Sometimes you crave the taste of strawberry ice cream. Even when you know full well it will not make you feel any better. It will not affect the aching in your stomach. Or the stress that knots your insides and makes your hair fall red onto the shower floor like little lines of blood. It will not cool the burn behind your eyes from lack of sleep and it will not soothe your raw and bitten lips. It will not make it any easier to breathe through the pressure caving in on you. It cannot possibly dig you out of the hole that you have fallen into.

After all, it’s just strawberry ice cream.

But sometimes your mouth craves something sweeter than the taste of bile in the back of your throat when you stare down at the mountain of work that lies on your bedroom floor. And sometimes you think that maybe, for the immediate future, strawberry ice cream will do the trick.