Modern Love

On Monday, at four,
I watch from my kitchen window
as three delinquents walk in the woodland beyond, wonder what plans they've made, where they'll sleep tonight.
I wait
as steam pours off two cups of coffee, one that'll go cold before anyone comes.
I tune out my daughter screaming in the adjoining room about a cupcake she chose at the shop now not being the right cupcake.
I imagine
laying out in the unpredictable rain and letting worm meat become of me
because they're not coming, they never were, because I expected too much of them -
and I am now chained to my life.
"The cupcake is broken...
cuddles! I only want cuddles." She wails, and I walk back to my life knowing I am loved
just not the way I planned
when I was seventeen.