this is how it feels to crash in color

watching the microwave spin my leftovers on a carousel of regret. letting elliott smith needle my ribs while the group chat dies in real time. refreshing my dopamine like a prescription i forged. binge-watching sitcoms i already memorized just to feel something that isn’t shrouded nostalgia. falling in love with strangers on the train because they look like someone who’d understand my metaphors. biting my nails while doomscrolling climate collapse headlines, sandwiched between influencer meal preps and people getting married in forests with better lighting than my self-worth. dreaming about disappearing into the background of a film where everything has symmetry and no one bleeds out loud. rereading old texts and pretending the punctuation means something deeper than “i didn’t know how to love you right.” trying to stay soft while the world keeps handing me knives wrapped in compliments. writing poems as if they’re bloodletting rituals. crying over those who survive things i can’t name without unraveling. dancing alone in my room because it counts as rebellion. swallowing my tongue every time i want to say i miss you to someone who replaced me with peace. naming my heartbreaks after movie titles to call it art. telling myself it’s not that deep while digging a grave with every lyric i write. coping by collecting moments in bottle caps that are tossed when the thrill wears off. it hurts in technicolor.