Tamara DeLand:
I’m sorry that I don’t like puzzles. Or video games. Or television shows where people do idiotic, humiliating things to themselves. I like Scrabble but not if you beat me. I’m sorry that I am capable of entertaining myself in ways that don’t include you. I’m really sorry you think that every pot of coffee brewed and every meal set out on the table must originate with me. I’m sorry that when you ask me what are you going to do today? my impulse is to answer nothing, nothing ever again. I’m sorry there is nothing new to report. I’m sorry that we’re not going to the movies tonight and eating our favorite thin crust pizza. I’m sorry that we aren’t driving all the way to Minneapolis to Sunnyside Gardens to buy flats of pansies and petunias and impatiens. I’m sorry that we aren’t cooking out for our friends and you’re the bartender. I’m sorry this isn’t a polar vortex that caught us by surprise, burying us in snow and pelting us with ice. That the quiet outside isn’t poetic instead of eerie. I’m sorry you’ve not broken your leg, or I’ve not developed a nervous condition that demands secluded bedrest like a Victorian heroine. I’m even sorry that we aren’t stranded because you packed away the passports after a move and can’t find them in time for Venice. I’m sorry that you said in all seriousness, “I don’t think I’m going to make 103,” as if up until now you had a handle on it. I’m sorry that I have trouble focusing on my books and that I can’t keep up on social because every comment I want to make is ASSHOLE. I’m sorry that I’m not spinning time into letters of gold to be swallowed whole as medicine, or art. I’ll be sorry when this is over and all I have to show for it are journal pages dripping in sorry-for-myself. I’m sorry that I want so much when others have so little. I’m sorry that I resent you when others are alone. I’m sorry that all I want to do is leave. To be anywhere else.
BIO: Tamara DeLand lives and works in St. Cloud, Minnesota as a communications director. She is previously published in the Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review.
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Wanderlust 