(i) When I was six an alien visited me in my father's kitchen. I was eating spaghetti and mayonnaise for breakfast. The alien told me, while slurping up a noodle I didn't say they could have, that my life would be beautiful but incomplete. I said, Thank you. They were so unfamiliar with gratitude that it took me all day to revive them. I missed every Saturday cartoon, but I didn't mind. I liked the intimacy, even if it was forced. I know that you and I didn't know each other yet, but I wish you'd been there.

(ii) There was that time I accidentally hit a cat on the way to a Frightened Rabbit concert. I hardly knew the guy in the car with me. A new coworker. He'd had an extra ticket, had only wanted to go with a true fan. When the cat darted out into the middle of the road, time folded on top of itself. I didn't know where or when I was. What I do know: he wasn't you, although his hair was short like yours, his eyes soft and brown. At the show, we stood side by side, miles of heartstrings between us. He knew every word to every song, but again, he wasn't you. I cried for two deaths that night. What I remember from before: drunk texting you lyrics at 3 a.m. then coming over and sitting on your couch and kissing you but never quite reaching you. You telling me that my Tumblr was so bleak you couldn't stop reading it; you wanted to find out how we would end. After a week of knowing each other, we said we'd get married on a rollercoaster. We never did figure out the logistics. But when I felt the bump underneath my tire, it occurred to me that I get motion sick practically standing still.

(iii) On the floor of my car is a garage door opener to a door somewhere in this dimension. I just don't know where. Under the bed, instead of a safe, I keep a tattered envelope full of keys that were made long before time collapsed in on itself. Cognitive dissonance: I know the uselessness of such objects, but keeping them makes me feel in control. Or more accurately, they make me feel less out of control. Has there ever been a sadder phrase than, I could do so much better this time around? If there has, I haven't heard it. Last night I ate the DSM-5. Every last page. Even the cover. I was so bloated with my own denials that I texted you to ask if you were happy and you texted me back almost instantly to say, You forgot my birthday again, but it's okay, you always do. There wasn't anything to say that hasn't already been said, so I drew a picture of an alien eating noodles, and in their voice bubble I wrote my best estimate of a mistake: Please don't fall in love with someone new.