The team of adulators are no longer built-in once you graduate,
Move away from the safe-harbor format of grades and trophies to
Mark your self-worth.
You collect and carry your own praise, alongside your own criticisms.
I am my own arbiter and albatross, mixed together.
My rib cage is held together by rubber cement,
And it is caving in.
I swipe through Tinder once a week,
Never responding to messages,
Only cultivating them as tokens of my own desirability.
I stow them in my pockets, mixed with fading receipts:
Quantitative analysis of my attractiveness by worthiness matrix.
Still, I think of my ex:
Who moved down the street,
Who cheated after 6 years,
Who was never smart or funny enough for me anyway:
I think of his happiness and my pendulum heart swinging back and forth.
I’m better without him,
But some nights I miss someone who didn’t love me over no one at all.
I was discarded on a work night, after squeezing it out of him like toothpaste in a stubborn tube 7 months ago;
My brother told me of his girlfriend’s unexpected pregnancy 6.5 months ago;
I’d discovered my ex had cheated and was now with her 6 months ago;
I lost most of my weight through involuntary vomiting and shock 5.5 months ago,
Concurrent to losing my hair in chunks (as a “physical response to extreme stress, nothing to worry about medically”);
My first date was 5 months ago;
I gained my weight back 3 months ago;
My last first date was 1.5 months ago;
My nephew was born in perfect, small, redheaded glory 1 month ago;
I re-lost my weight 3 weeks ago;
We stopped worrying my nephew would die 2 weeks ago;
I realized my ex waited until I wasn’t around and did his girlfriend’s laundry in my apartment, like I existed only as some cheap laundromat, 1.5 weeks ago;
My rib cage deflated somewhere along the path;
And 3 weeks from now we move into our new place, unmarked by him.
I am still marked by him.
And yet:
I remind myself, sitting in my own office,
At my perfect job (while he withers in the lack of direct sunlight at his sad job in his sadder cubicle),
I no longer have to hunch down in photographs to match his spiritual height.
I am liberated.
My hair will regrow,
My rib cage will be soldered shut once more,
And given time, so will the ventricles of my heart.
Until then:
I measure my life in days, in stutter steps:
I am progressing.
snowghoul
kianamaiart
gummygunk
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
germansingergirl
jbbartram-illu
titsay
blakekathryn
