Regretting the juice I spilled on your lawn
and lingering on the things I said that sounded like my mother,
I drank myself to whispers so I could stop myself from yelling.
There are books about people like me,
people like me whose whispers hurt their children,
but that's the only good reason to be forty and bitter and alone.

So alone that I forget to check the expiration date on yogurt,
so bitter that I like 100% cocoa  chocolate.
I can hear you forgiving me, as if everything I do is okay
at least, maybe until I stop chewing something that isn’t there.
You make me feel like I overreact, when you're the one who loved me;
when you're the one who left.

And when you went the door was left ajar
because it doesn't matter who sees into my house,
but it matters that I could see into your heart (******* hypocrite).

Three years makes you feel like you've had your laugh lines forever
but you didn't make me smile
and you couldn't see any difference in my eyes
when I'm obviously seeing you in such a different way.
Facing you earlier in the backyard was like looking at myself
(when I was twelve)
and it made me happy to be eating 100% cocoa
and paying for my rent in cash from my back pocket.

I’d forgotten what it was to be afraid of speaking,
to be afraid of being alone.