bye

Every time I haven't heard from this man for a while, six or eight months, a year, I know he's in jail again. Inevitably every time he gets out he calls me, asks about my romantic life, says he always will love me, says if he had known how things would end up he would have chosen me instead of my best friend. Every time this happens I remind him that I chose to not be with him, that I love him the way you love a toxic family member (at a distance and with apprehension and pity), but he'll never remember it this way.

A guy I used to date texts me and asks me for the website to get a tourist visa for Australia so he can go visit his new girlfriend (the last time I was at his apartment I left it open in a tab on his browser for him). I tell him to Google it and he insists there are too many search results to find the right one. I give him detailed keywords that will take him to the website, reiterating that it will be a government website, .gov.au, and tell him that's the best I can do for him.

When a man sends me a digital file of their book early in the morning and says "what do you think" and "I value your opinion" I feel the worst I will feel all day. Except later when I'm out of work and get another message that says "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" because I haven't responded... this is when I know they feel my time is theirs to take and demand and that I should feel guilty spending it any way except by giving a complimentary critique of their work.