Ten Poems for Summer

i don’t know what to make of it either

1:
Safe. I told you.
After you said that you have trouble to talking to pretty girls.
I said you wouldn’t have that problem with me.
You said, “don’t you remember the first couples sentences I said to you?”
I said I just remember you were safe.

2:
I found myself uncaring about promises,
That had meant so much, so much.
When I was alone, wanting that stability, to know I had a place and a title, with a boy.
I found someone I liked.
Do you know how hard it is to find someone I like?
Who automatically understood,
I didn’t have to explain things to,
Didn’t have to burden them with the knowledge of all my trauma,
They got it.
I’ve never liked someone else while I was with someone else before.
This is a new one on me.
Decisions to make, I guess, assuming fate stays on my side.
Chance it for nothing? Or stay with the angry one?

3:
What am I doing,
Calling this late at night,
For talk through the phone I would never say if I weren’t sleepy,
Playing with the edges of the knife.
Please just help me feel.

4:
My professor uses jumps scares to test your biometric response.
He says “Boo” really loudly.
They don’t think about PTSD responses to these sorts of things,
Or these fireworks going off tonight.
I get teased for jumping if I’m deep in thought.
Or pushy relatives who want a hug, when I don’t like to be touched.
The loud clapping to call your dog.
I’m constantly vigilant for what will set me off,
One more filter to add to the pile.

5:
What will it be like to be with you?
Are you a kind lover?
Am I making a mistake?
Will we instead have no química?
Will you not like to kiss, or think I should shave more than I do?
Will that one spot on your neck taste like what I think it will?
Will my thighs turn out to be too big?
Will your dog stare too much?
Will your meds let it go through?
What if you’re the perfect height?
What if your hair curls exactly the way I want it to?
What if you look at me like that forever?
What if I hurt you?
What if I snap and yell?
I have to get myself sorted first.
I should have gotten myself sorted out first,
Before I sent those texts.
Am I really thinking about leaving him?
For a chance?
A chance at touch?

6:
What will it be like to see you again?
Will your mouth attack me again?
Will I be put up in one of your houses?
Will you drive me up north to see my friends?
Will you let Grace eat pizza on your couch?
Will I be able to sleep again?
Or will I walk your paver stones in the backyard until I can rest?
Where will I talk too loud?
Who will I love?
Do you even remember how I feel to touch?
Will you call me fat again, well not fat exactly,
Tell me again how I’m not your type, meaning chubby?
Or un-makeuped?
Will you just be drunk again?
And order food all the time?
Fight with me again that women shouldn’t be believed straight off.
Tell me I’m not worth your time with deed and action.
What if what I will makes it true.
What if all I do is cook for you?
What then, is a month too long?
What if the summer isn’t enough?
Will you let me drive?

7:
I can’t get it out of my head.
You said you’d think about me every day.
You knew how powerful that was, I hope?
I hope I’m nice in your memory,
Or your new created fantasies.

8:
There’s a check I can’t cash from my father
For money for a hotel room to escape the heat bubble
Because we don’t have air conditioning in this part of the world.
I can’t cash it.
It’s too much.
I didn’t buy the air conditioner either.
Too scary.

9:
I can’t brush my teeth today.
I couldn’t water my plants yesterday.
You can’t see the floor of my room this evening.
I can’t eat properly anymore.
I want to be a magical pretty number that means I’m healthy.
I have a pile of work I haven’t started.
A boy I haven’t called,
Money I haven’t organized.
And love I haven’t spent.

10:
Say you’ll like me until August?
Please just put a pin it in for me?
I can’t ask,
But it’s all I want to do.
Love me just a little,
Little enough to wait.

Ten Poems in Twenty Minutes: COVID Edition Day 5

look it’s about boys again

1:
It’s shame. Shame my skin still sticks to me.
It’s a shame I can’t make them love me.
Why would he buy a house with her,
That beautiful woman.
Why wasn’t I enough?
Why did she get the complete-r person?
And I got the scraps and building material.
It’s not fair.
Like the boy who broke up with me and then was surprised when I asked him to leave.

