Preface
PORTLAND, ME

It’s a rainy day on the coast. Less windy than its predecessors, there’s still a chill in the breeze which tinges the air with the slightest sense of despair. I fear I’ve felt this all before. I fear I wrote this all before. The apartment I’m staying in is a second floor, sprawling suite with rooms divided quirkily as if it were a set for some musical number with lively choreography and song. Only, there is no joy. There is no song. There is merely the gloom of my solitude; enlightened by my wrongs. Is this all I have to offer the world? Does the world even care? Every day, I grow more loveless.

There’s a gold-plaited figure of the last supper hanging between the kitchen windows—only, conveniently enough, the background has been replaced by a mirror. I am sat at an art deco table, legs curled and limply fallen to the floor; hunched over, just out of view of Jesus and the vanity of those who worship him. What year is it? I think back to the world crumbling three years ago. The fall—too poetic, too soft of a description—was worse than an open fraction of the tibia. It was gruesome and unbecoming. You were lovely, yet unbeknown. Am I there now?—years ago? Did you leave town? Abandoned fears and all? Was I your scapegoat? Did I make you proud? I thought loneliness was something felt between the sickly humid air of too-close bodies and too-bare skin. I learned over time, though, it’s the too-bare soul that grows lonelier in company; grows rampant in your absence. Did I lose parts of me to the east coast? Or was I too naive to know not every bloodline is a fortitude? The now-abandoned houses are filled with unrecognizable ghosts. Unspeakable names and unreachable memories. Was I a token for the moment? To treasure and abandon? Did you wager me to win more than my company? Do I have any worth on my own? Do I have any worth at all? If secrets don’t make friends—then why weren’t you listening?

The moody weather casts the same amount of sunlight through the kitchen windows as it did in wee small hours of the morning. Even without this light, I know it to remain true: I am alone, through and through. I’m drinking a kombucha and wonder why it’s so foreign to me—this act of existing. Will it ever feel typical? Innate? Or do I merely dull my senses enough to not worry—not question—how inhuman I feel. How inhuman I am. It’s in these moments, alone on the northeastern coast, where I find a timelessness to depression. A purgatory, if you will. A space where nothing has changed—and nothing will; a space where generations of depressive individuals ruminate in their pain as if to say “there is no escape.” Yet, I leave. I leave and flee to Tennessee. And the loudness of that world and my mind, crescendoing in a similar fashion into a fury of complacency. Where I know nothing but what is before me. And what is before me knows nothing of me. Did I catch myself in a moment of vanity? What a sight I must be—cooped in an anxiety sprawling and ethereally torturous. I bet you forgot about me. I go into the dark and become one with it.

There’s a rug in the middle of the kitchen—placed beside the art deco table—that recalls the Navajo art of my origin state. The desert of my youth. It feels warm. Familiar. The most prominent colors—red and black—swirl about me, entrapping me in its mystique with accentuations of turquoise bubbling about. Turquoise. A color I associate as an heirloom. My wrist throbs and I can’t make sense of any of these words. Am I writing these words? Etching them onto paper? Or are they cutting me? The ink, my blood; the words, my thoughts I could never articulate. Oh, fuck it. Can you and I, dear reader, in the holy matrimony that is the love for the word, hold it within ourselves to forget this forthcoming story? It appears to be an utter disgrace to the prolific writings one might accomplish via the journalistic medium. I wish not be remembered as a disgrace.

The room darkens, ever so subtly. My eyes are heavy, fluttering like butterflies.

I
TUESDAY

The day started like any other. There was the sun, the brutal sun, that cut between blinds and into my mind. There were the cats, the crazy cats, that ran with an intensity toward each other only matched by the brightness of the dewy morning. My eyelids fluttered as my heart stuttered and I turned over, breathing, realizing: I am alive. With this realization, there was a pain deep within my chest. I believe it was my stomach, but it screamed so loud that it shook me beyond my core.

Mother once said she adored my eyes. They carried the same sorrow as her father’s. The same darkly hazel iridescence that was both wildly inviting and terribly harrowing. If only she could hold me now. What would she say?

The cats were crying when my thoughts returned to the present moment. Some sob story about how they’re never fed… never heard. I “pspsps”-ed them toward their food bowls and gave them their morning munchies, then journeyed down the rabbit hole of clothing one’s own body—oh FUCK!—why does it have to be so difficult? Why couldn’t we just opt out of an appearance? No clothes, no nudity—just an invisibly ambiguous mass of consciousness and existential dread. Perhaps that would enable more terror to occur; or perhaps it would eradicate the theory of terror in its entirety? Could we be terrified of that which we cannot see if we do not perceive anything to begin with? Wouldn’t the true terror then be all we can see? And doesn’t it remain true that, even in our current society, we have become too desensitized to the terror we see that we don’t register it as ‘terror’ because it doesn’t reach the threshold which continues to ascend?

Before I know it, I’m halfway to work on a Tuesday morning. I’m running late, per usual—got stuck behind a train of thought—but I find that my anxieties are subdued when I spend more time with my mind removed from the general public. Not that there’s a whole lot of socialization in the work I do… but the conversations I am forced to have are more focused on appeasement rather than opinion.

Isn’t that how we’re meant to function in this world, after all? To appease each other and never ourself? In my experience, the moments which I put myself first—whether it be the present ‘self’ or the inner child, or the endless possibilities of my future self—it disrupted the relationships with those closest to me. I was then chastised and ridiculed… attacked, and called conceited. I was excommunicated and shamed into never showing my face again, unless it was under the pretenses of an honest apology, originating from deep within the caverns of my misery.

The only thing is: I have no misery for hurting those who didn’t wish me free.

ii

The streets are busier than typical for a Tuesday. Bus stops are bustling and perverts are whistling as I try to cling to a piece of sanity that can get me through the day. The sun has reached high-noon—a new displeasure of mine—and I grunt as I find a place to cozy up underneath a tree. My back aches from the weight of conversations and this mask of humanity that I have to parade about. But in these tiny moments, where it is merely the wind and I in harmony, I can let my guard down and seamlessly exist.

Surely, even this is temporary. I’ll get a call from mother or sister or lover or some other and be whisked back away into a world not built for me. And when that finishes, I’ll return yet again to the capitalistic regime. What a joy it is to be free! Conditionally.

