The things I do

Forget the tea, the water boiled to nothing,  

the spoon left resting, dry in the cup.  

Reply in my head, never in the text.  

Panic at the silence I created,  

pick apart the spaces where my words should be.  

Cry because the tone was wrong,  

because the joke missed,  

because I said too much,  

because I said nothing.  

Leave the door unlocked.  

Leave the oven on.  

Leave my coat on a chair in a place I won’t remember.  

Lists, scribbled—on my hand,  

on the back of a receipt,  

on a note I’ll never read again.  

Make another. Forget that one too.  

Stand in the middle of a room,  

a thought half-formed in my mouth,  

lost between the floorboards.  

Love too hard.  

Apologize too much.  

Feel a slammed door like a gunshot.  

Feel a frown like the end of the world.  

Promise I’ll do better.  

Mean it.  

Forget.  

Start again.