I have spent most of this year waiting for it to be over. Putting X’s through all of the days I wish I could forget. Someone asked me what I was looking forward to in the new year. The best answer I could give was: nothing. When I think of next…

Sometimes my hands bleed from the cold, and I accidentally draw in one eyebrow darker than the other. My professor says I am an enigma. They see layers and layers and layers but there is no end. I save the meanest things you’ve said to me so that when I miss you, I can read them back and remember why some people are better being missed than sought after. I need to stop searching for an ending inside of places that never wanted to begin.

I am not looking at myself these days. Is it possible to go an entire month without looking in the mirror? Can I erase my own face from my memory, Or can I choose to remember myself how I’d like to, Instead of the way the mirror lies? I look at myself, And I see the frigid air of February, The darkness of a winter that’s gone on too long. I look at myself, And I see the promise of rebirth in March, But then I remember I lost myself in January. And there is no longer anything left To come back up in the dirt come spring.

You do this thing where you act like I’m fragile. Like I have a home among the branches Of the stained glass trees that line the train tracks. Sometimes, I don’t think I’m a woman; I’m just a silhouette in the sunset, Tangled in glass. In silence. I’m not as broken as you think I am.

I text my friends and they don’t answer; I think of all the ways I try to erase myself We drink sadness out of paper cups. This is never how I wanted things to be. I search “how do I not feel guilty for changing my mind;” I take 3 business days to answer your email. I am not in love with you. I swear to god September happened, But in October we never even had a chance. I am so many different people. I don’t know how to explain myself anymore.

Today could be the end of us if you wanted it to be. I know I drink more coffee than you think is healthy, And I know I’m not the One you dreamed about. But just this once I was hoping you could make an exception. I know my anxiety gets in the way of everything, And my emotions are just as scattered as our communication. I’ve been drinking the same cup of coffee for three hours now, Ruminating over the best way to move forward When all I want is to just sink further down.

Every time I see someone who looks like you, I get scared. I don’t know how to be alone with myself. Coffee after six p.m. tastes like anxiety. Coffee after midnight is something else entirely. I like to post the occasional reminder that I exist, though some days I am not sure if I actually do. My career is on hold. How many years do you think I can get away with saying that before I have to admit that I don’t know what I’m doing anymore? I’ve never really learned how to leave; I always wait until I am discarded.

I know I’ve made it when The barista has my coffee ready before I’ve even finished ordering. To be remembered can seem so small, But to me it is everything. A reminder of the way things used to be. I want to know what it’s like to not wait by my phone on a Friday night. To feel no fear, Only comfort. Knowing you’ll always come back to me. Standing in an empty fountain In downtown Chicago on a January night in 2018, That was the first time I knew what it was like to be in love. I was afraid, but I followed you anyway.

Black tulips bloom in the garden in my front yard, and everything starts to feel like a cemetery. Small green leaves peek through the frozen ground, trying to bring life to a place too desolate to know it. I have always been more of a winter than a summer girl…