I text my friends and they don’t answer;
I think of all the ways I try to erase myself

We drink sadness out of paper cups.
This is never how I wanted things to be.

I search “how do I not feel guilty for changing my mind;”
I take 3 business days to answer your email.

I am not in love with you.

I swear to god September happened,
But in October we never even had a chance.

I am so many different people.
I don’t know how to explain myself anymore.

I am not in love with you.

this is not an exit.

Today could be the end of us if you wanted it to be.
I know I drink more coffee than you think is healthy,
And I know I’m not the One you dreamed about.
But just this once I was hoping you could make an exception.

I know my anxiety gets in the way of everything,
And my emotions are just as scattered as our communication.

I’ve been drinking the same cup of coffee for three hours now,
Ruminating over the best way to move forward
When all I want is to just sink further down.

I am panicking in my gynecologist’s office;
I am a child wishing I could just grow up.

I was supposed to do great things.

I am thirty.
And most days I feel like
I am nothing.

Every time I see someone who looks like you, I get scared. I don’t know how to be alone with myself. Coffee after six p.m. tastes like anxiety. Coffee after midnight is something else entirely. I like to post the occasional reminder that I exist, though some days I am not sure if I actually do. My career is on hold. How many years do you think I can get away with saying that before I have to admit that I don’t know what I’m doing anymore? I’ve never really learned how to leave; I always wait until I am discarded.

I know I’ve made it when
The barista has my coffee ready before I’ve even finished ordering.
To be remembered can seem so small,
But to me it is everything.

A reminder of the way things used to be.

I want to know what it’s like to not wait by my phone on a Friday night.
To feel no fear,
Only comfort.
Knowing you’ll always come back to me.

Standing in an empty fountain
In downtown Chicago on a January night in 2018,
That was the first time I knew what it was like to be in love.
I was afraid, but I followed you anyway.

When you start to view people as
“Experiences for my memoir”
Then you know.

This is not how things used to be.