#111: Today will be different

my brain but second person

1.
Today won’t be like yesterday, you tell yourself. 
You won’t reach for your phone first thing, 
but maybe a quick peek is okay—
to check notifications,
to make sure the world is still whole.

Of course it’s not; every headline fractures
the ground beneath you. 
But that reality tv star had her baby 
and your mom got Wordle in three tries
and you’ve received a discount code
to that online shop, a reminder that maybe 
a waist-cinching bathing suit could fix it all:
your body, your summer, your life!!!

2.
You sip coffee and read your book, 
the one about the woman who loses her partner in a freak accident. 
He was only thirty-six. You look over at your husband, 
who hovers over the stove scrambling eggs 
and you promise yourself not to take anything for granted.
But you’re running late for yoga, 
and you almost forget to take your medication,
and where the fuck did you put your water bottle?
Sometimes you wonder if time is a prank,
the minutes speeding up to make you sweat.

3.
The oil light in the car is on. There’s nothing good on the radio,
and you can’t stand the silence, but your friend sent 
a six minute long voice memo, a retelling of her day.
You listen and then respond, interspersing your own update
with the road rage you get every time you drive to the gym.
Does anyone use turn signals anymore? 
You dream of honking your horn 
and wonder what that says about you. 

4.
In the warmth of the studio, you lay your mat flat in the front row,
a brave choice, as you’ll be confronted with your reflection 
for the next hour, and the sunlight pouring through the window 
will reveal your body’s shape in ways you never considered.
Do your arms really look like that? 
Is that a wrinkle between your eyebrows? 
You read yourself like a map, 
noting the peaks and valleys, 
questioning the scale. 

“As always, speak words of love and kindness to yourselves,” 
your yoga teacher says gently, 
watching the lot of you try to balance
like airplanes, like trees, like warriors. 
To follow his instructions, you must close your eyes.

5.
At home you shower and fold laundry and eat a slice of burnt toast.
You scroll through your inbox and your to-do list and your Instagram feed.
You realize it’s Earth Day, so you post that one comic of the planet 
you drew years ago, mostly because you have nothing new to say.

Sometimes you think about the future children you may or may not have.
You picture them looking at the state of the world and then at you.
“Why would you bring me here?” they ask.
You can’t answer that.

6.
You go to a café because you’re going to be productive today.
You order a cappuccino. You sit by the window.
You open your computer. You stare at your screen.
Your fingers hover on the keyboard, as if they’ve forgotten
the choreography to a dance they once knew.
You fold one leg over the other until it falls asleep.
You stay until you can justify
the seven dollars you just spent on coffee.

7.
At home the dishwasher needs to be unloaded.
The carpet could use a vacuum, the toilets a scrub.
You should probably go to the grocery store,
and the car needs that oil change.
You look out the window. The sky is a shocking sheet of blue.
It should be against the law to be inside on a day like this.

8.
Your headphones are dead, but you go for a walk anyway.
You live on a hill, and as you ascend your breath becomes audible,
a reminder that you are alive and maybe out of shape.
You pass an empty little free library. You pass two crows picking 
at something sticky on the sidewalk. You pass a neighbor tending 
to the tulips blooming by their mailbox. 
You wonder if you’ll ever plant tulips.
You wonder if you’ll ever own a home.

You think about your career, how hard it is to be an artist right now 
(but isn’t that always true?).
You wonder if you should apply for a job. 
You think about your qualifications.
You can draw, but nothing too technical. 
You can write, though that’s felt hard lately.
You don’t know how to code,
but you did learn how to use Photoshop in middle school 
so that you could erase the acne from your forehead, 
smearing your pixelated skin smooth.

You’ve reached the top of the hill. 
You take a deep breath, turn around,
and head back down.

9.
You open your computer again. You write two sentences 
for the novel you’ve been working on. You reread what you wrote 
yesterday. You spend the next twenty minutes reworking 
a paragraph, only to delete it entirely. You swear you’ll write 
at least three hundred words tomorrow.
You shut your laptop. Your husband comes home.

Leftovers for dinner, a jagged piece of milk chocolate for dessert.
You’re caught up on your television shows, so your husband scrolls 
through a dizzying parade of AI-generated recommendations.
You say you don’t care what he picks 
but nix everything he suggests.
Of course it doesn’t matter—you’ll play your phone game,
the one where you connect dots over and over and over. 
You’re stuck on level one thousand two hundred and twenty six. 

10.
You made your bed that morning just to return to it, 
to wrap yourself up in the sheets like a gift.
 You crave your phone, but you’ve plugged it in 
on the other side of the room. You read your book 
until your eyes blur. You loop your arms around your husband. 
This is comfortable for about thirty seconds, but he’s a furnace, 
and your neck hurts, and you like to stick your feet out 
from underneath the covers. Your dad is the same way. 
“Our feet need to breathe,” he once told you, tucking your comforter 
around your mosquito-bitten ankles before kissing your forehead. 
You live across the country from your parents now.
You call them often, and if they don’t pick up, 
you convince yourself that something terrible has happened.
Being in your head is a full time job.

11.
Sleep doesn’t come.
It never does, not at first. But you have tricks. You count backwards
from one hundred by threes, then by sevens. In your mind 
you rebuild the mall you went to as a teenager, 
recalling the marble corridors, the flashy storefronts. 
You worked there, at Anthropologie, for five weeks one winter. 
You once gave a customer twice the money back for a return. 
Your boss had to swoop in, scowling at you as she poked at the register.
You shake the memory from your head, burying your face 
into the warmth of your pillow.

You flip to your back, then your side, then your stomach.
You think about tomorrow. You promise yourself it’ll be different.
Maybe it’s a lie. But finally you drift off, 
arms splayed out like you’ve burst open.

A little different than my usual newsletters, I know. I appreciate the space to share my more experiential writing. Thank you.

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