They now say it has stages. They say it ranges from mild to severe. It's a spectrum, like many things— with a shiny new term, like a rinsed dish. Yet you remain obstinate, like the rest of your generation. Why dismiss a turn to tenderness? Why stay gazing into a scratched glass? I cleaned up. It wasn’t fast— it was the last thing I wanted to do. I launder whole days in the quick cycle. But I shaped myself with the best of you. If only you’d look.

My wanting gut kept spattering on unfamiliar ceramic because men made a fool of the girl in me. My head thick with whole days lost to lethargy, I craved constancy— offered myself like a dirty plate, then cried like a child. When I granted myself clemency, I turned my body from do nothing to do something. I stemmed the effluence of generations that lurched toward the bottle in threes— still sometimes, I slip on the memory of how thrilling it could be.

I'm so tired of these rote words. Of retreading a time when we were unwise and hungry. The tedium of small tragedies, and of making a show of sadness.