How to cultivate regret

First, you'll need a woman.

Any woman will do, but she should laugh

like she means it, and her name should feel

good in your mouth at 3 a.m.

Now here's where it gets technical:

Do not call her back.

Do this deliberately, with your phone

face-down on the bar like a dead bird.

Order another whiskey. Order two.

Tell the bartender she reminds you of someone

but don't say who.

The next step requires patience.

Let three years pass. Maybe five.

Marry someone else if you're feeling ambitious.

Have a kid. Buy a house with a yard

that needs mowing every goddamn Sunday.

Now, and this is crucial,

Google her name at midnight

while your wife sleeps upstairs

in the bed you assembled together

from IKEA, arguing over the Allen wrench,

back when you still thought

furniture was the hard part.

Find out she moved to Barcelona.

Find out she paints now.

Find a photo where she's laughing

at a table full of people you'll never meet

in a country where you've never been

and notice how the light hits her exactly right.

Close the laptop.

Do not go to Barcelona.

Do not learn Spanish.

Do not send the email you're already composing

in the dark theater of your skull.

Instead, lie there.

Let the silence do its work.

Feel how the room holds you

like a fist that forgot to open.

Congratulations.

You've made something that will last.

It will outlive the marriage.

It will outlive the yard.

It will be there, dependable as gravity,

every time you hear a certain song,

or smell jasmine,

or see a woman laughing like she means it

in a restaurant where you're eating alone,

fork halfway to your mouth,

wondering how you got so good

at building things

you never wanted to live in.