Jumbo Honey Buns

& other things that make me cry

My brother laughed
watching me refresh the browser
like my life depended on it.

He wasn't wrong.
I had six tabs open.
I was sweating.
Muttering like I was trying to hack into NASA.

I said, It’s not just a concert.
Then I stopped explaining.
Because it sounded stupid out loud.
And because it was.
And because it wasn’t.

Because it was you.

Because I thought—
if I could just get the tickets,
if I could stand in that crowd,
maybe something would open.

Maybe I’d hear you again; maybe you’d be there, in the crowd.

I know that’s not how anything works.
But grief makes me believe
in stupid things sometimes.

So yes,
I cried in a virtual pre-sale line.
At 10:07 a.m.
While a spinning circle told me
to please wait.

I was calm, at first.
Then I wasn’t.

Because I wanted to buy my way
into a moment
where the world felt almost
normal again.

Where it was me and you
and the music
and none of the years in between.

It doesn’t usually hit like this anymore.
The grief.

Most days it’s just a low hum.
Manageable.
Livable.

But then a queue opens,
or I see the jumbo honey buns
you used to buy—
two for $3.33, always—
and it knocks the air out of me.

You’re still in my phone
as Jumbo Honey Bun.
Still pinned.

I don’t open it.
I don’t delete it.

I just look at it sometimes,
like it might change.

Grief doesn’t hit me like it used to.
Not loud.
Not daily.

But it waits.
It picks its moments.

A price tag.
A song.
A fucking queue.

And suddenly I remember—

you are still dead.
You are going to keep being dead.

And I have to keep learning that.
Over and over.

Because you keep being dead
in new ways.

Because sometimes I forget
just how permanent this is,
and then it hits me again
like it’s brand new.

I didn’t get the tickets.

Someone else—
113,247 people ahead of me—
got there first.

And you’re still gone.

And I’m still here,
crying in a virtual line
about a concert
that wasn’t just a concert
and never will be.