2:
I will not blame the skin that holds me together
This is good skin,
It’s held on,
I like that it shows scars, love marks, and burns.
It’s mine,
I like that life draws on it.
At least it’s not boring.

3:
Do you think that you touch me and I don’t feel?
That we’ll forget when you don’t text back?
Do you think somehow we won’t see the side glance,
The distancing,
The purposeful waiting, so she doesn’t get the wrong idea?
You think I don’t understand what is it that you’re trying to do?

4:
I don’t understand.
Why would you call me and tell me you’re attracted to me,
And then the next week buy a house with your girlfriend,
You’re beautiful girlfriend,
Who I’m sure puts on outfits,
And takes the time to do her hair,
Will smoke with you,
And drink with you,
And her family comes from money too, you know?
She’s the right color, age, weight,
With the right body for you.
You look right together.
Why did you call me?
To see me again.
Why would you do that?

5:
The next one you’re with, she’ll be right,
You’ll get to fix her up just the way you want her,
She won’t have any of this damage in her skin,
She’ll be young, and you can protect, but not be happy for long,
Because you have to love too much, to get that kind of happiness your parents have, and I don’t think you’re capable,
Of throwing it to the wind.

6:
Non-hurt Me,
She would have sent a joke request via venmo for $400
And offered to reschedule.
No problem.
She wouldn’t be totally heartbroken.
She wouldn’t have said the same thing happened last year,
And that she expected nothing less from him.
She would be able to stop crying.
She wouldn’t think it was an indication that, like usual,
No one can put her first,
And that they promise to be better, only after they’ve hurt her.
They never mean to hurt her, of course, of course.
She wouldn’t see it as,
But he knows, he knew, how much it meant.

7:
I refuse to be casual about my feelings, they’re there right?
Even if I’m feeling them and I know they’re an overreaction,
I should still respect them.
It’s not an indication of the fact he doesn’t want to be around me,
Or doesn’t respect me,
But, wait, why isn’t it?
He said he does want to spend time with me.
I should have said, sure we can move it. Sure it’s no problem, nice of you to think to reschedule.
It’s a scheduling error,
I’ve made them myself, I can’t blame anyone for making scheduling errors.
But I’m leaving town soon,
Denver would have said all my bags are packed, I’m ready to go.
And I was planning for this,
But why aren’t they rescheduling around me,
Why do I have to be accommodating?

8:
I’m sure he knew something was wrong on the phone.
He asked me about my day, like he wanted to amend,
He only does that when he’s guilty,
I wouldn’t want people to be kind to me out of guilt,
That’s not kindness that’s shame.
Don’t touch me anymore,
Don’t touch me with that heart donut-glazed in shame.
Don’t touch me with your hand or your I-feel-bad-for-you eyes .

9:
Internally I’m deciding how I want to be around him,
The next time I see him,
If I ever see him again.
I’ve vacillating between aloof and uncaring,
Me, but without the parts that make me
The kind of person I am with my father,
Removed, pleasant, distant.
Or to say, hey, I want to embrace what I’m feeling,
I should tell him yeah you made me cry, but I know it’s unreasonable,
I can be All Me with you all over again,
Only to cry some more.
I think you broke it though, not on purpose, the part of me who was just starting to be herself.
Why do I plan anything nice in my mind? Is it unreasonable to cut him off because of this? Probably yes.
The fates of power and tipped my way now, and I don’t want that debt on my conscious.

10:
I’ve snipped the vine root.
The imaginary one I grow,
A nice little visual of any caring I have for him,
Our connection shining rose gold on the great, black, mind plains, I thought of it as a rose root,
I tried to cut it a while ago, but it didn’t work, my shears couldn’t get through it.
The edge of the scissors wavered back and forth, only gouging, not cutting.
They did this time though,
And I tried with my hands to put the pieces back together, but they didn’t reattach,
The graft didn’t hold, even with masking tape.
I feel nothing for you now.
Not even commonly brotherfelt love.
Nothing.
The sparkles from the cut bond are ash on the floor now, too bad.

