january 4th 2024

i was happy for almost exactly one year. this extended from january of 2022 until february 4th of the following year, or february 5th on a technicality of early morning hours. i have never otherwise been happy in my conscious life. as soon as i hit the age of seven or eight i was regularly causing problems for myself and would, over time, settle into what i recognize now as my default disposition—vigilant, physically tense, a face with threaded brows. i am not happy because i am not safe, and what i am not safe from will always adjust to my circumstances, doubt seeded on autopilot. my mother was a popular subject, but a warranted fear. elementary school classmates threatened my social well-being because they thought i was retarded, and i was, albeit less recognizably, so that was a tough one to skate. high schoolers are far more conniving and i, at that point, was learning to perform, so i played along with the dangerous game for some time, and i ended up alone, as i do. i walk on my toes like a russian nymphetic prodigé. i chart courses around every danger, and the dangers do not exist. i am a paranoid psychotic. i might be obsessive-compulsive. it’s all similar in origin. everywhere i go, it comes with me, because it is me, and i lack much of an identity beyond that. i have every reason to be happy, and i have a good life, relatively speaking. my friends now are a gift, but they are so far, always so far from me. needless to say, if they weren’t, i’m sure i would smear my slime onto them too. i cannot control my head. but i was happy for one year and a handful of days, and that must count for something. 

my birthday is february 8th. you gave me one good birthday, more than i’d ever had in my young adult life, and then the following was terrible. so i suppose these balance. or, really, i don’t mind about the second one. you did your best to make it work. we skipped urban lit—we’d skipped the monday class, too, because we were fighting—“are you asking me to leave her because your birthday is in two days?” (i never asked you that)—and you brought me to a used bookshop i’d introduced you to before. you said, i’ll buy you anything, but i didn’t want a book, so i went for the plastic bin of fine art postcards, sorted through until i came upon five i liked for a dollar each. that evening my mom sent georgetown cupcakes—a local special!—to my dining hall, and for some reason when i went to pick them up the woman in charge of the whole thing passed over a set of balloons, these massive behemoths, must’ve been multiple feet tall, one a 2 and the other a 0, for obvious reasons. we brought the cupcakes back to your suite, which they all thought were vile, but the balloons were a hit. on the infamous common room couches we drank shit ciders and we took turns messing around with the floating numbers so i could send the pictures to my mom. i have deleted all of the pictures. days later you played the bookstore game with your girlfriend who wasn’t even your girlfriend, and it wasn’t even her birthday. then you kissed her for the first time.

see, i say it was terrible because looming in my mind was the fresh boiling wound where you had eaten my heart, and the year was over, and we would never return to anything that remotely resembled peace. you died and i died and i would never be happy. often in my life this comes as a consequence of my own self-torment, but on that day—three days before—you rid me of sacrifice because you rid me of choice. and maybe i would have sacrificed if you had let me choose, at your altar, at your pyre—but we went to sleep. in the morning, the real morning, i crawled out of alex’s spare bed, i folded up his duvet, and i did not wake you. you were, regardless, awake. we stood by the exit and considered each other. you considered the aftermath of what you had done in your half-drunken impulse. i don’t know what we said. it must have been good. i believed in you then. within twelve hours you were sorry. you’re always so sorry. 

on the very last day, eleven weeks ago, before you came to see me in the evening per my request, you read to me in the seventh floor hallway outside of the audio rental annex where you work, some feet from my classroom. we settled on the floor against a concrete wall. once you would analyze the distance between us, and you did the same now, if only to keep yourself far enough not to feel shame, and not to invite my advancements, as if i would ever advance. several days ago in the common room you swarmed in rage and i thought it was over then, but in the morning you told me we would be okay. our friend was visiting and my parents, too, all in one weekend. the latter of these was especially important to you. our promises tend to delay the inevitable—now in the hallway it all had been done. so you read to me; nothing worth our too-dwindling time, unfortunately; excerpts from your advanced creative writing seminar’s short story submissions, and god, they were awful. i felt like a dick the whole time, because we were dicks about fiction, but then because you were a block of solid ice and you would not look at me. then your shift ended—you’d been out here the whole time, what a trick—and we stood up to leave. i don’t remember the details of the exchange that followed. i remember this: it was not a good one. i could not barely breathe. the whole time on the floor i had been scratching at my skin and i still could not find you in the haze, you were simply not there, and the grief of it all gained control of my muscles like a sad parasite. i stepped toward you, directly in front of you, facing you, and i rested my forehead on your left shoulder. i don’t know what i wanted from you in that moment—for you to reach out and cradle my skull, to satisfy my anguishing ache for any inch of your skin, or to restore my faith in you, all righteous plans. but you have always been stubborn and i have always been your insect girl. when nothing came i pulled myself upright, maybe apologized for my inconsideration, and you still would not look at me, so we took the elevator down, and my residence is nearer than yours so i must’ve just gone ahead in, all while the clock was harrowingly close in my ear. did you say goodbye? i don’t think that you hugged me. i do not know when the last would’ve been—there were so many and then there were none, and feathers laid bright on my floor. this is how it goes. 

am i brave if the noise doesn’t scare me? / if i make myself easy to carry?

if you killed me i would have to forgive you still