returned to the post i made last year, almost the same time as right now, which nobody but that one oomf read. and so i returned to oomf's voice message, listened to it, felt so fond of them and missed them an incredible amount knowing it's better i don't express intense emotions to them (or to anyone for that matter).
i am currently still reeling from about 4 weeks of experiencing negative to no emotions, but currently feeling better (about my appearance if not anything else), but i return to reading that post and i think. i think because i have written so many things in my life, so many beautiful things for people to read, but even in this moment i don't think i can recreate the honesty of what that little tumblr post says.
i come on here to be silent. i can only speak here. i am balancing myself precariously on this log that runs between a rushing river i dare not fall into. i know what the waters are on either side. maybe i want someone to be listening, paying attention, noticing me and everything that i cannot say out loud and can convey in a typefont on the internet, through vague mentions. maybe i don't want anyone to be listening to this sort of thing, this thing that used to, in my childhood, be anger that has curled up into itself and shriveled into hurt, that curls further and further into itself in loneliness, because every day i am drifting farther from the happiness i want to show but drifting closer to myself, the person i shall become, my interests and my beautiful mind, and my ability to read 400 pages too fast and grasp at meaning, drifting like a cloud into a lonely person who laughs a lot and glows in the sun and wants to be loved.
one year later, i do still wish for my end to come suddenly and carry me off into somewhere i can breathe. i can't hold my breath for too long. i can't exhale too easily either. i feel like i am standing with a stack of plates, fine china, everyone's favourite cutlery, balanced precariously above my head, and every moment i am calling them to come watch me hold them aloft. i hold them aloft because i can imagine what might happen if i let it all fall, but as long as i hold it up nobody will look at me or spare the letters of typefont on instant messaging apps tucked like tissue between the plates anything but a maybe you should consider getting help.
i find myself to be a curious creature. my eyes are widening, becoming doe-like, deer in the headlights. sometimes my friend copies the way i talk in a garbled voice and it makes me laugh or roll my eyes or pause and wonder what i sound like, if anyone can hear me, if anyone will hear me, if i will ever be anything but a wavering, tapering, see-through glass mirror something that can never break out of the person i imagine people want me to behave like.
i have many secrets but i am not so good at hiding them. i like talking. i like thinking out loud. i have many things to tell people who i shall never speak to the same way again. i am meant to be doing academic research for these two years and that's what my talks will become, in times new roman font size 12 with a double line spacing, tucked into the tissue paper between the fine china balanced upon my head in a silent solo ball dance i spin in my head.
at an academic conference in 2026 maybe i shall finally tell the world why i can't fall in love. why love is something that happens to other people. why i am lonely. why i might have had my first love without knowing. why mitski glowing pink in the night has begun hitting closer to home. why i might be a bad person, why i might be the best one. why everyone must love me and adore me and want me. why everyone must throw tomatoes at me and hiss and growl and snap and shout at me. why i fade like television static when there is nobody around me to reflect and perform for.
i still wish my mother loved me the most. i still wish i felt at home somewhere while feeling like myself with the grief. i wish i could speak to everyone like i speak to myself. i wish i could swim and i wish i could hold my breath longer and exhale rough and deep without coughing.
one year later i will return to this and say something about how honest i can be. i am still small, i still feel too young, i still am lonely, i still can't reach out in grief to anyone. i want to ask my friend how her dog is doing. i want to ask her if we can be friends again, the proper kind. i don't want anyone to talk to me on here, or better yet pretend i am someone else on here, because i am.
i want to run away, far away, and find my way back to myself. i want to be able to imagine a future with me in it. i want to feel whole and excited and full for longer than a day at a time.
i want to end this long letter beautifully for next year's me to read and hopefully never understand.
i think i might be a young soul, not an old one, living through my first cycle of existence. i hope i am young, i hope that's why this is feeling like so long.
