i’m biting my nails, M is saying to me: “L is not your problem anymore. he’s not your boyfriend. you should stop worrying.”
— and i am like someone’s who’s lost her mind. “but i love him!” he’s 7000 kilometres away, drugged up on pills in the dense april heat, and i love him. i’m eating noodles in the dining hall, he’s whispering “i love you” to a phone screen. this past week he’s been ignoring me, but tonight he went to a bar where they were playing our favourite eric clapton song. oh my darling, you are wonderful tonight. he texted just to tell me. he cried. i cried. i didn’t write him back.
i remember L’s smile. i remember how we used to be when i was still at home. we’d be out with our friends, sat in a big group of similarly stoned teenagers, and our first instincts would always be to reach out, grab a hand or a sleeve or an ankle, and start pulling so we could lean against each other. i’ve thought about it myself, but he’s so fucking smart. he’d analyse the physics of it if i asked him to, he’d do the maths, just so he could explain to me the gravity of hearts.
i am not a tidally locked satellite. even now, deep in the southern hemisphere, i’ve managed to keep my heart. there’s warmth here, too, in how my pulse flutters determinedly in my neck. college is all about going up and down stairs. as winter looms, i spend my days sleeping and studying and touching grass. there are two flannels in my room that aren’t mine, curly brown hairs that i keep finding on my pillow. you’d be impressed at how easily two bony people can lay intertwined in a tiny dormitory bed.
A sighs and rolls over, pressing his face against mine. this is how we sleep— cheek to cheek, breathing the same air. i kiss him and feel him smile against my mouth. we got into a fight in the club last night. i cried, he brought me home. we’re nothing if not content in each other’s presence.
— somewhere else, two people fall in love.