Ten Poems in Twenty Minutes: COVID Edition Day 4

these are personal not political, but don’t think the politics aren’t there

1:
It happened and I’m mad my mother was right.
I saw a baby and I wanted one so badly I cried.
I rocked myself, and I cried.
I was happy there was still a very small chance,
Even though it would upend my life,
I planned for it anyway.
So I could daydream,
About what I wanted, for once.
It’s pure want.

2:
It hasn’t even been a week,
And I’ve already had an offer.
That I shouldn’t take.
I shouldn’t take,
I shouldn’t take.
But I want someone to not have put me in a category of “not good enough”
Like, why wouldn’t that hurt my feelings?
Why do you even have a “not good enough to love” space?
I could have been at his house, with his cats,
Not being alone, saying screw covid, but being treated honestly for who I am,
And not playing this –
You’re good to be casual for now, but not enough to make me care about you, or try to make you feel good.
But I’d have the testing fears all over again, are we clean?

3:
My grandmother only approved of my mother’s husband after she’d had dementia for 3 years.
She also put whole grapes in her rice krispies.
Hand washed the plastic cover over her regular table cloth,
And collected tea cups even though she drank coffee.
But there I was on a Saturday, sitting on my friend’s couch, missing her.
Missing her not being alive.
And sad, because I realized I’m still at the start of missing people, I’ll just keep losing more people the longer I’m around, and I haven’t been around long at all yet.

4:
Weird thing happened.
I said, I’d turned off my feelings for him,
To him.
Directly.
Which was a lie. Then.
But today, it wasn’t a lie.
I didn’t feel anything but sympathy for him.
Sympathy that you have to live in such strict boxes, with so much fear.
Where you don’t think you’ll work with someone long-term, but you get along well enough to limp along, for a bit, to stave off loneliness.
I’m worried my mood will change and my feelings with it. Again.
I’m worried I’ll retaliate and hold myself off, because he’s doing the same.
Tit for tat. Dumb way to play with people.

5:
I invited him on my birthday trip.
Maybe that will be the next and last time we’re together.
And it will all be about me.
He’s the free add-on that I won’t take into consideration.
I’ll be the one laying on the floor communing with the moon.
He doesn’t get a say in where we stay.
He’s allowed to bring the dog.
I turn my phone off for three days and embrace the thoughts that come,
Which are usually, mostly, anxiety. But it’s nice to have it in a new place.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t end up coming, like the boy last year.
But I’ll get that beautiful drive by myself again, and it won’t matter,
Because it’s about me.

6:
500g bread flour
Why do you still love me?
350g water,
I’m writing this down, I promise,
No, see I’m taking notes.
Add 1/8th tsp yeast.
You told me you can’t say no to me.
Mix.
Turn.
Let stand 30-40 minutes.
Does that mean I can ask you for things?
Add 50g water.
15g salt.
Mix again.
You’re not supposed to flirt with me anymore.
Turn.
Wait 30-40 minutes and turn again.
Rise overnight on the counter.
Tell me why you love me.
Stretch out in the morning.
450 on a convection oven.
Tell me again I’m pretty,
Before I forget we said we wouldn’t do this anymore.
No, no, you only bake it 10-12 minutes.

7:
It’s me and the snails on the sidewalk at midnight when the weather has dropped below 90 and I can walk.
Me and the snails and the toads and the roaches on the sidewalk at midnight.
Flowers growing into the path,
Running into one-line spider webs,
Listening to podcasts,
Talking to my mother,
Tracking my distance, donating 25c a mile.

8:
Why can’t I be weak and still loved?
Why is all I do defend my right to be vulnerable,
To carry my trauma,
To have not had experiences,
To be uncomfortable.
To ask you not to say those things or use those words.
Right as you’re walking away.

