THE FIRST & LAST PERSON TO DISCOVER HEARTBREAK WAS ME

I never know if it’s better to feel loneliness or unity in heartbreak.

I want to feel especially broken; I want to hold a stranger’s pinkie

beneath bathroom walls because we’re both weeping in separate stalls.

But then I can’t unlock the door, so I consider spending my whole life

on the toilet bowl, hips numb as I sit that age alone, with cell

service but not willing to phone my mom because she’ll tell me

I need to come back home. & I’ll tell her I want to wear eyeliner

now so that people know when I’m most vulnerable; I want

to undress to blank bones. & she’ll say I am too sweet & sick

& I can’t keep living my life like a poem. It’s written beautifully,

but the ending never ends well, everyone escapes but me.

It’s okay, though terrifying. I love too much & won’t let

go of that mercy. Besides, the world would be boring

if it clung to my knees, if it always stayed to care for my body.