We curse the earth for being so beautiful and so unsympathetic and we curse the people that follow its lead.

We go out for breakfast and promise that it will be the last restaurant meal we eat for a week. A week at least.

We find a television channel colored green and gold and we watch it without knowing what we’re seeing. We watch socially and we drink semi-abusively.

We choke up when Humane Society commercials come on.

We get bit by Asian lady beetles that try to winter in our houses.

We talk about Halloween. We lose ourselves on Amazon.com searching for bald caps or fake swords or whatever. We open new tabs to imagine road trips and spring breaks. Our minds spiral into futures of foreign dialects and gas station showers.

We order a pizza for dinner: mushrooms and black olives. Thanks to our combined thimbleful of self-control, we don’t order breadsticks. We promise, “last meal,” “week at least.”

We sit atop the reservoir and talk about the rich women that live high in the skyline.  We are curious as to whether or not they are terrified by thunderstorms and whether or not their concierges help them load their whole foods into the elevator.

We forget to buy flowers at the farmers market. Again and again.

Planning an orchard visit, we wonder if we are the teeth or the apple or the worm or God.

We remember all of the text messages we forgot to reply to this weekend. We assume it’s too late to reply now.

In keeping with our habit of never giving up ghosts, we talk of this summer’s vacations like they were years ago, like it didn’t rain so much, like we didn’t feel lonely even among our best friends, like everything was perfect.

We laugh sweetly and sincerely at each other. We goof around. We love each other. A whole lot.

We get clean for the week ahead and get into bed without makeup or shirts on. We wear underwear, though. We have our periods. We’re in tolerable amounts of pain.

We dread Mondays. We can’t sleep.

We sleep.