I suppose this is about the place where I should introduce myself? Set the scene? Trade names, numbers—fucking zodiacs? You see… in any other ordinary setting, I would. But here? Why, dear, that is so futile of you to even attempt to get to know me! We’ll see each other for a few short pages, then you’ll discard me like you have every other memory or memento that you swore you’d treasure for a lifetime. Only a lifetime is the consciousness we give it. And shit. We don’t give a lot of consciousness anymore.

I’m in a field some meters away from a family convening for a kid’s birthday party. There are faint echoes of their cheers in the air, but they become indistinguishable from the sounds of the surrounding wildlife to me. I’m sprawled underneath a peach tree; and think back fondly to a peachy keen, doe-eyed lover from twenty-twenty. How they would hold me in their arms like a wounded animal in the dark. How I nearly crashed my car and we both nearly lost our hearts. How I found salvation in a creek, one summer, with them. How I still love them to this day; and I will find them again.

My phone rings and I’m back in the field, watching the family as I wonder what trouble mine is up to now.

iii

“You can’t be that fucking serious!!!!”

I enter the room with a pull which an undertow would take a child before a tsunami breaks. The door slams and before I can recenter myself, I am being rushed at by both parties—mother and sister—pleading for my support.

“Can you believe what she’s been doing—“

“What? Out here living her life?” I rebut mother before she has the chance to finish. There tends to be this sense of… control that she might’ve lacked in the later years of her life that she’s trying to gain back by controlling her children. I don’t know, though. Just shooting the shit.

“She’s twenty-fucking-five and if she wants to get her nipples pierced and go fuck some guy, then by all means: please! Find pleasure. Indulge!! Not all of us can these days.” I smirk as sister scoffs and I make my way to find a glass for room temperature water.

“That’s NOT what I meant. She’s entitled to do whatever she wants, I just think a little discretion goes a long way.”

Sister and I make eye contact and dart back to mother. I take a seat at the island, sipping my water, and quietly start by saying “Listen. These growing pains are tough. We tend to lose the ideal version of the people we love time and time again. Just when we think we got to know the truer identity—it changes. But we’re in our mid-twenties and we’re figuring shit out. We have childhood trauma to unpack, addictive tendencies to work through; sobriety and disordered eating recovery; and a slew of mental illnesses that have needed some ‘outside-the-box’ treatment strategies. Our brains are still developing and as we’re coming into our own in terms of gender and sexuality; our features and personality will similarly shift.

“If you want a little bit of discretion in the midst of this, maybe you should take it upon yourself. Understand that life is a transient state. We can’t be fixated by one thing or one place. Sure… a lot of changes are happening suddenly, but that’s not to say she’s no longer an ingénue. We’re experimenting… so allow us to fuck up. Allow us to come back and ask for help if we need it.”

Mother shoots me a look that’s incredulous and contempt. I know better than to pry any further, so I divert my attention with a small smile back to sister. “Sooo what’s up? What was the call for?”

She had called me with an emergency—everything always is an emergency with her—so I scurried right over. In our typical, cryptic fashion, no more details were given. So, as far as I’m concerned, it can range anywhere from “I almost killed myself” to “my nail chipped and I JUST got them done.” Both, undeniably treacherous if you ask me.

“I don’t know what to wear tonight and I have a date in six hours.” Sister looks me dead in the eye. I try not to laugh.

“Word. Let’s get to work.”

As we head to her closet to sort through which clothes are too slutty or too preppy for a first date; I start to gradually leave my body until I no longer feel the sole of my foot on the hardwood floor—the soul of my body suspended in air.

What’s the big fucking deal with dating? What’s the point? Is it purely physical or is it purely emotional? And don’t hit me with that ‘it’s a bit of both’ bullshit—cause where’s that balance? And isn’t everything ‘a bit of everything’?

Why can’t we find fulfillment with platonic relationships? Why is there such a motherfucking stigma on us as helpless earthlings to find and develop romantic and sexual partnerships as the sole version of intimacy for our lives? Can we not take a moment to question that the state of our current world—in classifications as global as climate change and as local as our daily routines—should allow for us to be open to platonic forms of intimacy? I mean, shit, if we’re only as good as those we surround ourselves with; then why would we wager our time and energy into individuals we hardly know? For the mere hope that it would be fulfilling? Now—obviously—we’ve had to start somewhere with every relationship we’ve ever built. But the forthright politics of online dating? What good does that enable us to do, other than continue to vindicate the archaic standards of toxic monogamy?

We’re taught—conditioned—as children that the world is fast and it stops for no one. I’d admit some of this to be true. But it’s only fast in retrospect. And it only stops if you need it to. Between the highs and the lows, each moment feels like a lifetime. And each lifetime, you have the power to change if you’re willing to. So instead of accepting the fate laid before you, take a moment to consider: am I acting with what aligns with my inner self? Or am I acting in response to how the world has conditioned me to? We were infants, placed on a treadmill of our existence. Happiness dangles before us. We were told to run. We were told we were free.

“What do you think of what’s laid before you?” Sister nearly taunts as she notices my gaze has been steadied out the window for a second too long. I shift my eyes to the plaid pencil skirt and green sweater before me and look for a pair of black boots to go with it.

“I think it’s fucking fire.”

iv

I eventually return home to the cats’ cries—oh, the sweet lullaby. But before I can sneak in a sigh of relief, my mind is bombarded by the projected loneliness which our society deems unsuitable for a twenty-something year old. A fly buzzes by my chest and the cats get onto it. With them distracted, I sit with what little emotion has welled up and try to unpack it.

My heart skips a beat—or that could just be the caffeine—as I remain relatively unfazed by the ache in these thoughts. All the same, I begin to recall past lovers and friends that I once held dearer to me than my own breath.

It’s dizzying to process these past relationships in the span of milliseconds. There are too many joys and too many traumas to recall all in a delicate balance. To remember which ended tragically and which ended beautifully. Which were resolved or processed through isolation. Which were real and which were energy merely passing. It’s funny… the amount of trust you could give somebody to have it completely misconstrued.

How big of an ego does one have to have to not recognize another’s truth as truth?

Leave the preconceived notions and intuitions at the start of a relationship and embrace the other as being fully true and transparent. Any opacity and distrust blossoms from within. We are whole—holy and individual beings, meant to commemorate our livelihoods through connection.