9:
Is that what you do brain?
I finally give you some calm, some space, you’ve been having a nice time exploring,
And you give me unprocessed trauma,
You throw the boy’s words back in my face,
The idea that I should deal with the trauma, that there’s something wrong with me?
That it’s not okay I’m not at 100%?
It’s not fair.
I give you space and you give me more to deal with.

10:
He came over to pick up some candy I made.
And he didn’t leave.
I wasn’t expecting him to stay.
Had no beer to offer.
No nuthin.
I stayed six feet away.
The first hint of hey I have things to do, I thought would make him go,
But it didn’t.
He said something interesting,
He said I stack up better than anyone else they’ve ever been with,
Better job,
In better shape,
Better educated,
Better beard.
(Apparently that’s a type he told me)
Nothing about who he is as a person, which is all I care about right?
But he thinks of himself in these measurable terms,
Am better than.

Ten Poems in Twenty Minutes: COVID Edition Day 3

these have a distinctly romantic bent for which i cannot explain

1:
I’m a memory you don’t use to make decisions anymore.
I saw her, she looks just like me,
Was it that I was your type, just my personality didn’t fit?
I knew we wouldn’t work.
It doesn’t mean I didn’t want it.
You said you didn’t want that –
That life –
The one woman, living with you, loving you,
With you.
I said I needed to be able to be put first, and that couldn’t happen because of your kids.
You said, I want to be able to go with the flow and live in the moment.
I guess, it was my fault, taking you for your word.
I broke you up, got you back together, what will happen the next time we talk?
Will you remember to call on our birthday?

2:
How are you actually supposed to tell people how you feel?
This must have been some magical lesson y’all were taught in kindergarten.
And now we tell Tommy that what he did hurt our feelings and ask him not to do it again.
How do I say to this boy, hey, I have stronger feelings for you than I thought I would.
They caught.
How do people bring these things up in the moment?
Can you really tell people they made you angry? I’ve never seen it work. I have no modeling.
I’ll just keep guessing. But I feel like I’m buzzing around a bug zapper, waiting to get hit with electricity when I make the wrong move.

3:
64 ounces of soap.
That is how much came in the mail today.
Since April 27th I’ve known we were running low.
I looked for low-shipping local soap companies, liquid, of course, it has to be liquid.
I found online bulk retailers, I could buy a pallet of soap, shipping incld, not that expensive, really.
Finally, Monday, I was adding mustard seed to my grocery store online cart that now acts as my reminder list, and I saw it.
Two-pack Softsoap refill, free two-day delivery $8.94.
And it came in the mail, wrapped in overly large, unbranded ziploc baggies.
My soap. It came in the mail.
I called my mother,
Mom, I got more soap.

4:
Editing essays of folks who say they’re great writers.
I texted my friend applying for grad school, engineering management.
Hey, quit using adjectives. I have to cut the part where you say “I’m a succinct writer.”
I told him in the first round, tell me a story.
He said okay.
I told him in the second round, an essay should be supporting a main point. If your paragraphs are not supporting the main point …
Suddenly I was talking to my 8th graders, my tutoring students.
Why do we never learn the fundamentals?
Why do engineers never learn humility, clarity, or empathy?
Why can my 13 year olds not remember how to structure a paragraph for an essay?
Why don’t I remember I’m supposed to be full of coddling, even when they ask me for editing help?

5:
There’s a power dynamic issue, when one half of a friendship is in love with the other.
I left it with him, to decide if he wants to be my friend.
But I drew the boundaries.
I said I cut myself off from feeling anything toward you a long time ago.
He said he thinks that’s impossible,
Saying instead you know how I feel,
But never spelling it out like you want him to.

6:
I want to cry alone in a sound-proof room,
Feeling bad for Stevie Nicks in Silver Springs.
That’s what I’d do if I were alone.
I wouldn’t have to explain the way we use curse as a verb in America.
I could leave my room without someone saying my name.
I would wear my silvery, sparkly, somewhat dangerous top all day, because it’s shiny and it makes me happy.
But, look, I wouldn’t do any of those things if I were alone. I’d find another blocker excuse to stop me from living how I wanted. Today, I’m just using the stay-at-home orders trapping my roommate and I together.

