because you live alone

by

you can always save half of something for later: fruit, a sandwich, a slice of cake; there is no need to be afraid
that when you open the refrigerator the other half will no longer be there. everything stays in its proper place.
because you live alone you can walk around in your underwear at 3 AM or 3 PM and nobody will care, you
can drink wine straight from the bottle and apple juice straight from the carton—your germs are contained.
occasionally there will be fresh flowers, or the smell of something sizzling in sesame oil, but most of the time
it will just be the scent of you coming out of the shower, the perfume on your wrists and the backs of your ears,
the fabric softener you pay the laundromat downstairs P35 per kilo to douse your clothes with once a month. 
because you live alone your evenings are your own, and weekend afternoons always stretch ahead of you like 
highways you have yet to travel. you learn to trust yourself to check the locks, pay the bills, unplug the TV, set
the alarm twice so that you wake up in time for early morning meetings. you often read about people who die
alone in apartments, how their decomposing bodies are found days later, how the biggest question is always if 
anybody could have saved them, but if you're being honest and not morbid what you're really wondering is how 
easy and satisfying it would feel to break down a closed door, to force something open with a single powerful 
motion, to find that nobody, not the loneliest or the hardest or the saddest, can keep everyone out forever.