dull



I have Miranda July’s short story collection sitting on my shelf,

I got it for you a while ago

and I was planning on giving it to you for Valentine’s,

but I guess now it’s just going to stay on my shelf

and I’ll have two copies of it,

which is really embarrassing

in such an insufferably direct and human way

that it can’t be enhanced by metaphor -

I’ll probably end up giving it to you anyway

because I’m sure you’ll like it

even divorced from its context as a romantic gesture



I’m pulling the nausea inducing maneuver

of sending drunk videos to all my friends,

alternating between complaining and singing

and through an absolutely incredible display of willpower

I resist the urge to send you one,

mostly because I’m pretty sure that

you’re doing totally fine without me

and a drunk video

would be correctly construed as childish and attention seeking,

eliciting an eye-roll at best

and a complete loss of respect

and the chance that you’ll talk to me again at worst



You’re probably out having fun with your friends

because you actually have friends -

the closest thing I have to a friend here left unannounced for the weekend,

and in the kitchen I can hear one of my roommates

stop in the middle of a story about dancing with some girl at a party last night

just long enough to answer a call from his girlfriend,

and I can’t stand being anywhere in the world,

especially not here in my closet of a dorm room



I cut from the outside in,

getting steadily closer and closer to the vein,

like an unsure child afraid to jump into its parents’ arms,

so that by the time I’m finished

it looks like I’ve been keeping track of the days on my wrist



I’m listening to Johnny Foreigner while lying on my floor

and I sing along really loud to the start of Champagne Girls I Have Known,

“She says it’s written in the stars but I don’t look at the stars anymore -

I just want someone to die for”

and that brings my roommate to my door,

he knocks and asks if I’m alright

and I get up and answer the door without thinking,

he sees the blood all over my shirt and the bandages on my wrist

and says “What the ****, dude, are you ok?”

and I say “Yeah, I just fell,”

and I can tell immediately that he doesn’t buy it,

because why would he,

but I cut him off before he can say anything else and

tell him to take a picture of me,

so he does and then leaves me alone again

after taking away my empty gin bottle,

and I still have the picture on my phone,

me slumped in my chair with a barely mustered smile,

I debate all night about whether or not to post it to Facebook so you can see it,

but ultimately decide that it would be too desperate and juvenile even for me



I’m texting Amanda, not because we’re even that close,

because we’re not,

but because she’s the only person

I’m more than fifty percent sure won’t tell anyone

about me flailing around my room

and openly crying about you,

and, trying to be nice, she says,

“She doesn’t even know what she lost,”

I want to sort of scoff at this,

but I just say “A boring *******,”

and she says

“You’re not boring, but you are sometimes an *******

(and I say that in the most loving way possible, haha)”

she asks me if I’ve ever thought of getting help

and after I finish laughing

I tell her that I’m gonna get my psychiatrist to up my dosage,

and she says, “Is that a good idea with how much you drink?”

and I say “No, technically I guess not, but neither is drinking at all,”

and she says “Okay, just making sure.”



I wake up to a bunch of texts from my friends

because apparently they got worried

when all my Snapchat videos of me drunkenly singing

with blood all over my shirt

also contained the obligatory mumbling of

“I wanna **** myself so ******* bad.”

Mike asks if I’m still alive

and I say yes, unfortunately,

and he says, cool beans.

That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about when I say

it’s really hard for me to be at all honest or immediate,

not that I necessarily wanted him to be all, you know,

“Please be careful because you’re my friend and I care about you,

if you need to talk just let me know,”

or something like that,

because that would have felt really uncomfortable and disingenuous

considering our friendship,

but I don’t know, I’d just like to be able to earnestly express myself

in a real, physical scenario without cringing about it forever



Basically all I accomplish all weekend

is spending my last ten dollars on alcohol and drinking all of it the same night,

so now I am literally broke and also

literally out of alcohol,

but I’m sure it will be fine because

nothing bad has ever happened as a result

of my being alone with my thoughts for an extended period of time



I told myself that I wouldn’t write any poems about this,

but my sentimentality got me here

and there’s a comically slim chance that it could get me out