it's, well, it’s easier this way. softer. crawling home at sometime-past-three in the morning with easy words and soaking wet jeans (my shoes are ruined from the effort of not saying goodbye hard enough) and then up! to bed until he shouts up and I roll over and he bellows ‘sleep well’ like it isn’t a fucking joke. they're mad because I wanted to go home, made them go home. or something like that? it’s all nonsense, frankly, so I’m up and I’m breathing coffee-breath into cupped hands and wearing bottom-of-the-closet clothes and nothing like a smile. when they were up! dancing a man pulled on the bend of my arm and said “cheer up, will ya?!” like I owed him something, like I wasn’t okay with my glass and my corner and my coldcold ankles. like it had anything to do with him and all I was was shocked. don’t touch me, okay? you son of a bitch I’ll kill you if you ever grab me like that again! but he was gone when I’d crunched the last of my ice. Cheer up. I am awake and that’s it, all, enough, more than I thought I was capable of. not hungover (not drunk) but heartsad and heartsick and lonely like it was something I misplaced. pulled myself out of the taxi and now Natalie is probably mad at me and I possibly don’t care. all smoke, more fire. a personal collection of petty jealousies and I keep them on a high shelf even I can’t reach. Softer.