i. it’s a sad morning, but only i know it. he wakes me with such tenderness, with a graze of fingers across my waist. i realize he thinks im sleeping and i wonder if he was awake all night too. the bodies in this place are still. i rouse myself from the couch and look at the people passed out on the other side of it, on the floor, in the kitchen. i try to remember what their names were and i can’t. i think of how i want to take a picture, the whispers of 5am light peeking through the blinds. i don’t take a picture. this home is unfamiliar.

i struggle to open the door. the girl with red hair lifts her head from the coffee table, “where are you going?” her hair is stuck to her face, sweat matting the burnt ends from too much bleach. i have to go to school and for a moment this embarrasses me, i don’t belong here with my 15 years. i don’t remember what i told her but it wasn’t the truth, and from behind the curtain of hair i hear, “make sure you be quiet going down the stairs.” my new love and i look for the cigarettes and realize we smoked them all last night. we leave this apartment for what will be the first of many times. i trudge down the stairs with the force of an earthquake.


ii. i wake, again, with my head on the floor. i’m facing someone’s bare back. i watch the muscles ripple through the exhales, i reach my hand out to touch him. he twitches before my fingers reach his shoulder and i recoil: this will be another sad morning. my sweat sticks my shirt to my skin. i throw off the blanket. two years later and my headache reminds me of my nicotine habit. i climb up to the bed, i avoid the boy as best i can and i sit there and sob. i have 17 years on my back and i know i belong here. i belong where i put myself. i bleed under the morning light and nobody notices—every house is unfamiliar to me now. the parallels jar me. i don’t have to go to school this time.