this is a love letter.

if only you were lonely, too.
***
eventually, and sooner than later, the expectation is that you will reply colloquially, you are fine. there is a time, sooner than later, no matter what people have told you they don't mind hearing, they no longer want to hear that you're lousy, that your boyfriend still left you, that your dad is still dead. eventually, it will have happened last month, two months ago, last december, the december before last, and then some years, and some more, and days and months and years can never change the last conversation you had, or the one that you wish that you'd had, and the things you did do and did not do before, and what you have done and have not done since. (i wish i had been nicer. i wish i was not so tired and had stayed up longer and been more patient, always more patient. i did not finish school, i did not have grandchildren, you never met the boyfriend who left me. i've stayed in bed, not sleeping. i've thrown up at karaoke, thinking of you. i've smoked one hundred cigarettes if i've smoked one. ive baked tiny cakes and pet tiny cats, and took tests and read books, and didn't start another band and didn't learn to play the drums or how to speak spanish, and i didn't meet anyone new and now i probably never will, how could i.) but no one else's life stopped because yours did, after all, and everyone's tiny traumas might add up and color themselves and none of this matters, nothing matters, and that's the only thing for sure that i know, and, with twenty-five years behind me, the only thing for sure that's worth knowing.