Tuttavia, tutti noi abbiamo bisogno di un’evasione. Le ore sono lunghe e bisogna riempirle in un modo o nell’altro fino alla morte. E, semplicemente, non si trovano tante soddisfazioni e tante emozioni in giro. Le cose diventano quasi subito piatte e insopportabili. Ci svegliamo al mattino, tiriamo i piedi fuori dalle lenzuola, li posiamo sul pavimento e pensiamo: ah, merda, e adesso?

Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. And by doing it, they’re proven right. Because, I think there’s something inside of you—and inside of all of us—when we see something and we think, “I think I can do it, I think I can do it. But I’m afraid to.” Bridging that gap, doing what you’re afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that—THAT is what life is. And I think you might be really good. You might find out something about yourself that’s special. And if you’re not good, who cares? You tried something. Now you know something about yourself. Now you know. A mystery is solved. So, I think you should just give it a try. Just inch yourself out of that back line. Step into life. Courage. Risks. Yes. Go. Now.

My sister told me a soul mate is not the person
who makes you the happiest but the one who
makes you feel the most, who conducts your heart

to bang the loudest, who can drag you giggling
with forgiveness from the cellar they locked you in.
It has always been you. You are the first

person I was afraid to sleep next to,
not because of the fear you would leave
in the night but because I didn’t want to wake up

ungracefully. In the morning, I crawled over
your lumbering chest to wash my face and pinch
my cheeks and lay myself out like a still-life

beside you. Your new girlfriend is pretty
like the cover of a cookbook. I have said her name
into the empty belly of my apartment. Forgive me.

When I feel myself falling out of love with you,
I turn the record of your laughter over, reposition
the needle. I dust the dirty living room of your affection.

I have imagined our children. Forgive me. I made up
the best parts of you. Forgive me. When you told me
to look for you on my wedding day, to pause

on the alter for the sound of your voice
before sinking myself into the pond of another
love, forgive me. I mistook it for a promise.

Don’t ask me about his lips. The way they ruby and burn. Stretch full over white teeth. Soft with desire, taut like a drum. I want him to make music of me.

Don’t ask me about his hands. The way they are scarred with stories he won’t tell. How they slide thick down his legs as I stare. Mouth cotton; eyes hungry.

Don’t ask me about my hunger. The way my stomach drops tight when he looks at me. The way my palms itch for his bones. His tongue. Don’t ask me about my fear. The way he comes to me.
How I open my mouth to say “Yes” and it comes out “I’m sorry.”

You’ll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things.