Though too often, we misinterpret companionship as connection.

I search for balance with the counter before me and I become momentarily immobilized by the thought of a love grown apart. Is it really that tragic to do someone the dishonor to say “I don’t think of you as highly as the day I first loved you; and you deserve someone who constantly holds you in that gaze?”

Are we all that lonely—that loveless—that we cling to anybody willing to submit themselves to our desires? My chest tightens as my thoughts darken, and I recognize that rest is what’s best for my mind.

In these moments I have peace. I have peace and I have death. At least, the closet I can get to peace before knowing death.

And the closest I can get to death before knowing peace.

v

I curse myself the moment I wake cause who the fuck am I to deserve sleep?

I dress in my typical drab—all gray and raggedy—and snatch my tote bag as I make it out the door with enough time for an iced coffee and a suppressed cry before seeing my therapist.

Priorities. We gotta keep them straight.

The café is too busy and their music is too loud and the patrons are too pretentious and the barista is too snooty. But I love them all. And they hate me all the same.

I make it to my therapist’s office with time to smooth over any obvious anxieties. I hate rolling up to therapy looking like a motherfucking wreck. Like… shouldn’t I show some respect? Pander to my audience a little bit? She calls for me with a light scoff—as she can slice through my obvious struggles like a hot knife does butter—and we make headway with the emotional undoing.

I sit there for fifty minutes, talking for most of it. She nods along, offering the occasional question or validating response. I thank her for her time and leave a little less blue and a lot more weighted than when I arrived.

My car feels more hollow than it did an hour ago. It seems to have expected me to be the same panicked person from before the session. Have I disappointed it? Are inanimate objects now at my dispense to brim as full of disappointment as everybody else?

As I pull away from my therapist’s office, I can feel the day growing colder. The colors are a touch drearier than this morning, and my depressive mind is quick to suggest that it’s therapy getting in the way of my zest for life. A playlist from twenty-nineteen is playing. I think of friends and love when I was frozen and suicidal. On the brink of a pandemic. Before meds hit my system. When recovery was a thought and not an action.

The world is a lot more gray than we care to admit. We hark to the 80s as this time of vibrancy and ingenuity—but the photographs show us in beige, browns, and grays. Shag carpeting and outlandish fashion choices distracted enough from the depression of the time but became an archetype for camp by the mark of history. The trees have less saturation than we care to paint them as. The blues in the sky are more refracted than they are perceived. Yet… we still believe these colors to set the tone for the day. It’s almost as if we hyperbolize a singular entity enough, we’ll have no choice but to accept it as absolute. So we feel at intensities that are far too subversive for our undertaking. We push the boundaries of how high our highs can be and end up broken with lower lows than we’ve ever known. Because if we feel higher than we have at any point—then what’s stopping us from stating that as the definitive high and constantly striving for that? We would fall to our knees with bottomless despair… for any lesser high would be a failure in comparison. And as I recognize the world in its truer gray tone, I reemerge from the false illusions I had previously been enraptured by: the radicalism of mania and the highs it exudes into every fiber of your being. And I’m sad.

Sadder now than I was before.

Sad not because there is reason to be sad—but because my reason to be happy was a trick of the mind. And it harks back to every relationship I’ve had. Every relationship I’ve had where I was just another trick in the book, prize to be bought, or beauty to be shown. I was the top tier for all of my exes and what were they to me? Convenient. They were fucking convenient and I let them take advantage of my complete time and energy until I had nothing left. Sure, there were moments and people I cared for in the midst of these relationships… but more than anything else I settled. Because when I realized the world wasn’t the technicolor that my mania-infused nights in the angel city made me believe it was—I started to believe that there was no color at all. How could there be color if my extremes weren’t absolute? How extreme I was to remain captive by this absolute as I remained captive to you for a year or more… thinking you were some definitive version of yourself. I was clearly a fool.

vi

You melted into my touch. I didn’t realize I was a mold until it was too late. You left me, dirtied and barren; with nothing in your place but where the warmth of my heart once was. I had always felt self sufficient but, just like my trust, you took advantage of my ability to survive. To be self aware. You ripped it away from me and spat in the wound—your saliva as salty as the water you held me under.

I was a kid who wanted to play kickball with my classmates. I was scrawny and shy. I was an outlier. I was the butt of the joke. The last one picked for the team. So often I found myself sitting on the bench, waiting for the day when someone would want me.

I’m still waiting.

The microwave tears me away from this sullen space with its alerting tone notes from across the room. The cats scurry about as I stand—leaving an imprint on my new mattress—and sharply slide through the door, nearly losing my balance.

It’s a gray day. One of those gray days where, after 12 noon, time is at an anticipatory standstill. Where the clouds are suspended in a way which mocks the moon’s light and sun’s darkness. It’s a day of its own. For the clouds and for no one else.

Dressed in all gray—clad as a cloud herself—sister taps on the window in her own daintily beckoning way. When I open the door, the rush of the conversation feels like the subtle gust of wind lulling clouds through the atmosphere.

“Why doesn’t any body just want to FUCK for fuck’s sake!!” She’s livid. Well, timidly livid. There’s a certain restraint she has when she talks about sex. It’s some new-wave feminist thing. Owning promiscuity without it being the sole proprietary. Talking about sex because we choose too—not because it’s the baseline for worth. I think it’s fucking fantastic. For her, it’s just another area of her identity to explore. And more power to her.

She smirks with the slightest blush whenever she talks about sex. She recognizes the power that she holds over men—the power so many people hold over others in a sexual sense. She once confessed to me that she kept an album filled with polaroids of naked men she’s hooked up with. If men were good for anything, they were good for their commodity… and that was something she so sinisterly took as her rightful place of power. And watching her talk about it—damn, was it exhilarating.

“Every guy I go out with wants to ‘treat me right’ or ‘get to know me’ — just stop! Just fuck me and leave me. Use em and lose em. Whatever happened to the ease? The simplicity? The sleeeaziness of sex??” She looks at me with her bubblegum pink sunglasses—the only color she has on today—halfway down her nose. She pouts the way she did as a kid—why fix it if it ain’t broke?—and like all those times before, she’s a dark cloud brewing a storm. “I put myself out there to be seen and validated and all I get in return are these men wanting to jump into things too soon or make me out to be some submissive instrument in their repertoire. Like, the other night! I went out with this hot doctor in his mid thirties; and we were hitting it off, but as soon as I brought up my career path and the goals I had set for my life—he went cold! Like, what the fuck!?”

