the most embarrassing part about being nearly thirty & still, occasionally, thinking “i’d
rather be dead”

Ashley Cline

is that it feels absolutely ridiculous, silly even, that, in nearly thirty years of living, it seems as though you still haven’t figured out how to do just that. & well, it just seems like something you should have sorted by now, you know? it just seems like it should be easy, like breathing, which you managed to get right your first day on earth, & still manage to get right, given the fact that you are, in fact, still breathing, even though sometimes you wish that you weren’t. & you know that you don’t really mean that because what of your mother? & your guilt? & your dog, who was abandoned once before, like you, & you can’t stand the thought of her thinking you’ve abandoned her, too? & what of carly rae jepsen? because, if we’re being honest, she could release a new song at any moment, & what? you’re just not gonna be here to hear it? like, okay. like, miss me with that. like, to be honest, for you to not think of survival feels like a betrayal of evolution. like, what of the stars that lent you their atoms? what of the books you’ve borrowed & have yet to return? like, it just seems like it should be easy—or easier, at least. like springtime. like pink moons. like—it is early may, & you are listening to more frightened rabbit than usual, which makes sense, if you think about it. & you drive to the river, where you think of weightlessness, which also makes sense, if you think about it. & you’ve seen enough television to know what the water can do to the body; you’ve seen enough television to know that don’t nobody wanna fuck with that. so you watch the birds, instead. the way they cut corners & turn in the air, almost-frantic. the way they plummet & dive & fall towards the water, almost-graceless, before they flatten their bodies, these soft parallels, & skim the surface & skim the surface & skim the surface &—it is early may, & you feel safe so long as there is no future, & you wonder where you learned this kind of survival. it is early may, & you watch the birds—swallows, you think, or maybe martins—who don’t think of nothing but the moment—who don’t think of not existing, at all—but rather: the rise & the fall, the water & the sky. these soft parallels. it is early may, & you think you rather like when the sky & the water are the exact same shade of slate-gray, actually; it is early may, & you think this feels endless, in a way, & you like the implication that, maybe, somewhere, that is a good thing—or at least, it is not always bad. it is early may, & you decide to be endless (to be birdsong), too.