All day I have been sitting around
waiting to be thin.
There was a time I was more or less pure.
I still am.
I wake and it is a lie, the man who loved me that much.
I wake and it is a lie, the man who loved me that little.
Just because I’m not the woman who fell asleep hunched over
the bench clutching a violin case and a hotdog wrapped in tinfoil
does not mean I don’t need a few nights
to be a bigger, more-forgettable version of myself.
I do not feel I can judge the cockroach in my bathroom
living off of toothpaste shards and flaked skin—
I, too, have done many ugly things to survive.
And I hate to whine, I hate to be one of those people,
but tonight the appliances on my floor look ominous
with their cords spiraling into the wall,
and lately I keep falling in love
with everybody else’s world but my own.
I bought some green shoes one size too small
and have been wearing them around all month,
because I always like to keep the company
of my mistakes for some time—
because we all have different ways
of becoming the formidable hostess.