7:
I returned a 23 palms shirt to the UPS store.
I sent emails to ads on craigslist about apartments in Washington.
I called the insurance company to fix the double claim that was denied falsely.
I made my bed, called my mother, took a shower, and put a sprig of rosemary in my hair I stole off a bush I passed while I was walking by.
These are the things I did today. I will not think more than one hour ahead.
Today I do one thing at a time.
I will now go make a playlist of music to listen to in the car tomorrow.
Notice how I hamper my own planning and future analysis brain, but I get stuff done for now.

8:
My body is smaller than it was in college,
I can see a vein in my neck now,
Feel a collarbone under my tapping.
My thighs, I’ve measured are still the same size, 24.5 inches.
My roommate told me that I’m melting.
I feel like I was supposed to look like this all along, and I’ve been hurting my body for all the things I imagined I did wrong.
There are wrinkles now around my eyes, without the fat to fill them in. And there are hip bones I forgot could close drawers.
But I still don’t know how to dance. And I still can’t do anything right.

9:
I told my therapist,
My dad said something I think you’ll think is funny.
I told him, my dad, when he asked how I used the money he sent me last week,
I said oh I’m using it to pay my therapist.
He said, so I’m literally paying for my mistakes.
I laughed.
He said, what would have been funnier is if you would have said, no for that you’d need to be paying more.
We laughed.
I’ve never seen my therapist laugh so hard, so unexpectedly.

10:
He texted, asking how I was.
I responded, and asked the same. To only receive a one-word reply.
I warned him, I’m calling you if you don’t give me anything.
So we sat on the phone for an hour.
And I oddly felt nothing but friend affection. A minor tug when he told me about another woman, how he’s going to focus on work again.
And I told him how I’m having trouble sharing.
It felt like we were friends again.
Like he made me promise,
When I made an off-color joke after he texted me for the first time in months,
Either drunk off his ass or sober, I’m not sure which is worse, he said, let’s always be friends.
I said pinky promise.
This is one of those ones where I want to read ahead in the chapters of life to see how we end, if we’re still friends in five years, or if I’ve forgotten his name, and I’m not sure where he lives.

Ten Poems in Twenty Minutes: COVID Edition Day 2

these are not as good as the last bunch. but they’re here.

1:
Today, once again,
I sat at my laptop and stared at my screen.
I should start that project.
I should at least plan the project.
If I sit here long enough, the fear might go away,
Then I can take a baby step toward completing the project.
I need to be okay feeling this feeling,
It’s okay.
We’re in a pandemic, it’s okay.
You gave yourself this deadline.
You can do the work by then.
But I know, it’ll be Sunday night, and I will have beat myself up for not getting work done, again,
But,
I will have finished another novel,
Because there’s nothing as good as reading when you’ve got something, really, you’re supposed to be doing.

2:
I said to my roommate that I was going to sit with a suicidal friend.
This was a lie.
In fact, I was sneaking off to a boy’s house.
So I could hug someone.
And not be told to eat something,
Or offered coffee I can’t drink.
I wanted social time,
Not this limbo between no alone time and no people time.
That’s what it feels like with a roommate you don’t really like.
I’m always assailable but never purposefully seeking company.

3:
I got a sunburn.
On Sunday.
I put sunscreen on my face and the front of my neck.
I low-key wanted to get a tan.
To prove I still can.
And to show off my slightly less jiggly body with proof I got it in the sunshine.
Instead I got a sunburn on the back right of my shoulder.
And I’m sleeping on my one side.
And smelling like the green burn cream aloe lotion.
My roommate told me, she didn’t know my skin was so sensitive.
When she came into my room at 11 p.m. to “hang with you.”
But she wishes she was as white as me so she could dye her hair copper.
And other things I can’t make up.

