Late Twenties

We’re too tired, now, to talk about loneliness— now I just keep a hard and soft arbitrary list of couples who shouldn’t have outlived us. No particular reason. They’re just not as good. It’s just

not fair. Some people find people, other people don’t. Every couple of months I light the hard copy on fire, start again. The resentment is getting all calcified, a new body part. Late at night

the idea of another twenty-five years of menstrual cramps makes my cramps worse. Leaving the city, leaving the internet, sinking, creeping

exodus nightmare fuel. New wishes: instant pregnancy for those who want it, a particular shield against Lyme disease, concussions. A shield

around all of our parents. The height of all our new stakes makes me dizzy. She deserved that apartment, you bastards. She really deserved that job. It’s time to stretch before we

go dancing. It’s time to adjust this medication again and again. It’s time to meet another woman from the internet. We reached the critical point

of allergies and debt, critical mass of back to school and eating meat again. Every day I make a point of saying I love this place out loud as I leave

the apartment, one hand sliding along the door jamb, lest it be taken away from me. Awful magical thinking. As if being grateful is ever an ounce of prevention, now.

After all that, who knew there are so many different ways to not want to have sex. Caffeine still makes me edgy.

Time is a sudden ravine: The first time I turn down the radio

to try to find someone’s house. The first time an adult memory is that was ten years ago, now. I have to see my friends as many times as possible before they all get married, oh god.

I have to take a walk just to leave the house. I will pay you to say, You couldn’t pay me to be in my twenties again! over and over and over.