What America Means To Me

It’s about naming your dog after a kind of alcohol

It’s about wanting a gun but never actually getting one

It’s about having a stoplight turn red when you’re in a hurry and green when you need to check your phone and hearing the lane departure alarm beep over and over while you pick another song

It’s about taking three hours to transcribe a podcaster’s rant on wikiquote when you should be doing homework for the classes you’re taking to get your second degree

It’s about obsessively checking the same three websites over and over and over until one AM then hating your alarm at five thirty

It’s about fatty liver and gallstones

It’s about being desperate for the adoration of strangers while ignoring family

It’s about lingering guilt with a nebulous, unnameable source

It’s about feeling a terrible white hot rage over some minor inconvenience or perceived slight then telling yourself you’re a horrible person for feeling said rage after you’ve calmed down

It’s about sucking melted Reese’s peanut butter cups out of their wrappers because you left them in your car all afternoon and you want them now

it’s about telling no one any of this

It’s about adding lol to something you did not laugh at

It’s about wanting and not knowing why