Cold Coffee Chronicles

I miss my lungs feeling like charcoal in the morning because I stayed up until birds sang on my porch. I miss my Honda Accord station wagon with a cassette player in it. It was 2012. I miss poetry. I miss the dirt beneath my fingernails and it getting stuck. I miss drinking warm Carlo Rossi from the jug. I miss asking a random dude to buy it for us and running away, cackling because he thought he’d drink it, too. I miss the free bagels and cream cheese that got me fired. I miss guitars and Dashboard Confessional lyrics and sounding way shittier than I’m sure I remember.

I miss saying no to chances I’d say yes to now. To Ecuador, to Kanye West, to Bonnarro, to San Francisco for my roommates wedding, to the bars, to acid, to South Korea, to so many edibles, to trivia on Wednesday night at Union Jacks.

These memories pinch me like a phantom kick in the womb. A wistful reminder that grief and gratitude can exist in the same breath