It’s not that I don’t want my marriage. It’s that I want things that my marriage doesn’t allow me to have.

 

Am I choosing comfort over freedom?

 

I want an IUD. I want an MFA. I want more and more and more tattoos. I want a studio apartment and a house plant I don’t kill. I want to be flung into something completely new and solitary.

 

I make lists of all the things

I’ll buy for myself

when I’m

myself.

 

I backspace every time

‘boobs’ autocorrects to ‘books’

like I want to change my life.

 

I put myself in their (your) shoes

to know how they (you) see me.

They (you) could be anybody.

 

Sometimes I dream I’m reduced to something simple:

a summer vacation spent lifeguarding at the city pool

making coffee at a kitschy shop in the city

dogwalking.

 

It’ll heal ugly, but most things do.

 

You can have it all, just not all at once.