4:
My friend.
I like friends. I like having friends. It makes me feel nice and fluffy inside.
Look at me, family, I can do what you can’t!
I can have lasting friendships.
She’s having a hard time.
And I want to go and sit with her.
But I can’t.
Same as last week. The risk is too high and she’s too immunocompromised.
If she dies though, I’ll feel so guilty.

5:
My appetite is back.
So I made the only mac and cheese they had at the store,
Which is the gluten-free kind full of words like non-gmo and happy looking lambs and things.
I found the way to make it better,
Was to add small pieces of chopped deli ham I had fried in butter and kosher salt.
I could eat it then.
This is what I’ve been sharing at work, with my friends,
With family who call.
We’ve been talking about the food we make,
And the tricks we’ve learned.
It somehow feels belittling and I don’t know why,
To only talk of food,
And the food I make.
Belittling maybe, in that I think these people only think of me in terms of food.

6:
My lovely therapist lady suggested I talk to my dad about how I’m feeling.
It went badly to say the least,
But I did learn how hard it is to be on the other end of the behaviors I have.
The talking about emotions from some distant third-party line,
The switching gears,
The over-definition of terms and abstraction of whatever it is you’re feeling,
So you don’t have to feel it.
The sense that when you’re sharing it’s to as a supplicant to some gatekeeper,
Who will hold the pain for you.
It’s annoying. I do it too. It’s where I got it from.
Him.
At least now I know.
And I tried to share with a friend this week, how I was really feeling. Tried.

7:
I’ve started to hate the sounds of my footsteps on the pavement.
That’s how much I’m walking.
But it does tired me out.
So I can sleep.
Then push next on my alarm three times.
And move from the bed to the chair to do work.
Where I pretend things matter,
And in fact,
All I’m thinking about is how I’m still waiting for someone to save me.
This time it’s a magical vaccine that will make me have this beautiful life again,
That I don’t think would fit me anymore.

8:
I had a lawyer draft a whole estate plan,
Including contingencies and everything.
Paid up front.
And then haven’t been able to read the edits to the documents and sign off on them.
My mom told me today, her life insurance is good until she’s 66.
And one of the policies goes to her kids, instead of her husband.
She said, that’s where the money for my funeral will come from.
My investment account made $350 dollars since I opened it.
Dead people’s money.
It feels like dead people’s money.
It feels like everything I pay for now has blood on its hands.

9:
A book made me laugh so hard, I remembered what it is to laugh.
The sound caught me off guard.
Is that me?
Is that what I sound like?
All that rust?
She was just describing something funny about Seattle city planning.
It wasn’t that funny, reading it the second time.
And I comfortably shift back down,
Into my “I’ve seen everything old-internet veteran” mode.
Safe again, from my own smile.

10:
I shut off my phone to disconnect.
Maybe re-center.
And as I was waiting for the screen to go full dark,
I picked up my work phone,
And started scrolling.
What new habits will come from this?
Will I always have a switch that can be flipped now, that remembers,
You have to stay six feet away from them.
They’re too close.
Don’t breathe their air.

Ten Poems in Twenty Minutes: COVID Edition Day 1

i’m back, it’s been a while. let’s try this again. covid style.

1:
I am, after so much time,
A normal weight, though my thighs are still too big.
I don’t quite know how to deal with it.
No bras fit anymore.
Not even the bra that I kept from middle school that has the top of the cup folded over
And washed so many times the fold has it’s own line of lint.
That bra doesn’t fit.
I dropped toothpaste out of my mouth,
And it hit the counter.
Instead of my chest.
I don’t know how to deal with this.
Was my chest part of my identity?
I didn’t think it was.
But now, none of my clothes look quite as good,
My silhouette more smooth than wavy.
My ass is always covered by my tops now,
Buy I keep wondering where did I go?
And why did what left have to come from my boobs?

2:
I drove my friend to the grocery store.
She doesn’t drive.
How do I tell her that I don’t want to go in,
I actually don’t want to breathe her air,
I don’t want her to touch anything.
She suggests a game night because we’ve already been exposed and she hasn’t been out, her roommate isn’t here.
But she’s gone in lyfts.
And she was just in the store.
And her roommate is still working.
How do I tell this wonderful woman, who I feel might be suicidal,
That I can’t hang out with her?
I’m too nervous.