I stare blankly back at her, my mouth slightly agape. She makes a sudden movement with her hands in the air and grunts, and I take this as a sign to put on my listening ears and shut the fuck up. As she continues on with the story, my mind wanders into uncharted territory of people’s intentions when it comes to the pursuit of relationships. How fucked up is that?

Whether it’s on Grindr, Tinder, Instagram, or in a fucking face-to-face conversation over tacos on a backyard bench, I’ve been asked many times over: “what’re you looking for?”

This idea that we’re all looking for something is absurd to me. Why can’t we just be vibing in our own existence? Intermingling when it happens—shoutout Nintendo’s Mii Plaza—and riding solo all other times. I used to think that the emphasis for relationships—what we had to look for—was the intensity of emotions or the sexual availability of an individual. I used to think we had to source out another factor that we weren’t naturally providing for ourselves by way of relationships. But the whole point of our existence on this earth is to be self-sustaining. If not as an individual, then as a homogenous race. We should all be contributing to and benefiting from each other in an effort to encourage the individual’s ability to self-sustain. We should be looking for the connection that comes with people who are on this same journey; along this same path of recognizing that self-fulfillment is akin to self-martyrdom and both are as inescapable as mortality itself.

Sister lets out a sigh and I snap back into my body. Fuck. I should’ve been paying attention.

Her head flips back in a motion swifter than my eyesight can register and our eyes lock. There isn’t as much heaviness in her eyes as I had imagined. No… no. They’re more frustrated. More shackled by fury. I begin to speak: “You know, not everybody understands they have to be a fully formed person themself to live a fully formed life. And finding a partner that’s riding that same wave—committed to their own independence as they are attentive to your needs—is difficult in an age of submission. We’re taught that we can have equality, but the white cis-het world can’t fathom equity quite yet. So we’re left with an ultimatum: do we pioneer the world alone? Or do we become a submissive counterpart?”

vii

It’s been three days since my last entry. Three days that weren’t enough to write down… but I guess enough to live through? Fuck. Who am I kidding? None of these days are worthy enough to write about. They’re barely enough to live through. We only live them cause there’s no other option. Sure, we could kill ourselves—but that wouldn’t stop the days from happening. Just stop us from living that day.

I tend to go MIA whenever I breach some sort of epiphany. It’s just too much for me to realize and process. I’d rather spice it up a bit by dropping some bombshell then scurry the fuck away. Typically, I’ll forget there ever was a bomb and have to start back from early recollections in hope of the same result. But not here. This has been my accountability system for self-help. Or so I’m told.

There’s an invisibility to living for yourself. You can have friends and family; pets and roommates; coworkers or other third-party visitors that check in on you—but it’s mostly just you. You don’t have a go-to second in command. Even if you made a listing of best friends and different accomplices… who’s to say that your go-to and their go-to is the same? And even if it were… what would they owe you?

I’ve spent so much of my time on this earth trying to become an integral factor to somebody else’s life. I was never sure if that was romantic or physical or situational; and I guess it never really mattered. I just wanted to be essential to somebody’s existence. Cause wouldn’t I find meaning through that? By enabling the life of another being; shouldn’t I then enable my own existence? Or something of the sort.

I found out the hard way that this isn’t the case. I can put myself in a place to become somebody’s world but it doesn’t make my world any more fulfilled than before. Instead, it tends to blot out any indication that I have my own existence, and begins to replace it with answers suitable for whomever I’ve grown essential to. Whomever I’ve become the caretaker of. Cause, at its core, when we deny ourselves the care we need, we tend to compensate by caring for other people. Taking on the role of caretaker for other individuals because we’re so vastly deprived of caring for ourselves. What does this result in? Typically, less fulfillment. And less meaningful connections.

viii

I’m sitting in the corner of a dimly lit restaurant. From my view, I can make out the street corner and its crass lighting ricocheting off the diner’s windows. It’s five o’clock, but might as well be midnight with the way winter creeps its darkness into one’s life. I’m waiting for an old friend to meet me for dinner.

The room is filled with brisk chatter as I sit alone. Surveying the nearby patrons, there are smiles and sincerities across each of their faces. There’s solemness on mine—but we don’t have the time for that now.

My friend enters from across the way, by the ricocheted windows and all that outside chaos, and they make their way towards me. Their movement has the same effect as a scene in the cinema: you see the full picture, wide-lens; and as they approach, the background begins to dissipate until there is nothing but the figure of your friend standing before you. And suddenly, with the world drowned out, it is just you two. Time stands still. We become… immortalized. If only momentarily; in the hearts of our friends. In eyes we’ll never see again.

They sit and we chat for a good few hours. I wish to be more present, be more prominent in their stories. To be a more attentive listener or willing contributor. But I can see a spade for a spade… and I know this is not a place for me.

After drinks and appetizers, our budgets are waning and we best be too. I notice a hollowness in the corner of their eye, and I pause for a moment before there’s a tear in mine.

They look up delicately, a half-naive smile painted on their face. Their eyes turn to concern when they reach mine and before I have better judgment, I speak: “I’m sorry for never being the person you needed me to be. I think of you fondly, and often. And I cherish you as a friend. A friend who’s lived several lives before mine and who will continue to live several more. I’ve had dreams where we slipped between the crevices of time and space and still—somehow—meant more than time and space to each other. I’ll hold you in the part of my heart that will never be forsaken; and ask for you to understand: I loved you before I learned I shouldn’t love anyone.”

By my next breath, my next conscious moment, I’m outside. Ricocheting as inanimately as the windows behind me. As heartless as the lover who left me. As empty as the image of friends, in eyes we’ll never see again.

II
HEARTBREAK

I don’t understand the heartbroken. Surely, it’s an emotion and state of mind which I have found myself in before—but the longevity of which some people stew in it? My God! By what reason?

I guess that’s where I’m a bit deficient in this schtick of humanity. I’ll venture down alleyways, travel across bridges, breach the darkest part of another’s life only to get to the other side and wish to retreat. Wish to exist in any place but where I currently am. And, admittedly, I was at fault for these excursions. I was at fault for my unhappiness and didn’t always execute my exit strategies as gracefully as one should.

