In the bed, hands cupped around one’s own breasts, knowing other hands know just as well, you allowed them to, it’s embarrassment. Get out of bed and the creak rings out alone, no creak to follow it, and it’s melancholy. The walk to the bathroom, hallway tile cold beneath bare feet, is lonely. The light flickers on with a switch, something we do a million times a day, but with the face in the mirror staring back, slacked and simple, someone to match the feeling, someone who is going to back to their bed in a single creak as well- it’s resentment. In the shower with the scalding water on the back, knees tucked beneath stomach, forehead on the tentacle bathmat, it’s tears. They try to filter the feelings and in the moments the shoulders shake, it’s relief. Sitting on the bed, towel wrapped around damp torso, staring at the wall, it’s pity. An empty phone, void of hellos and empty of reasons to call someone back, and it is pure hatred.


Chain smoke cigarettes with friends and they watch, trying to keep the conversational lulls from happening too often, offering a cigarette as soon as the previous one burns to the butt, it’s gratefulness. Friend love is the only familial love that matters. The bottomless hole manifesting itself in the stomach, fading only in swift, distracted moments, but still there always, like a murder in the peripherals, an actor in the wings, and it is physical pain. See that face, and its sickness. Memories are different the second time around, and it’s disgust. Don’t give up on love, people say, but with every face and every intent, it’s evil.


The slow drip of sanity returning is not exactly happy. Love for someone forgettable means wasted time, and it’s embarrassment again. See that face again, and it’s fickle. It could have been anyone quirky enough to catch the attention, willing enough to give the time. All you can do is feel like a fool.


But still. Every face and every intent from now on: it’s evil.
And every ponder that kicks the inside of the skin of the stomach like something is about to burst out, every memory that recedes the sanity again like a hesitant tide, every minute spent remembering pain: that’s just choice now.