I wash my sheets at least once a week.
I remembered to take my medicine today, and
I am good at doing things that are good for me, like
drinking lots of water and getting enough sleep.
Every morning, I clutch my cup of coffee
as I stand in complete silence, wrapped in a cardigan and
staring out the window, deep in thought.
The scene resembles that of a limited-run HBO drama
starring a mid-40s housewife who just finished
shuttling her kids to school in a Mercedes
minivan—she returns to her kitchen that looks out on
the coastline of an upper class LA suburb and
ponders whether she is happy
in her relationship.
I look that put together when I wake up.
You know, clear skin and done-up hair.
I am happy with myself.
Maybe I need to start telling more realistic lies.
I’ve been struck by lightning. Twice.
A unicorn followed me on the way home
from work and reminded me to pick up
my suit from the dry cleaners.
Yeah, and Adele sent the unicorn for me.
She does that sometimes.
I was actually the one who inspired her to
start singing, by the way. So you can thank me
for “Rolling in the Deep”.
Speaking of rolling in the deep,
one time, I discovered Atlantis, but I didn’t tell
anyone where it was because I liked
the people there so much (because they were
communists and it was utopian), and if America
ever caught word of its location, the fish would have been colonized.
And then they would probably be sad, and there would be
nets everywhere, and somebody would make an
aquatic themed cryptocurrency.
But maybe it’s fun to be fantastical sometimes,
to inhabit the fiction of a created world.
It doesn’t hurt anybody else if it’s a lie that
you tell yourself. Things to keep you calm,
wrap and tie you down like a weighted blanket,
hold you from bubbling over.
Affirmations, sure.
I do not chase, I attract.
Good things are coming my way.
I like my job and capitalism does not
feel like a crushing weight on my neck.
I am not consistently annoying.
I am successfully killing my darlings.
I do not want to isolate myself from the world.
I do not have feelings for the boy who I have
texted most every day for the past three years.
My friends enjoy interacting with me on a
regular basis.
I do not miss texting said boy when he disappears
into the woods for the summer.
I do not feel a sense of overwhelming relief when he
reemerges from the wilderness by popping up on my phone.
I can kill my darlings.
I will not be jealous of him when he wins a
Pulitzer Prize when I can’t even get myself
to apply to writing programs.
My darlings are dead.
Someday I will believe the lies I tell myself.