I Regret Nothing
The prompt for this one was the last line of this piece below and I forget who wrote it, there was also something about regret in the prompt. Written a few months ago.
I regret nothing. You can’t make me feel sorry for the things I did in those first few months of being single again when my body kept remembering things like phantom limbs and then forgetting them and then remembering again I regret nothing– not the one night in Seattle that brought me back to life the dark elevator the hotel bar the deliciousness of all of it– a stranger's skin, blood on sheets it looked like a murder scene but it was just a dude who wasn’t afraid of a woman’s period I regret nothing not the kiss in the park on that same sunday we were supposed to go out and you canceled so a different stranger this one a NYT bestselling author from New Jersey he was shorter than I imagined and much smaller and all I could think about was how he might crush from the weight of me but we had a picnic in the park and when he told me he wanted to kiss me I assumed he meant right away and so I did and I do not regret it I did not care that there was a crowd of people looking our way– gawking at the birds bathing in front of us– but surely also at us– two strangers making out in broad daylight, one of them married I regret nothing and I don’t need to tell you that his wife knew, but she did, and this was a whole new world to me my bones thawing with every stranger I kissed and this one, this over-analytical writer, he was charmed by my boldness– ‘not many people would just make out like that in broad daylight with people walking around’ I just laughed because what did I care and I could tell he was envious of me But the next week there was someone else and the week after that another and I regret nothing Oh sure some of them, some of them I just wish I hadn’t let in so deep because for a while I just unbuttoned my shirt, placed the knife in their hands, and said ‘here – cut in right here’ pointing to that place just above my heart but I was fumbling like a kid learning to run remembering all of it all over again and I regret nothing not the tears that poured from my face when I was doubled over on the white and blue tiles of my bathroom floor because our story wasn’t ending like I told myself it would But I am learning to just let go of control to release my hands from clutching the steering wheel so tightly because even if I point in one direction this car is going where it wants to go so I am leaning back I was meant to inhale those smoky nights and I do not regret the scene of your apartment the too high bed with the giant headboard, it was all you could get in a rush you told me, after all, it was a pandemic, and pity all of us who had to move during it I understood but I didn’t get the stationary bike in your living room the yellow walls (or were they brown?) the patchwork curtains the water pitcher that looked like you stole it from a cafeteria - did you? the lukewarm water you poured out of it even after I told you I like ice in my water the Thai food the Time Traveler's Wife on TV and before all of that our hands clutching at the bar– the way you grabbed them so urgently as if you had never touched a hand before I ate it up I was meant to feel this the rush of your voice deep and whispered telling me you wanted to take me home the first kiss in your dirty car why didn’t you clean your car before this date? You knew this scene would happen, we had rehearsed it in our brains and out loud for months now, I could have written my name in the dust on your dashboard I should have and then your apartment and the underwhelmingness of all of it but I was meant to inhale the stench of your place to feel your skin on me to watch you squirm in the good squirm kind of way and I regret nothing even after the blood pooled at my feet and the bathroom flooded with my tears some lessons need to be learned again and again and this was one I had long forgotten so I regret nothing I've traveled this far on the back of every mistake I have ever made and there’s no reason to stop now