Hey Man I Found A Piece Of Your Soul Stuck In The Text Messages Of Old Friends You Don’t Speak To Anymore.

texas is funny. this one time a guy(in his truck) yelled at me(outside)(in summer) for wearing a cowboy hat(to provide shade)(while working)(in the sun) while i was working in the garden (in summer)(in texas)(on a sunny day)

sorry i’m a #FakeCowboy for wearing a cowboy hat(in the summer)(in the sun)(while working)(in a garden) instead of wearing my cowboy hat(meant for working)(in the sun) while driving a truck(air-conditioned) like a #RealCowboy who does Manly Work (with his truck)(spotless)(unblemished)(with AC)

anon hate

Witty response

— Nitya Prakash

— Georgia O'Keeffe

you worry the cardboard sleeve around the coffee and think about landfills and the future without straws. you are worried about prion disease and deer. you are worried about the rising temperature of mushrooms. you are worried about teflon and microplastics and carcinogens and whatever else you're being quietly lied to about.

your mother used to jokingly say you are "a worrier," which always kind of oddly hurt your feelings. you feel like a person. and besides, you've been told one-million-times that this is normal. examples get trotted out in a pony show each time: everyone gets nervous sometimes. they talk about public speaking and picturing people naked and how when they get nervous they just-get-over-it.

you run your hands down the grater of your life and feel the sharpness. you started holding your breath in tunnels as a kid, worried that if you relax, the ceiling would cave in. like years of architects and engineers weren't responsible - you, and your faith, you were responsible for the success of infrastructure. if you slipped for a moment, your whole family would be swept away under the ocean. and the problem is that it worked - no tunnel collapsed.

you once broke a coffee carafe and even though you didn't drink from it after, you worried that there had been some previous invisible micro-break that had made you drink glass particles. you stayed awake for 24 hours, constantly dreading each swallow, waiting to taste blood.

you hate being late, you worry about it. you go to grab literally just lunch with a friend - no pressure, no emergency - and you still park the car an hour early and just sit there scrolling on your phone aimlessly. maybe you just don't like surprises or change. you triple-check you locked the doors, and then go to bed, and then get up out of bed to check twice again.

a worrier. like a strange and dreadful bingo card, you collect weekly experiences. someone tells you that you're overthinking, that's 2 points. you have to physically turn around and go back in your house to check you unplugged everything, that's 1 point. spiraling about climate change or politics or the state of the world is a free space, that's basically every evening.

you worry you're being selfish and not a good person because how come you're worried about your dog's health and the itch in your eye when you know people who are really very ill or who have it worse or who are genuinely struggling. then you worry that you're being annoying by infantilizing them. then you worry that your priorities are wrong, that you should be infinitely more worried about the state of a dying planet.

you wanted to be a person, is all. you wanted to go through life in a softness, to hold the world gently and have it whisper past you. and instead you are a worrier. everything that touches you is hard and raw and sharp like diamonds.

Save me warm toned lit windows of tenement blocks on a winters evening save me

I ate stickly sweet dates out of a plastic bag today. With cold fingers, looking out at a morning sky that'd been cloudy for weeks.

it is january 2nd and the sun rises a little lighter over a horizon no longer crowded with the haze of a thousand hopes— under a wide-open sky still young and fresh and new without a thousand staring eyes.

it is january 2nd and the air is a little freer without the sacred weight of the untouched loading every trembling motion, without the lofty need for newness clouding every restless moment like a warm puff of breath in the january cold.

it is january 2nd and i relax like a slow exhale at the end of a long breath held two heartbeats too long— a little tight at the edges but not too much, not yet.

it is january 2nd. the year is still young and i have time.

i have time.

EY ITS FINALS SEASON!

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR EXAMS!

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ESSAYS!

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR PRESENTATIONS!

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR FINAL PROJECTS!

GOOD LUCK!!! YOU’VE MADE IT THIS FAR!!

and a gentle reminder to take breaks, and get a snack and some water. Don’t forget to take a moment to breathe.

and if you can, try to do something nice for yourself after its all over. No matter how it turns out, you struggled and you survived so you deserve something nice :)

You know what screw it this counts as poetry