Writing

before he'd left

i could find things

because i knew 

i wanted it to be different for me

you talked too much

or not enough

you let yourself go

or your makeup looked too harsh 

I wished I knew all the right things to say. 

Or maybe my wish was bigger than that.

I wanted to always be enough.

***

"I'm fine. I don't know what's wrong with me."

You know, sometimes I have these moments. Moments where I snap out of the rubber band ball of my own mind– and it hits me. Like the salty aroma of a beach, the profuse sentiment of sonder is inhaled through my nostrils.

I stayed up until midnight with my brother

in that horrible hotel room in North Carolina.

(I say horrible because I hate going down south

hate the Trump bobblehead in my nonny and poppy's house

You compared me to a"beautiful flower."

I don't think I'm beautiful.

Especially not like the pink flower you said I was.

I'd say I'm more like a notebook, 

there, but not noticed.

Wow - 2026? 2025 passed so fast!

Today I looked back on the past.

It was hard last year, maybe the last couple of years, actually.