almond joy – Alexandra Naughton

February 2, 2021

sometimes you woke up with your phone in your hand
crusty faced and ready to ignore more emails
stalk twitter threads instead
backtracing replies and montaging a narrative
a fiction you can splice yourself into
maybe be a best friend to some influencer’s main character

sometimes you wasted your weekends in the filth of your bed
in the protection of sweat salty sheets
greasy leggings, your anti brand of self care
rolling over and smoking a spliff to mark the passage of time
blowing sooty specters into your air filter
numbing out so conscious you won’t snap out of it

sometimes you didn’t speak to anyone out loud all day
until you finally did and then said too much

sometimes you Total Recalled moments in your head
a broken fence, it wasn’t supposed to happen so wordless
struggle replaying suffocating scenes small rooms submerged
dreams you can’t control only witness and observe details
silly ghosts of awkward exchanges floating past
still too oblique to pinpoint anything worth retelling

sometimes you built up so much in your head
an idea of a person all smooth edges and glassy eyes
seeing what you wanted to see in your mirror and others
an image counterfeited from a Byron poem
something impossible better left that way
a decade of lying to yourself in secret just to feel