i'm at that age that everyone talks about online. that number they reference as their beautiful past is my beautiful present, and they're not lamenting their old gorgeous body to get a younger generation to grow in appreciation, no. they speak amongst themselves and we overhear. i'm not sure why my peer group likes these posts, we're not millenials, we don't know. what it's like to miss how hot you were at 24. i'm not meant to see those thoughts. yet i think about them all the time-- the sadness awaiting me, how i contibute to it every day.
i wonder if the young always felt guilty for it. my hips genuinely are perfect. my skin too. and what am i doing. why would they intend to make us feel this pressure of waste; let me join you, let me know not, and take a place alongside you at the window. staring at myself from the future.
i miss from my friends from college. every season i think about the last one; this winter, last winter. i enjoyed the company i had, which i don't have anymore. the living room then. the tv shows and big box of beer and snowy walks and what felt like seclusion. i clean my kitchen in a t shirt from last summer, sweating a bit now because of the space heater, cold without it, and i scrape dirt and dust into the trash and conclude that when i talk of college i could say that i was too insecure to accept the love i had in front of me. if the young should feel guilty it would be for wanting.
charges so easily forgot.