A year has gone by.

Nothing much about my life has changed since the last time you saw me.

I still wake up at 9am to take my Vyvanse before going back to sleep again til the doctor
prescribed methamphetamines hit an hour later. At which point sleeping is no longer an option. Vyvanse is great because I can’t tell if I’m manic or depressed.

I still make my coffee and let it sit in the press while I walk two blocks to the smoke shop
to bum a loosie. Only one. Last time you saw me I was quitting. I’m still quitting. I’m a regular.
They know my name. I don’t know theirs. Besides one guy who I eventually built friendly
rapport with despite my best efforts not to. He eventually moved back to Michigan.

I was sad.

I still go to all the same spots I took you and all the rest to. Same coffee shops. Same
book shops. Same breakfast shops. Employees always remember my face but never who I was
with. Eventually they learn my name though none of them can ever pronounce it right. I hate it when I realize I’m observed as much as I observe. I hate being perceived. I assume they’re filling in the blanks with all the wrong tenses. I try to convince myself they’re randoms NPCs, but then the NPCs start interrogating me.

Them: What’s your name?

I just tell them to call me Val. And so they call me Val. Most people call me Val. Because
most people can’t be bothered to figure out the other two syllables, six letters of my name and I can’t be bothered to sit them through a phonetics lesson. But I prefer it this way. They only know Val. They only perceive Val.

I respond to Val. I reply to Val. I occasionally refer to myself as Val, but I don’t know a
Val. I only know Valaniece. You called me Val. Probably because you knew Val about as well as I did.

Then they start asking more questions.

Them: How is your day?

Thus I start making assumptions about their perceptions of Val. She has no life. Where
are her friends? Does she ever go out? Does she have a job? Why is she always here at the same time? Who was that guy? Who was that other guy? Where did he go? Then I feel the need to unsolicitedly object to observations they likely never had.

Me: Yeah I work a lot. I work from home. I’m always working. I’m a writer. So I write. I
only get one cigarette because if I buy a pack I smoke a pack also I’m always so busy but I love
working and enjoy the peace because also I’m busy. Also I love being single.

I still light my ciggy with the stove because I still can’t find my lighter and don’t want to
buy a new one just in case I find the old one. I still wear the red hoodie you gave me with the
boxers from the other guy before whenever I smoke so I don’t stink up all my clothes. I still sit on my patio staring at the same view that looks indistinguishable from now and then. I still listen to the same playlist I made a year ago as I inhale my morning ciggy (the rest of the day is all downhill from here).

1. Blurry Days – Camille Jansen
2. Unconscious Melody – Preoccupations
3. Contaminado – La Femme
4. Money Trees – Kendrick Lamar
5. Mirror Forever – Weyes Blood

I know all of these songs mean nothing to you. To be honest, they’re starting to mean less
to me. Sometimes I wonder what songs remind you of me. Songs that somebody who wasn’t you had written for somebody that wasn’t me. I wonder what you got right. What you got wrong. I wonder if my mask slipped last time I slept in your arms. I wonder how much I got right about you. I think I saw more than you wanted me to. I wonder who Val was to you because she’s
nobody to me.

Last I heard you were exactly where I found you. Last I heard you were exactly where I
left you. Last I heard you were planning on leaving yet I still know where to find you.
I smoke the same ciggys, read the same books, drink the same coffee, stuck in the same playlist I made a year ago. I’ve moved on but I still haven’t left. We’re creatures of comfort. Nothing ever changes and time never passes. Today is always yesterday. Tomorrow never came. Even though a year has gone by since the last time you saw me.