shoulds & shouldn'ts

I wanted to be someone’s muse, but I have a gift for fucking men who look like my ex when between my thighs. I just wanted to remind you of my existence, that’s all. It’s okay you didn’t remember, I swear, I’m not hurt. I understand with the weight of every life I’ve ever lived. I like when a cloud of cigarette smoke makes an entrance for me. Sometimes I roll my mother’s words along underneath my tongue, memorizing how they feel being absorbed into my bloodstream. My loneliness is orchestral, symphonic, & harmonic. With peaks & valleys & divots in my chest, I could be the lagoon. I could be the moon. I could fall through curtains & fade to black just like you, but I won’t come back. I can’t return. It is a one-way street & I can’t breathe anymore in the skin you sewed me into. I almost always speak in shoulds & shouldn’ts & her voyeurs have no envy, no fear. I think I’m afraid the thing I’m supposed to learn from you is how to throw my life away. I accidentally saw in my mom’s notes “how much of yourself can you lose & still be who you are?” I think that’s what gets me about you. That you can objectively completely give up on something & you’ll still believe in the pit of you that you have a shot. I have got to know what makes people believe they still have a chance. I have got to comprehend what makes people keep trying after having proven time & time again that it isn’t in the cards for them. I have got to understand what makes people believe in themselves. There’s a broken wristwatch underneath my pillow & I awake every morning feeling like I’m running out of time. I just want to matter. There was a fleeting moment when I was 24 when I was everything I ever wanted to be & I wasted it all on someone who didn’t even like me. I am only beautiful alone. But what am I supposed to do with all this me lying around? I could be a person like all the other kids, too…couldn’t I? You asked me what I wanted out of life & I told you I didn’t know. But that was a lie. Maybe I fawn too much for my own good, never wanting my certainty to uproot the certainless, to uproot the masses, as it were. But I do know what I want out of my life. I want a sleepover, just one, with my friends from the age of 12. I don’t want to want to be loved, but oh how I want to be loved. & I don’t believe humans with the capacity to love me exist. Other than my mama. & my mother’s mortality has been hanging two inches above my head my entire life. So then it seems strangers always love me more. It’s November again & I ride the subway drunk, pouring over all my exes’ happily ever afters, remembering when I followed you home from the 4 train in the early daze of us. I wasn’t yet ready to part & I needed those 7 minutes with you. I’m too worried my final words won’t be “I love you” but being a slut is a blanket & I will never freeze. The truth of the matter is I have nothing to give but sweet words & loving touch. & so I try to hide in the writing, but I’m the only character I’ve ever written & I won’t stop holding up the mirror. & so I’m becoming a master of not answering the questions others ask me without them even noticing. Consistently holding my heart closer & closer & closer still to my chest where no one can break my ribcage to grab ahold. I think most of the time I’m just waiting to be murdered. I remember learning the earth is constantly moving & trying to be still enough to feel its shifting weight. Maybe that’s where I developed my premature misunderstanding of “kill your darlings.” I hate the smell of stale saliva & a hand on my thigh that’s heavy with intent. I am trying to be greater than the sum of my parts, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion: I’d rather be human.