Porchtime

Porchtime

This is us.
We want our eating disorders
back, and we have started
smoking again.

We never leave this porch.
Not in our hearts, anyway, not even for work
where the 1% taught us
to start emails with “Hi”
because it seems friendly
and end them with “Thanks,”
which means “fuck you.”

It’s their favorite thing to say to each other.
Fuck you.

We come home and don’t do the dishes.
Who stopped raising us?
Who let us start being
Alone. Alone it’s so easy to make mistakes—
the cigarettes, for one,
packs on packs and
staying up late.

It isn’t even 11 yet, this is when
we used to go Out.
I hate all of them now, the whole town.
Now out means not leaving home,
I’ll be out on the porch.
Come on over.

Aside: Crying alone
no longer scares me.
I like it now because it’s a release
from the pressure of being “so super good”
handling things “so super well”
and telling my friends
I’m not looking back.