every sad girl in brooklyn

We gather information from mistakes and we plant them in the garden

Little things like how quickly our mind spins after an accidentally seen instagram post

Or how likely we are to drive to milwaukee after three days that were meant to exist in a vacuum

Slowly we tell ourselves not to understand things others do as if we did them

(The way the podcasts our therapists told us to listen to advised us as we tried not to have an existential crises over the Atlantic Ocean because we did not want to try Xanax for the first time on a plane. Plus we still have trouble thinking we are the kind of person who would take a Xanax, though we revel in the high school coolness of the idea that if we wanted some, we could acquire it.)

I am not trying to be tongue in cheek. I am not trying to be cute

Or to write the poetry of every sad girl in Brooklyn even though sometimes I feel

Like every sad girl in Brooklyn and other times when I am far away

I berate myself for ever rolling my eyes at these sad girls

Want to celebrate their right to exist as a majority

Tell myself I should be thankful for the discomfort of being one among the many

In the same way my aunt told my cousin to finish all the food in his plate

How plentiful abundance looks in all its discomfort 

when one has existed in scarcity

Even now I apologize for any profound statements. I am not trying to be artsy

To be funny I am just trying to say something, anything, that is true.