Not today.
Every thought feels waterlogged, heavy, slipping through my fingers before I can shape it into anything worth saying.
I’m exhausted not just tired buthollowed out.
And I don’t even know what from.
Maybe it’s everything.
The husband who left but still lingers like smoke.
The dating app that flashes across my phone like fireworks in November, each ping a false spark of connection I pretend not to need.
The mail guy the one I can’t stop thinking about, whose voice sticks to my ribs like a song I half-remember. There’s something in him I recognize, though I can’t name it.
And then there’s Carrie my best friend, my boss, the queen of this glass tower. The woman who built an empire out of grit and ambition while I’m just…trying to breathe in its shadow.
The elevator keeps climbing, smooth and relentless.
The mirrored walls close in, gleaming and cold, and for a heartbeat, I swear I can feel them pressing against my chest tightening, cracking, until it feels like my rib cage might splinter beneath the weight of everything I can’t say.
The screen glows up at me from the cradle of my palm.
Legs crossed at the knee, red heels dangling like a warning sign, I sit perched on the edge of my glass-and-steel office like a bird waiting to fall.
The morning sun filters through the cubicle walls, refracting light onto my skin like a kaleidoscope of regrets.
I scroll through the dating app again.
Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.
Laugh. Cringe. Swipe.
Josh08’s profile makes me snort aloud.
“I wish all women came with a warning.”
Ironic. Iamthe warning. I come with barbed wire and wilted love letters.
Casting my eyes across the office floor, I notice it for the first time, not just people, butpatterns.
Eyes glued to phones, fingers swiping like they’re trying to resuscitate their own dead hearts.
Others are hunched over keyboards, pounding out productivity to please people who wouldn’t notice if they vanished tomorrow.
What the hell are we all doing?
We’re ghosts with inboxes.
We’re lonely in high-rises, smiling at screens and forgetting how voices sound in real rooms.
I never saw it like this before, before my chest split open.
Before I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the girl with bloodshot eyes and hollow cheekbones.
Before Blake left.
Now I see it all. I see too much.
