my friend tells me her rice purity score is a

69 and i say mine is an 86. she says 

we’re not far from each other and 

at first i think she’s wrong but i realize 

that she’s not, that those seventeen 

points could be lost in one night,

that seventeen oh-dear-god-why-did-i-ever-

do-that decisions could be made just like that.

my friend tells me she went a little crazy 

her sophomore year and now she regrets it.

i wonder if i had done the same, if i would’ve done 

seventeen things that i would absolutely-g*****n-

without-a-doubt regret.

i regret not knowing.

my friend tells me i am filled with microplastics and 

regret, but that joke hits a little too close to home.

maybe these plastic dreams, decisions, mistakes

i crushed between my teeth and gulped down 

are sitting, tingling in my stomach, dead things still 

lingering as if alive.

my friend tells me i need to eat more, but i don’t want

food mixing with the regret bubbling down there.

failed attempts, missed opportunities, chemical burns 

already eat away at my insides, food only adds fuel 

to the fire. maybe someday i will spit up the bile-flames 

and i’ll be a dragon like i always wanted.

my friend tells me if she could be anything 

she would be a bird, they don’t regret anything, 

they’re free. see, regret is a two-headed coin:

you regret what you do, you regret 

what you don’t. no matter what side it lands on 

it’s always one-hundred percent regret. so

when my friend tells me birds don't regret

anything, i ask her won’t you regret flying into a

window? she says it doesn’t matter, i’ll be dead.

now i think death cannot come quick enough. please, 

wash away my what-ifs, shoot that thing in my stomach 

mercilessly beating its wings trying to break

out. / hunter, cock your rifle and aim it low. you 

learned how to gut chickens without remorse, do it 

now before this thing picks me clean. / my friend asks me

why i have so many regrets, and i tell her it’s because 

my head is heavy with thoughts and my hands are 

sticky with shame, because i have only spoken

ninety-three-million-four-hundred-and-forty-thousand-something 

words and i am unsure about every one, because oh-my-god-i-am-

only-seventeen-years-old-and-maybe-i-only-have-seventeen-years-left-

or-holy-g*****n-f***ing-christ-maybe-i-only-have-these-seventeen-

and-there-are-seventeen-things-that-i-never-did-and-seventeen-things-

that-i-have-and-will-always-want-to-try-do-hate-regret-rue.

i am listening to the record player and my friend tells me non, 

je ne regrette rien. i try to take her advice, taffy-mantra 

stuck between my teeth, / i can’t pull it out. / but the word

i know best sits right there on my tongue: perfect patient

obedient dog, waiting for its owner to come back home.

regret, my friend tells me, that is the only word you know.