By Amanda Nicole Corbin

i’m doing this because i’m wondering if i’m paying enough
attention to my own life. i can’t even get my own molars to stop leaving
toothprints in my tastebuds so i make myself stop and examine
my fingers and find i’ve picked new shapes into their folds. i’ve colored  
myself outside the lines. there were once people i called my entire world  
and now i don’t even know which timezone they’re in—i only ever
studied the architecture of others, not the geography—and all i know
about that version of myself is that she did not know how to pay
attention to most things, which is not very much to know
about someone. i know less about her than i know about what it’s like
to throw up a veggie burger in the sink at rehab. i know less about
what she saw in each of her lovers than i know about yeast infections.
now i’m not saying i’m an expert; i’m saying the fields are always
changing sides like the illinois–penn state game that went into nonuple
overtime. my finger remembers better the feel of a door slamming
on its eight-year-old marrow than it does its first engagement ring. the only
thing i can remember was the obvious flaw he pointed out. you see,
i’ve memorized the dry scratchy floral chokehold scent of a diaper pail
better than i can recall the man i was going to marry and even the version
of me before that remembers my loose flaking fingernail like a pocket
trinket. it’s funny though, even now, when i think of him, i think of his hair,
his glasses, his hands—and then i’m back to myself. 

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Amanda Nicole Corbin is an award-winning Ohio-based poet who has had her work published or forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Notre Dame Review, The London Magazine, Door is a Jar, Palette Poetry, and more. She is the winner of the 2025 Mississippi Review Poetry contest and her work was nominated for Best Microfiction 2024 & 2025. Her debut full-length collection, addiction is a sweet dark room, was published by Another New Calligraphy in 2024. You can find her playing Magic the Gathering or on Instagram and Threads @ancpoet.