Lemon Squeezy
by Sarah Sturgis
Uh oh, I’m getting sad
again. Time to pull out
all the stops! Time to meditate
my mantra then walk
the dog around the block.
Time for a cold shower and
remembering my probiotic.
Chamomile in the big mug.
Years ago my sister told me an orgasm a day
keeps depression away. I doubled the dose so
I wouldn’t have to get on an SSRI.
RIP that neon pink vibrator.
Today I put on Call Me Maybe
against my instinct to listen
to Radiohead and think about my exes.
No alarms and no surprises.
Big surprise after
I rescued a dog to find out
how good they are for sadness and
I will often pet mine for longer than
the 5-10 minutes you need
to release oxytocin.
Much longer. And he's a feeler. He knows
when I'm on the brink
of a good cry. Crying as means, never an end.
It’s never that I want to die,
it’s that I want to walk up and down Broadway
knowing everything bad that will happen to me
has already happened to me.
Is that too much to ask?
In my twenties I thought I wanted to be profoundly happy
Now I just want some peace.
Okay, not some. A life of it.
Is that too much to ask? And if it’s not,
who do I ask for it?
I made up my mind that I didn’t believe in God
but that was when I was more into self-loathing.
Now I think I’m strong
and somewhat miraculous
which accounts for all the times
people meet me and think I’m peachy.
Easy peasy, gravy baby
but oh I’m a trickster. I’m a tease.
My wide smile. My loud laugh.
I walk home from the party
without touching the ground
but I wake up a gray, gray cloud.
And I’m not even hungover. Dog
beside me on the bed, tail thumping
because he knows what's coming. Time for
the ear scratches, the belly rubs.
Time for the fox. He is chasing his small fox that I am flinging about our small apartment.
I sike him out. He races to the kitchen but the fox is on the bed.
My good boy runs in circles.
My good boy gets the zoomies
then throws up a pile of gold.
My golden boy. Please God, give me ten
more years with him.
I think I can make peace with a decade.
Photograph by Jefferson Everest Crawford
Sarah Sturgis is a multi-genre writer in the Creative Writing MFA program at CCNY. She has been published in Protean Magazine, The Centrifictionist, and is forthcoming in Psychoanalytic Inquiry. Lately Sarah has been working on essays and short stories, exploring themes of girlhood, escape, sex, and grief. She has also been writing a memoir about grief for roughly 100 years.