I would berate the shit out of me for not being better. For not staying through the harder times or tending to the infected wounds… when it was not my body—not my cavern, not my life—that sheltered such unruly demons.

Each time I would ascend from these chasms of misery, I would develop a new perspective in relationships and what role I played in them. And, time and time again, I would find that it was I who pushed too far and gone too deep. Not in my vulnerabilities or submission—but in my need to save or fix whatever individual I might be pursuing.

They would hail me as a god. A light in the darkness. A knight in shining armor. In layman’s terms, a fucking lover.

But I was none of these. I was none better—but none the more worse.

I was blinded to each red flag and warning cry of my past because I felt my sole purpose was to love the unlovable. The unlovable being the one with unresolved trauma and an ego too big to recognize asking for help is akin to asking for a glass of water at a new friend’s house. I would take whatever physical or emotional abuse that came my way. They were paper cuts on my fingers to the battle scars of cognitive damage that occurred. And whenever I would realize “I’m in too deep,” I would become the villain in another’s story.

ii

I’m on a smoke break. I actually quit smoking a few weeks back—but I keep up this look to have a few moments to myself. I typically walk around the block and do some breathing exercises. Whatever helps me get back in my body, I guess.

As I’m doing the first of my laps, I kick a stone into a pothole in the middle of the street; and enter a visceral pothole myself. Depression sneaks up on you like that. One moment, you’re a free-spirited kid whistling away your worries. The next you’re breathless and wondering when the air pressure changed so drastically.

I turn over the thoughts of how emotionally vulnerable I’ve been with others. I put on this charade of heart-on-my-sleeve, tell-all mentality that typically builds bigger walls in the guise of building relationships. It keeps people at a distance: here are my scars, but protected through glass. You see with your eyes, not your hands, after all.

What stops me in my tracks is the realization that every time I’ve professed my love, it’s been with a heartless tongue. Hollow sentiment in the vein of hallowed phrases. And what pains me isn’t that I lacked a love—because I compensated for that in my appreciative intrigue of another—but that I merely mimicked what half-hearted love was given to me. I was a mirror to the love a narcissist has. I was fending off any attempt at closeness through a pane of glass. Wondering why I was suffering greater the closer I got.

I take a sip from the cold brew I’ve been mindlessly holding and something stirs within me. Is heartless the mind that seeks companionship in aversion to humanity? Or is thoughtless the heart that seeks connection in aversion to empathy?

A bitter taste runs through my mouth and, for the first time, I feel dissatisfied. As it lingers on my tongue, my salivary glands carries the sensation to the back of my throat—where it writhes and burns in an acidic demise. I choke and spit what I can onto the street. A gust of wind boomerangs my frustration back onto self. The sky darkens, and my temperament follows suit. I sit under rain and soot. The bitterness, my disappointment. The mistakes and missteps that led to the path of external salvation. As if the world was what contented me within. As if I never had the strength to begin. As if love was a resource we solicited. As if I never believed I could feel. As if, as if.

As if.

A truck passes too loudly and I squint and groan to hide myself from the noise.

As my eyes open, it’s revealed to me that the day is lighter than it is in my mind. Still gray, however. There’s a sentimentality that I reserve for overcast days. It’s a moment where the world and I reach a synchronicity in our depression; and the equilibrium of life feels just right. These are momentary feelings, obviously, so fleeting that I only realize its peace once it has left.

I’m partially sitting in that now as I appreciate the sky’s gray. How it’s touched by the faintest hint of baby blue, blanketed by loose clouds and foggy minds; enwrapped by the perfect occasional breeze which sends a slight chill to one’s bare skin.

It’s a comfort that many find disconcerting. And it makes me wonder, who has found my presence similarly disconcerting? Or was it I who became disconcerted by accompaniment, despite the individual?

I’ve spent the last few days combing through the collection of contacts I’ve collected over the past five years. As though I was searching for symbolism in those still legible or reachable—but as is all in this world—there was no meaning to be found. I scrounged for the lost stories of yesteryears with departed friends and ex-lovers. I became engrossed by past versions of myself with immediate family. I unravelled what restrictions had been placed upon me with my therapist and closest friends. I went around the world and back again, hoping that there would be a missing piece waiting to be claimed. But as I tired myself over people and places that did nothing for me—I retreated homeward all the more broken… and all the more whole.

You see, I think too often we force ourselves to be the best built iteration of our identity. We focus too much on the structure of ourself: how firm our foundation; how strong our framework; how niche our personality; how wide our appeal. But we’re never truly these fully fledged ideals that we think we need to be. No, we’re merely fugitives to the latest construct of social identity. We’re fleeting beings and we’re lucky if we’re able to enjoy these passing moments with likeminded individuals.

A slight drizzle starts around me, and as it touches my cheeks, I embrace the sadness. There are too many thoughts inside my head… as I caress this abyss of a mind, the perfect symmetry of the overcast day flees from the world around me and I am reminded I am nothing. I know nothing.

I am misery. I am peace.

I am in pieces missing you.

iii

There’s a knock on my door that’s nearly indiscernible to the Midwest emo playlist subtly sounding off the speaker sat across the room as a green hue saturates my surroundings. I return to a sense of structured reality as I recognize the knock for its external significance, rather than music effect. My roommate inquires if I’d desire a cup of coffee, and I take this as a sign to get on with my life.

The cats are chasing a fruit fly through the kitchen. I wish I had their agility; their liveliness. Coffee is being ground; water is being boiled. I wish I had the ability to shift volumes. To disintegrate into more useful pieces. To evaporate for a purpose.

It’s nearly sundown and the night has just begun. I sip the freshly brewed coffee and feel my anxiety reawaken. I fidget with my laptop. I shake until my legs grow sore. I write ideas into my notebook and scratch them out. I tire myself by pacing the confines of my mind until I finally scream.

I can’t do it anymore. I’m not entirely sure what “it” is but that’s partially why I can’t anymore.

I'm falling through realities, slipping through the chasm of time; and as I reach for you—you paid me no mind. You—the collective you—of yesteryears and tomorrow’s fears. You who I loved and forsake. You who broke me and held me as I cried. You.

You.

You, you, you, you, you.

The next thing I know, I am clothed, and sullen eyed. I am begging for my breath. I am standing at your doorstep. Won’t you open up?

