the thing about feelings
is that they change
yesterday,
you may have been
completely infatuated
with someone
or entirely immersed
in sadness,
but that doesn’t mean
that’s how you feel now
or how you’ll feel forever
and i fear that people forget that,
i fear we fail to remember
that emotions are not permanent
and maybe that’s why
her stomach hurts
when she thinks about
the girls in his life
before her
or why i’m reluctant
to share old poems
because i don’t want anyone
to think that’s how i feel today
so maybe we should start asking
“how are you?” more often
and stop accepting
the default “i’m okay.”
and maybe we should start
caring more about
what people say now,
instead of dwelling on
words of the *past