Woke up this morning, thanked god my blankets TAKE UP SPACE
ON THE MATTRESS, SO I WAKE UP
ALL THE MORE ready for the day.
They fill the time like PEOPLE! Like, conversations (fake) or how
a new deodorant canister carries itself across
DIMENSIONS AND WE CAN HARDLY FIGURE
IT OUT! (IT ALL OUT!)
Chokes you hard, and new, but we let it because we need it and because
we have to AND CONVINCES YOU IT IS NOT THE FIRST TIME, IT WAS
WHAT YOU USED BACK IN THE 2020 WINTER OR MAYBE IT WAS
2021 SUMMER OR WHAT YOU USED TO INHALE WITH YOUR FACE
PRESSED TO THE HARD CHEST OF THE BOY YOU STILL LOVE (It felt like cement!),
REAL SUBTLE THESE CANS ARE
SUBTLE, until they're gone
in a blink
and the CVS is all out of your usual.
And now you must say your goodbyes (kiss 'em!) until they wash
back OVER YOU, when you're most unsuspecting (like a deer) in an unsuspecting room (the headlights).

Then you must kiss it goodbye AGAIN! YOU NEVER STOP KISSING IT GOODBYE if
it never stops CREEPING up on you, only if you couldn't smell it BUT WE
ARE GLAD THAT YOU CAN.
-Your friends at Old Spice Deodorant Factory. Thanks for being a loyal customer this year,
take 10% off, ON US! :)

I know this is the one this time (I'VE SWORN). I know my credibility dwindles more and

more each time, I know (I SWEAR), but this time, THIS TIME, I think I really found it.
None of them feel wrong at the beginning though -- THEY FEEL EXACT. Like, it's
the right breed. THEN THEY GROW AND GROW AND ATTACH
TO GROWING OBJECTS, THE ONES
THAT HANG AROUND NOW, a cluster of deer on the run,
entangled wool blankets, (or the talk I had with the boy I loved)
AND DON'T FEEL LIKE HOME ANYMORE,
it's somewhere else--
maybe under my sweaty pits.

BRITTANY DEITCH hosts The Internet Is Dead podcast and lives in NYC. Her work has appeared in Paste, Byline Byline, Charm School, and elsewhere. She's addicted to thinking.