I have so much to tell you.

III
THE COLLECTIVE YOU

Where does one begin?

We began in a cafe. You entered with a patronizing energy. Before our first words—I was suffocating. I ordered a small americano and stood by the window. Watching every passing car with bated breath wondering “Are you the one? Are you the one? Are you the one?”

I thought that if I started, there would be no way to stop. No way to finish—no—no line to cross. But I found I can be broken quicker than I could be loved. And how could I start when I know what is to be done?

Break.

The americano’s steam protruded like an unwanted kiss—it became impossible to separate its aroma from my bitter taste. The only thing clearer was the conceit you held which split the teeth that befell it. I was an open heart—an open book, more questions than answers—with an open mouth, ready to reveal to my histories. With each sip of coffee I took, you took the opportunity to curb stomp the conversation—fracture my thoughts. Shards of my mouth’s matter—this cafe’s platter—laid shattered on the vinyl flooring; the roofing of what was becoming my new rock bottom. And you had the audacity to say you adored me? Sickening.

There is an unprovoked beauty in the eyes of the forest. Where one can rest as easy in seclusion as in openness. An unperturbed gentleness that engulfs the individual with the swaying of branches; the echoing of animals; the transparency of thoughts; and the transience of being entirely present. Grounded. Conscious.

You were none of this.

I found myself—that early December—wrapped in bandages and sleep deprivation. On the run from security. From wholesomeness. From caring. A world-hopping refugee that never learned to care for me. The only constant—the only chaos—was my conditioned perception and reckless abandonment: holding hands as the world burned. I could never tell which was warmer: your presence, or my grip on the world. I was fragile in your hands but hollow in your eyes. A delicacy. What were the expectations put onto me? Were they deriving from me? I was running from your confidence, I was stuck between the trees. I was going for a walk midday when the withdrawal hit and my veins burned from the inside out. I couldn’t breathe. I was running—running. I am running—fuck!!! My shoes are squeaking. I should kill myself to make it stop.

iii

I found my love and lost it too. I found my love and it wasn’t you. My thoughts are looser than the promiscuity my ex projected onto me. I don’t identify as a hyper-sexual individual but, according to some, I’ll put out for anyone who gives me attention or security or provides a sense of inclusivity. Are these characteristics so wrong to pursue though? Aren’t we all striving to feel included and cared for in this world? Funnily enough, that’s where the complexity starts to arise within my own identity. Was I conditioned? Traumatized? Taken advantage of enough times physically to associate sexual pleasure with purpose? Where does the reality of my sex drive reside? And my sexuality itself—where is it? What is it? Am I even a fucking romantic? Do I have an aversion to closeness because of my past? Or is it innate? Why can’t I just vibe? Exist? I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know. I fuck and I love and state my truth. But it was never enough. It is never enough. Never enough for you.

Have you ever stared directly into the face of someone you love and told them absolutely everything? All of your fears and desires and complexities. The misunderstandings and conflicts. The uncertainties and worries and inability to differentiate between reality and that of which is perceived. Have you ever stood there, rigid in posture with the words that could falter a lifeline and be told that the space you inhabit is wrong? Invalid? That the uncertainty is wholly and irrevocably your identity. That to live in the aversion of absolutes is to live without this someone you love. The black and white extremities of emotional dependency casting a greater divide between the movement of your lips and the sound that you project to the ears of someone you love.

Loved.

There was a divide in the night that we met. A chill in the air like the way your lips parted in disbelief. Every time I smoke a cigarette, I still taste you on the back of my tongue. It’s like you originated within. A place—certainly uncertain—where you were from. Squeaky. Squeaky clean, squeaky dreams, squeaky you, squeaky me. The chair creaks underneath me—the floor, the same—my shoes (oh, the distressing pain) once again, the same.

I fall apart at the sight of your lips. The way they once caressed me is enough to reminisce my frailty. And every time we touch—I break. I don’t blame you—no, I am the one at fault for the severity of these actions. I willingly submitted myself to your power. The power you hold over everyone but yourself. The power that was once so intoxicating I found myself relapsing and reevaluating my sobriety from the ground up. Who am I to you but a body that escaped? Were your arms shackles that ensnared me rather than flailing limbs that reached? Would I be a possession you cherish or would I be dead by your capturing embrace?

iv

What is the difference between connection and companionship? In all honesty? I don’t know. I don’t know and I just don’t care. There’s not a piece of me that looks into the sunset and believes that I can be happy with somebody else. No, there is no happiness; no, there is no love. There is nothing in any other with any other but myself. The rest is just fucking suppression. It’s just coping with this existence; saying that we’re too lonely to admit the world is at our fingertips. Acting like a fucking maniac, believing that somebody’s body will be enough to anchor you into this existence. Into this world. But no. No, no, no. We are futile, impermanent, lonely beings. We’re fucking lonely and—what’s more—we are meant to be alone. You want to talk about sobriety? Self. You want to talk about therapy? Self. You want to talk about dying? Self.

I think that’s where the differences become so misunderstood. Companionship is the inclusion of others in a space you already inhabit; whereas connection is an extension of self, influenced by and connecting to other individuals.

Even as I type this now… there’s an emptiness I use to ink these words. The same emptiness I saw in you, that night I followed you home. It would take a lifetime of searching for the meaning to a singular thought. And after all that time, I would still find my way to you. My tongue, knowing no better. My hands, caressing these letters: Y… O… U. Intoxicatingly isolating, my mind flutters to the earliest moments of you. Where ‘you’ was no longer a person—but a feeling.

We were lonely when we met. We became lonelier as we loved. If an eye for an eye was a reasonable trade then why am I standing here, now blind? I would have never traded my sight for your side. Yet here I reside. Why do I find myself back here again? At this table, the place where I first sat when you told me I was unlovable? You told me I was unlovable and I spiraled off the deep end. I sat, my dark eyes gazing into the whites of yours as you surveyed the room. I sat with a beating heart in the palm of my hand in the middle of the café—wintertime had just descended and we were bundled with sweaters and scarves; but moreover, our delusions—and I realized when your gaze finally met mine that you were colder than any winter storm that I would encounter.

I froze over in those moments. You appeared to notice, and swiftly switched the subject. The room turned to white noise as a spotlight silhouetted our figures in the midst of dry conversation. There was a taste on my tongue that was as dull from the now-cold americano as it was by your disingenuous jabs of affection. I saw where I stood, and I understood then it was far too near to you.

