but I worry that it makes me a pervert because instead I masturbate in bed, cotton nightgown hiked up around my hips and stomach. I deleted the last of my dating apps when I realized I couldn’t coax a whirlwind from the LEDs that burn my phone screen bright like white strawberry flesh.

He told me I’d need to tell him if his breath stunk that he doesn’t go to therapy for his bipolar disorder isn’t medicated goes for weeks without scooping his cat’s litter doesn’t really know his sister. I’m planning my out, what I’ll tell him to avoid admitting that I don’t want to live like a girlfriend.

I want a pink glow reflecting through plate glass, Hello Kitty candy on pastel shelves, ice cream in the humming freezer, a crushed pack of cigarettes in the front pocket of your my overalls, rain pattering through the dusk outside. I want something fluorescent, tetra fish burbling through false coral in a wide blue tank.

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Izzy Nameth Beck is an MFA student at Northern Michigan University. She is a Norton Writers Prize recipient and her other work can be found in the Long River Review and Discretionary Love. She loves her cat and Lake Superior.