Sometimes when I am asleep, and the wind is coming in through the window of my childhood bedroom, I can almost feel you here. For a sleepover, the way we used to do all the time. It was just our clothes then, I didn’t know what was mine or yours. It was our day then, we never left each other’s sides. It was our life then, a pact that if we made it to 40 and were still single, we’d run away together and live on the beach in Mexico. I always wake up in a sweat from those dreams now. Now I live in your phone as an unknown cell number, I live in your photos as a girl you used to know. I live in that stain I left on the carpet of your truck when my bubblegum ice cream melted. Now I’m the most hated girl. For twenty-five years in a row. If you’ve never been the last choice friend, undiagnosed depression at a very young age, artsy but filled with melancholy girl, then you’ve never been the most hated girl. But I’ve worn her skin all my life. At first it was the separate group chat with 9 memb...
I never would have done it myself. But in my head, I thought about if a city bus happened to slip into the intersection while I was crossing. Or what if my shellfish allergy found me behind a big plate of seafood? I didn’t google the side effects of mixing my meds with alcohol. Didn’t turn my music down in my headphones walking at night. I didn’t pull the blanket down from over my head when it felt like I couldn’t breathe under it. I used to tell myself that worst case scenario, I run out of money and lose all my friends, finally push my family away, and in that case, it’d be okay to die because there’s nothing left I’d want to live for. There was even a point where I couldn’t think about the next two hours without completely falling apart. I had to take things by minutes. Just get through the next minute. And the next. A few more minutes and I’ll be asleep, that’ll cover at least a few hours. I was so desperate just to fall asleep, because that would take the weight off of my focus on...