the year i wrote about affection as if it was crimson on a white blouse. the year i harboured thoughts in corners of my mind, overdrafting.
i caved a pathway for myself and then ruined it, built an idea of a life and then abandoned it. peeping over edges of buildings, pressing down on accelerators, carving indexes of incongruence on pulses to cover up signs of liveliness. wanting to diminish, and then wanting to expand.
giving up parts of myself pretending it didn’t matter, trying to cover up the parts that remained. if i could lose all traces of myself, could i finally be free from myself?
i spent certain nights wishing it away. i spent some wrapped in a blanket of grey, brewing tea with the bags under my eyes. i spent others with the corners of my lips curled so high, the former seemed like it almost never happened.
the apologies that spilled from my lips could drown me. memories and remembrance dig themselves into the cracks under my skin, and i could never quite retract them. all this longing don’t quite fit right anymore.
the year i tasted sunlit honey from the wrong pot. the year i left home.
