Poem After Realizing Your Entire Family Unfriended Me on Facebook

in an instant, i recall that they only love you
unconditionally, and a fist shuts inside me. it’s not
that i’m changing my mind, that i should have kissed you
when you asked me from the middle of my kitchen
in tears last time we spoke. it’s the deed love becomes
when it’s time to sell the house, the fine print
of having nothing i own and how it doesn’t matter
that none of the plants you’ve watered were yours
until you’re not allowed back inside. i know
there are ways through this, but why are they all
surrender? there’s a glitch in my empathy
and i don’t know how to reverse our roles.
i think of your mom waiting in the car
the night she drove you to our breakup,
her arms at the end of my cruelty the real dividing
of possessions, and it occurs to me everything
i’ve ever held has been rented.

Kat Giordano is a poet and massive millennial crybaby from Pennsylvania. She co-edits Philosophical Idiot and is the author of one full-length poetry collection, The Poet Confronts Bukowski's Ghost. She is also the author of many highly embarrassing social media meltdowns, which she kindly archives on her Twitter account, @giordkat, and tries desperately to compensate for via self-promotion on her website, katgiordano.com.