3:
I called the clinic, I sent a note, they called me back,
They said, the doctor would like you to come in,
I said, isn’t that just for emergencies?
They said they’re allowing obstetrics emergencies and patients with abnormal bleeding.
Oh.
That’s me.
I’m abnormal bleeding.
They’re going to take my temperature outside.
I’m to wear a mask.
The doctor will wear a mask.
They’ll do an ultrasound if necessary.
I have to remember to drink more water in the morning.
In case I have to pee, for a pregnancy test.

4:
My roommate who can’t cook keeps offering me food.
Usually right as I’ve just finished my own dinner.
She makes Turkish pizza that isn’t cooked on the bottom.
Uses tomato paste that’s been sitting on the counter.
Where is this intersection between being polite and respecting cultural norms,
And saying, get the fuck away from me, you just touched the stove after handling raw chicken.
Yes you can have my vinegar, go make pickles.
But for the love of god, leave me alone.

5:
My sister didn’t say congratulations,
She said, I assume if you wanted my advice you would have asked.
I got into grad school.
The thing I’ve been trying to do for so long.
And she said, in a tersely worded text,
I’m here if you’d like to get my thoughts in this process.
Somehow, once again,
She’s managed to make it about her.
This big thing in my life,
Somehow managed to make me feel guilty.
About her. Not telling her the right way, in the right time, with the right coddling words.

6:
My therapist lady is good.
She tells me to feel what I’m feeling,
And be in the moment, feeling what I’m feeling.
Don’t think more than an hour ahead,
To what I might be worried about then.
Apparently this is what mindfulness is,
Not the corporate crap I was fed in onboarding training.

7:
My biggest news is that my spider plant is growing babies,
Pups I think they’re actually called,
I will grow them.
And give them away.
And love them forever.
This is the plant I stole from my therapist’s office.
So many years ago now.
I pinched one of the babies off her vine, while I was waiting, and put it in my coat pocket.
I had it in a big pot so that its hair could grow out over the googly eyes I glued on the terracotta.
It has babies now.
I haven’t killed it.
I can keep this alive.
I can keep me alive.

8:
I’m seeing a boy who has such interesting, strict definitions of relationships.
But never thought to tell the people he’s with what he expects,
And hasn’t quite mastered taking the blame for bad communication.
I told him, my body likes him, really likes him.
But my brain isn’t quite sure.
He has what I like to call the engineer’s morality.
This is black and that is white.
And I will work to do this thing, and make sure me and mine are protected.
I don’t think about the implications of the work I do. That is for someone else.
These are the people who make the Amazons possible.
Because they build the machines that tell us how to move products faster,
Not if we should move products faster.
Just how.

9:
I sent my brother a graduation check in the mail in a card to his apartment from mine.
I will not be there to see him graduate.
I will not buy him pizza.
Last year, last year,
When we were talking about when to buy my plane tickets.
I said, if you want me there, I’m there, even if it’s just to buy you pizza
And say I’m proud of you.
I can’t be there now.
I never bought my ticket.
I love him (and now his fiancé) from afar.
I talk to them on speaker.
And say I love you to him and his dog and cat.
I care from over here,
In the same distant way I always have.
And I offer money.
In a card.
Signed with love.

10:
My friend called me to chat.
Who are these people who call to chat?
Why do you not have a purpose?
What am I to do with this chat?
But I listen, and treat it like a conversation with my mom.
More listening than talking,
But paying attention because your insights are wanted and you might get quizzed at the end.
She tells me that she needs validation that it was okay to break up with this boy because they didn’t click in real life. They were long-distance before this, video chatting.
I say yes, if you don’t click, breakup.
She hangs up to work on a work project.
I start taking notes of friend’s conversations again, like my grandpa did, on the backs of package return slips, to help me remember.
That boy’s name who lived in Portland,
For when she calls again.