LOVE ADVICE FROM THE LEAST QUALIFIED FRIEND by Mia Nelson

You are allowed to want what you want.
None of you want anything horrific—
In fact, most of you just want the bare minimum.  
I’ve been saying we need to add a genuine freak
to the group for some while now. Or just once, 
I’d like Marion to lean over our matcha lattes 
and ask about creative ways to incorporate toe-play, 
or have Becca call me in a panic over which kind of inflatable pool 
she should buy to impress the date with a floating kink. 
Anything but do I double text and whole tubs of vegan Ben and Jerry’s
because some kid who doesn’t wash his face didn’t wave at
Sarah on the sidewalk. Genuinely. How every mediocre alt-boy
in light colored jeans who skims his class readings has a 100%
hit rate on my supermodel friends kills me. Slays me. Guts me
until all my sparkly organs are spilled out. 
Sometimes I think I understand misogyny, 
can rise above misogyny, can look into the dreamy eyes of the male voyeur inside my head and say 
fuck you, dude. But then I’m having a full blown panic attack
because a man who scored lower on the ACT than me didn’t shoot me a degrading text at 1am—
even though I layed in my bed in neon green lingerie manifesting him. 
Even though I put on my organic deodorant proving that I 
a) smell good and b) care about the earth. 
Even though I waxed with little pink Sally Hanson strips that I rubbed between my hands to heat up. 
If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. 
Which is why I ruin my own day. When I feel lonely, 
I make it worse. I watch hours and hours of rom com movie trailers. 
There is a little Katheirne Heigl in my brain who tells me I am not good enough. I want to kiss her. 
But still, sometimes, my friends come to me for advice. Here we are, 
gathered around in our lululemons after cycling class or rock climbing or French 101
for the busy young professional, wielding Cosmopolitan magazine
as if it were the Rosetta Stone, dissecting a text from some guy
who doesn’t have hobbies. Seriously. We are some bad bitches.
Some neurotic bad bitches who read books just to talk about 
them at the party so we can be the bad bitches who read. 
How  many men have read a book to impress a hypothetical woman
at a hypothetical cocktail party? Hmmm????
But I’ve read every word on unrequited love. I tell my friends put yourself out there,
and I put myself in a dark room in all my heaviest clothes. I say believe in yourself
but everytime I walk past a store window I am shocked that I exist.
I remind them that love comes from within, while inside of me
is a haunted little amusement park that runs on the glitteriest loathing. Oh.
When you figure it out, remember me. How I used to know it all.