How Many Can Relate to This? What We Actually Do

I spend three hours watching videos

of people I'll never meet

then wonder why I feel so empty.

My apartment is a disaster but my Instagram

looks like I have my shit together.

I cry during commercials about dogs

but scroll past actual human suffering

because it's Wednesday and I can't handle

another tragedy with my morning coffee.

I share an article about climate change

then drive to get takeout in a plastic bag.

My bank account is overdrawn

but I bought a meditation app

that promises inner peace for $9.99.

I know more about celebrities' breakups

than I do about my own loneliness.

Google "how to make friends as an adult"

at 2 AM on a Wednesday.

Sometimes I sit in traffic

and imagine what would happen

if I just kept driving,

past my exit, past my life,

past the crushing weight

of being constantly reachable,

constantly performing,

constantly failing at being

the person I thought I'd be by now.

But then I remember

that everyone else is doing this too

this weird dance of pretending

we're fine while everything falls apart.

We're all just winging it,

checking our phones to avoid

thinking about death,

buying things, we don't need

to fill spaces inside us

that Amazon can't deliver to.

Maybe that's all we need.

Maybe admitting we're all

beautifully, catastrophically human

is the most honest thing

we can do in this broken world.