I met my younger self for coffee, 
we were both 10 minutes late. 
She tells me there was traffic 
and I chuckle because I know there wasn’t. 
She doesn’t know I just got there, too, so I tell her. 
She smiled at me with comfort; we’re both perpetually late, it seems. 

She orders a vanilla iced coffee with cream and liquid sugar, 
I get an iced latte with almond milk. 
She tells me she’s hungover, and she’s wearing sunglasses, 
I just finished my morning run with my dog; I told her I hadn’t had a drink in years. 
She asks if we can sit outside so she can smoke,
I agree because I still vape. 
She exhales, and I can feel the anger inside of her. 
I reach for her hand across the table to suggest that peace is around the corner, but she moves hers away. She’s so closed off and I recognize the pain she is hiding behind the dark circles under her eyes, disguised as a fun night out. 

Her voice cracks as she tells me she doesn’t know the girl looking back at her in the mirror, and I tell her that girl isn’t as bad as she seems. She just hasn’t found a safe place to put down the pain she’s been carrying. “Give her some grace,” I plead.

She tells me about the toxic guy she knows it won’t work out with, 
Sighing that she will never meet someone that truly sees her. 
I smile and reassure her. She will, and he is better than anything she could’ve imagined. 

She says she wants to move to a new city and get a dog, and I show her pictures of Marla, and tell her that moving out of my hometown was the best thing I ever did. 
She says she loves her job, and I told her I gave up my career to move and I am still figuring it out. 
She looks at me with scared eyes and says she hates change. 
I smile and say, “me too, but it always turns out okay.”

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