“Unlovable” ricocheted throughout the following seasons. I would hear it in the springtime, in the middle of a field of flowers. Where it was only I, the bees, and the warming of the world. I would feel it in the summer when my body would be shocked by the coldness of the lake and a loveless first kiss. My skin would burn and I would toss and turn in the heated nights. Alone. Unlovable.

As time would have it, the distance gave way to a clearer understanding. A year had passed since our first encounter, and I began to understand when our paths had crossed, you refused to stay any longer.  Straddling the line between lover and confidante was never your thing. You’d rather compartmentalize that shit. You would outsource what emotional work needed to be done on the femme-individuals around you; and get off with any masc-identifying individuals in the closest proximity. You would build relationships on the basis of sex—transactional and shallow—and you would push away any one who wanted to offer you love. You’d rather straddle someone’s dick and die alone than have a friend to know, love, and hold. And in this moment, I realized: yes, I am unlovable.

Not because I am undeserving or incapable of being loved—but because it would require too much intention, too much care, than you have the capacity of giving. I am unlovable—to you—because you’ve never allowed love to exist. You’ve never allowed love to freely be given; or to freely leave. You still subscribe to the idea that love must be permanent. Love must be boundless. Love must be forever. How futile is the heart that believes love is singular. I pity the person who does not know how to say goodbye to love.

v

I must be insane; I must be lonely. I must be some type of deranged that’s akin to your brain to sit beside you and feel okay. To feel as though I want to return. Return to watch you grow; watch you learn; watch you apologize to me and lose the grace you thought I’d return. We were outside, fondling cigarettes, when you looked at me as smoke got in your eye. It was a flashback of the time we met. The resurgence of guilt when I left. The way your hands caressed my thigh. How I sit here, now, bereft. It was only a matter of time before I floundered. It was only a matter of time before I discovered that there is no love where there is no intention. I’ve let too many people into my life to be satisfied. I’ve let too many people get to know me beyond my mind. The beauty and the feelings projected onto the artifacted canvas of my body. What makes one person look at another and suggest… love? Is it that my depression is too unruly for me to even conceive that there is an emotion as such possible? An emotion which originates from within and yet is wholly without?

vi

I don’t have much to say. I stare at this page, and its blankness, like I stared at your face the night that you left. In disbelief and disrespect, I threw the last of what connected us toward you. It shattered in the street, it shattered by your feet. You called me an asshole—but that’s the way this fucking goes. When you fight for love to coax your misery; there’s only misery to alight. You torched my insides and smiled wide. With my heart in your hand, you walked away from the love I tried to withstand. You thrashed for a will and I showed you the way. Yet, as you drowned, you cursed my name. What kind of travesty is this to say?

I love you only harks back to yesterday.

I’m in my head again. I’m in your bed again. There are lines drawn, but nothing that defines my now from then. I apprehensively worry about the mistakes I’ve made, and what they mean for my mental health today. Is there a way to express this differently? To feel okay in the expanse of my loneliness?

How much longer can I mask this state of pain? To mask these insecurities with the idea that all is okay. No shit, I’m not fooling a single person. I’m incarcerated by the worst version of me. The world is seemingly tearing at the seams and I’m falling behind with everything I need. I’ve lost myself. I’ve lost the idea of me. With ears gauged and piercings ablaze, you tell me the stories of your yesterday’s and I followed suit, in line for what you wanted me to be. What would have been mine.

I don’t miss any of it. I even forgot that you existed.

Seasonal depression entered as unruly as you went. I was left with expenses that mattered more than your death. Your place in my life—far gone and far forgotten—will never need replacement. You were never a necessity. You got off on making me feel weak. In telling me my weaker feelings in false hopes of strengthening me. I always suspected there was bullshit around the corner of your mind—you were telling me you were in love before it was yourself you could find. Pitter patter, it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same in masochism. I gifted you words, attempted these lessons; but it’s the disheartened that often have no wisdom. And all I have to show are these lesions.

You fidgeted with a will to live before you realized you could freeload. You attempted to get the most from me without ever reciprocating vulnerability. You faked tears and threw jabs. You told stories but never laughed. Sure, you bandaged me when I hit brick and my knuckles bled the same dark red as the flags were when we met. Or that time I knocked the tooth out of your kid and I paced the block searching for the words to tell you because—even then—I had to prove myself to you.

I can admit these truths. But you can never displace your ego long enough to take criticism. You stay faking it. You stay never calling it like it is. You stay never listening to me or believing me when I say: I think we should break up.

You stayed… stayed… stayed… when I had begged for you to leave. And now? You’re dead to me.

Are you happy now?

vii

I’ve heard the discussions to and fro; and been accused of not knowing what I want. But what is so wrong with this gray world? What if between the extremes is where we’re meant to be? You talk to me of singularity and how the pluralized ideals create dissonance and loss for the individual. But what if one was to question the rest of the world? The standards for our existence—while they might be so defined—just might need to be defied. What is so ethical about monogamy anyway?

I feel broken and worn out. Tired and run through. There’s a part of me in each of you—far better preserved than what I could ever do. But there have been times before—and there might be times again—where the parts of me so carefully stored were taken advantage of.

There was a thread connecting our hearts. I thought it was a genuine connection… some attachment that subconsciously arose—some energy that was predisposed. But you had punctured my heart with an aching arrow. You were so desperate for love that our dissimilarities never mattered. You were reading children’s novels when we started to talk. I was lost to the thought of the olden days. You were spiting yourself to change your ways. I was writing my thoughts on turquoise walls. What more could I say than in those moments lost? There’s an appreciation deeper than there was with your touch. Still, there’s a divide which I brave every time we meet. There are thoughts that I have but never will speak. There’s a friendship—once gone—that now I will keep.

I dismantled the perceptions I had of you to give you the chance to follow through. Without expectation or cause for concern. I look to you as you discover your world. And as I leave in the dead of the night—return to the home that is rightfully mine—I brace for the chance to discover the same. The world through my eyes, my eyes through the world. And know that I am wholly my own. This is a state I cannot reclaim. A stake in the ground which so clearly says: here, I am now; and here, I will stay.

