You know that general sentiment that we’re all here to learn a lesson?

That each lifetime, we’re put on Earth to “learn a lesson”?

Well, I’m pretty certain mine is that old adage: “You made your bed. Now it’s time to lie in it.” Maybe that’s why my bed was never made until I was in my thirties. I was avoiding the consequences of my actions.

And maybe I’m a little too bratty, too defiant, too obstinate, too… I don’t know—too authority-figure-hating—to really buy into all that life-lesson bullshit. Most of my lessons were learned at the will of another, and now the sound of my name gives me the same dread as being called into the principal’s office.

But I guess some people love their names. Some even get off on them—literally. “Oh, baby, say my name!” That’s a thing, right?

And I guess there’s some world where lying in bed—bed-rotting—is so nice, so lovely. But for me, it’s just time-out and shame: the things I never felt I deserved when I was doing my best with the information available at the time.

Summer of Fortune

Something, something, Wheel of Fortune year,
followed by something, something spinning,
but the summer was when the hummingbirds
came late, in flocks, and the males dove
at each other. I heard their chirp
for the first time in my life, and it sounded
just like it did in Disney’s Pocahontas,

and we went on our second out-of-state trip this summer
just to buy weed—marijuana, not vacation,
an errand, an extended errand—
but returned early and sobbed

the day after because Ruby
couldn’t go on anymore, and you needed the vet
to say it was the right choice
on the phone, five times. We drank shitty
McDonald’s milkshakes and ate fries
until we went to bed early with stomach aches
that were gone by morning. Then we found ourselves
at the shelter, clueless, stupid, drunk with wanting—
God, the wanting,

the wanting for everything to turn out all right—
and we couldn’t take that puppy home that day;
her spay wasn’t for another two days, thank God,

and then she was in our home, eight hours in, 
at 3 a.m., we were awake,
dreading that we had made the biggest fucking mistake,
but at twenty-four hours we were playing fetch;
at forty-eight, she knew her name.
And the fear in me still eats a hole,
some cavity made of fast-food chemicals and sugar,
something that remains, because

I cleaned out the fridge and wonder
if this leftover is still good.
I made this before Ruby died—
how many days? How many days?—
and now our lives look totally different,
and I don’t know what else one summer can take,
if anything,
or whether everything will turn out all right.