Who is this character other than I? That says hello, more readily, than goodbye? You held my hand like a fucking infant crossing the street. And I held my pride tighter than a white lie to shield itself from the world to see. Still, you had the audacity to claim that that is me. That that was me. But this is not.

There was an unraveling that happened when you left. No, it wasn’t this disillusionment of what our future would have or could have been. It was a snap back into reality that not everybody is on the same trajectory as another. Not everybody wants to grow and liberate themselves in becoming the fullest and most free and whole versions of themselves that they can be. No, some people are more content in the timely entwining and codependency of long term relationships without holding space for the individual spirit and what those needs might be. For a society that wants to talk about putting self-care first… how about we implement those same values in our committed, monogamous—or nonmonogamous—relationships? How about we start speaking up for our individual needs when they’re not being met by our partner? And, instead of turning reactionary or vengeful, become empathic and understanding with an attentive ear to figure out what would be best. I digress.

I lost whatever footing I had the day that you left. I don’t blame you—nor do I source you for what grounding I had—but you found your way to my inner self and chipped away at the weakest part of me as I was trying to grow. And you ruined me. You fucking destroyed me.

You don’t get to parade about with a heartbroken identity. You don’t get to tell me what it’s like to miss me. You don’t get to wonder if you were ever second to my priorities.

Because when it comes to myself, and the love and care and gentleness that I am so fucking deserving of: you will never be first.

viii

Standing alone in the slanted rain, I held my chest and exhaled pain. I hadn’t seen you in years… how could you so easily be gone again?

The ricocheting windows slow danced to a standstill. The world that once rang with a vibrancy unparalleled was returning to its inanimate state. Was I doing the same?

There was a bus stop up the way a bit. I lit a cigarette and walked towards the encased bench. Even without the rain, the colors of the world were bleeding together. An offering—their sacrifice—to my loveless, hollowed life. To what sacred entity do I owe this pleasure? Was this death’s kiss? Do I let it consume me?

You. Gone. You are gone again.

I held my head in my hands. The world was spinning, the rain still wetting my legs from the knees down. My cigarette still lit; my words still full of shit. Swimming through the lucidity of heartbreak and self discovery, I could feel my body weakening, giving way to the pressure of diving deeper into these emotions. I broke.

I let the world cry for me. I would do it myself—but there’s no way I could fully commit to an outpouring of emotion as poetic as the sky does.

I couldn’t tell if I was screaming or yawning. The world was mute, and I had no breath. I lost it like I lost you all those years ago. I lost myself thinking you held my identity in the confines of your love. And I never bothered to find myself because I believed when you returned—there I’d be: the identity most suitable for me. Isn’t that why we love? To redeem the parts of ourselves that otherwise lie dormant? Surely, there’s more to it. But what is identity without those who love us, after all?

Without you?

IV
THE WAKING

I woke, drowning in my own tears. The world was coated in a watery haze—colors and figures bled together like a Monet painting. Only I felt no beauty—I only felt pain.

There was agony in my voice as I answered the questions that circulated around my identity, habits, lifestyle. I apologized repeatedly as I gasped for air. I was held down—restrained. At this moment, I was no longer sane. After the rush of this fever dream passed, I woke again to a 3AM purgatory. I was alone, disoriented, displaced in the middle of an LED hallway. No sense of direction; no sense of purpose. As I gathered the stamina to ask for help, I was directed to which places for water, for relief, for urination; and was soon released into the frozen chill of the morning air. An air so frigid it could cut through any body; any tension; any hopelessness.

It cut me in that instant.

ii

Mother held the door for me as I departed and abandoned the endless questions I had about my arrival. I walked away from the brain matter and liver stamina I lost in those hollowed spaces. I walked away and descended the hill, back into a life I no longer recognized—one I no longer felt.

The drive in the morning stillness stalled the typical banter that would erupt between Mother and Sister. It left me wondering what I had done—was this divide an effect of my crime?

“Are you… okay?” Sister asked tentatively, turning from the passenger seat to see a deflated body slung across the backseat, staring out the window, scratching at my arm, cursing myself for all I’ve done.

My thoughts were interrupted as I briefly met her worried look.

“Yeah yeah yeah. I suppose so. I am… I will be.” I shifted from my slinking position to a more attentive one. “How are you?” I offered as a retort—a complete deflection from the present situation. A small snort of an anxious, pitied laugh, came from Mother and I recognized that I had created a divide. A divide between the person I was in their eyes—mere hours ago—versus the person I am now.

I’ve always found it hard to be perceived by the same people, time and time again. Has their view of me shifted and grown as I have too? Or must I resort back to old methods of validating an identity that they desire me to be? I thought both the validation and desire was a projected sense of truth—but it’s not. It’s a desperate longing for inclusion. It’s a cry for help.

In eyes we’ll never see again, I was broken by their abandonment. But I found, in the backseat of my Mother’s driving—that the eyes we’ll never see again are meant to be forgotten. We’re supposed to adapt our perception of those we love because we love them. The eyes that once found us as innocent; as goth; as queer; as all the multitudes and more, continue to adapt. And we continue to lose.

And loss should be celebratory. The ones who leave—who refuse to adapt from antiquated identities—are better off as forgotten as their perception of us. And I realized I was denying myself the act of connection by lamenting these past selves—past loves—instead of peering into the eyes of those closest and saying:

“I see you.” Sister half-whispered, as if it were a mantra, and turned back to face the windshield.

iii

As the hours passed and the morning turned day, turned night, I realized I had died. I had died in the captivity of companionships that I mistook for connection; in the captivity of what I believed was a valid framework for identity. I had died in more ways than I can count. I had died… but I still wasn’t out.

The cats brought me back to the concept of reality—and my subsequent existence—about two days later. I heated some water in a kettle and combed through the tea selection for this dewy morning—acting as though I wouldn’t choose Tension Tamer by the end of it. Once the cats’ cries died and the tea kettle whistled, I poured a teeny amount of the hot water into a mug and gently stirred with a dollop of honey and added the tea bag.

Clad in house shoes with a raggedy cardigan and a cracked mug in tow, I stepped out the door and into the sunlight peaking in the distance. The moon was full—beautiful—painted plainly and perfectly onto the morning sky. My eyes started to water. I took a shaky breath and held my stance, no longer held captive by this gaze.

For the past is a memory, alive and fluttering. And as I step into the morrow, all sorrows turn to dust.