liminal

it's honestly appalling how far some of you will go just to justify being a creep. paragraph after paragraph of nonsensical rigmarole, as if dressing it up in enough words suddenly makes it any less disgusting.

i've said this before, and i'll say it again: if conversations like this make you feel personally attacked, there's a good chance you're part of the problem.

it's really not that complicated. just stop being a creep. it's not rocket science, mate.

i've been trying to convince myself this isn't another joke the universe is playing on me.

technically, we didn't just meet. we've known each other for a while now, just never enough to become part of each other's routines. then life happened, as it usually does, and suddenly conversations became easier than they had any right to be.

she's a filmmaker. i write.

there's probably something poetic hiding in that, but i'm still too close to it to figure out what. her name is a constellation. which, in hindsight, feels unnecessarily on the nose.

for as long as we've both known each other, she liked women. exclusively. then a few months ago, life happened to her too. an engagement ended. people changed. apparently her ex-fiancée likes men now. apparently she thinks she does too. apparently she thinks she likes me. i don't know if i believe that.

not because i don't think i'm worth liking, but because timing has a funny way of dressing itself up as certainty. grief and familiarity can feel alarmingly similar from the inside. sometimes you meet someone at exactly the point where both of your worlds are rearranging themselves, and your brains mistake recognition for destiny.

i told her i'm not looking for anything romantic. truth be told, i don't think i've been emotionally available for well over a year now.

friends? absolutely. video games until sunrise? sure. getting drunk, getting high, doing objectively stupid things together? probably. hell, maybe even fucking. but romance? that's the only thing i can't seem to offer.

she says she's okay with that, but i already know how stories like this usually end.

maybe somewhere along the way she'll realize this was never about me. maybe she'll discover that i'm simply the bridge between who she was and who she's becoming. maybe she'll wake up one morning and remember that women have always been home.

or maybe she'll stay long enough to find out that the art is considerably kinder than the artist.

either way, i have this awful feeling that one day we'll look back at each other and realize we were standing in the middle of someone else's character development.

hers. mine. both.

what a shame, i think we could've been something genuinely beautiful if i had met her as a different version of myself. instead, she found a writer who's better at imagining futures than believing in them.

ok, i'll stray a little from my usual fictional stories this time. mostly because this one actually happened:

it was late january of 2020, just a few weeks before valentine's day. i was nineteen, fresh into what felt like my first real job—the kind that finally let me afford a few things i couldn't before. i was also dating someone who, to this day, i still think was wildly out of my league. you probably know her too, but i'll spare you the name.

back then, dates looked a little different. they were study sessions after her classes, cheap meals in places my wallet could survive, long walks because walking happened to be free. i wanted to give her the kind of dates people write songs about, but my bank account had a very different genre in mind.

then the company announced a valentine's activity. the prize was simple enough: two movie tickets. the mechanics were even simpler—answer a series of trivia questions. i remember smiling to myself because, for once, life had accidentally picked the one thing i was embarrassingly good at. science. history. random facts that had absolutely no business being useful until that exact afternoon.

by the third question, i already knew i was going to win. by the fourth, i was already thinking about what we'd watch. by the fifth, i was figuring out how i'd ask her out without getting in the way of her schedule. by the sixth, i'd already sent her a message.

i won.

for the first time in a while, i felt like i could finally give us one of those painfully stereotypical dates. popcorn. a movie. maybe dinner afterward if i budgeted hard enough.

the universe, apparently, had other plans.

a volcano erupted—not a metaphor, an actual fucking volcano.

classes were suspended, so she had to go home. the place i worked for, unfortunately, still expected me to clock in. we kept telling ourselves we'd figure something out once things settled.

they never really did.

before the ash had fully settled, the pandemic arrived. the distance grew longer than either of us expected, and somewhere in all of that, the cracks we hadn't noticed before became impossible to ignore. i had my lapses too. there were days she needed me and i wasn't there the way i should've been. sometimes because i couldn't. sometimes because i simply didn't know how yet.

months later, we broke up.

years later, i still have the tickets.

last year, she got married.

every now and then she still appears on my dashboard, smiling beside the life she built. strangely enough, i don't really think about the breakup anymore whenever i see her, but i still think about the ticket. somewhere in my room, i'm almost certain it's still there.

unused.

probably expired by now.

it's funny how something so small managed to outlive everything it was meant for, sometimes i think about looking for it. not because i still need it, i think i just want to make sure i didn't imagine any of it.

katie was talking across from me and i was genuinely trying to listen, i really was. the bar wasn't even that loud either. there was some old song dragging itself through the speakers overhead, glasses clinking every now and then, people laughing from tables nearby. nothing unusual. nothing demanding attention.

my mind kept wandering, not to big things—just small things. the way bottles behind the bar held onto bits of light. ice shifting around in glasses whenever somebody picked them up. the blue glow from a neon sign outside slipping through the windows and stretching itself across the counter. the kind of things people start noticing when they're trying very hard not to stare at somebody.

because every time i'd look at her, i'd immediately look somewhere else again. my drink. the counter. the neon outside. anywhere. everywhere.

i remember she laughed at something and reached over the table for my hand for a second before letting go again. just a second, always a second. i think i should've known then.

but people don't usually realize they're standing inside their last night with someone. they don't realize they're collecting final things while they're still happening. the last drink. the last laugh. the last time you look at someone and think, i'll probably see her again next week.

a few weeks later, i heard she was seeing somebody. and that should've been fine, technically there wasn't anything to lose. there wasn't a relationship ending. there wasn't some giant collapse. there wasn't anything with a name attached to it yet.

suddenly every little thing from that night started coming back differently. the quick glances around the room. the hands that never stayed long enough. the way she'd look around before getting too close.

the way i somehow only ever existed in corners, in late nights, in places where nobody knew us. i think that's when it finally hit me. i was kept like a secret.

out of everything i remember from that night, i barely remember what she said—although i remember the light. blue, spilling across her face from somewhere outside.

3-Jul-26, 12:31 am EST

whenever i get pissed off over a setback, i tend to lose perspective. then there’s that small whisper. easy to miss when things get loud enough. it never seems in a hurry, but it says the same thing every time.

it reminds me that i was once the student who had no money for anything. the one who skipped high school graduation because i felt like i had nothing to show for it. i was the broke boyfriend. the brother who worked for meals. the one who worked overtime for gas and electricity, turning extra hours into something necessary. the one who had to ask for due date extensions with that familiar mix of embarrassment and hope.

i keep forgetting that version of me as if distance itself has softened the details.

then i picture him at sixteen. tired, probably hungry, pretending not to be either. sitting somewhere with a future so abstract it barely felt real. if i showed him a glimpse of this life now—the conference rooms, the responsibilities, the three-piece suit hanging neatly over the back of a chair, even the things i complain about—I think he’d stare at me for a second before laughing at how absurd it all sounds.

i hope i never forget how far i’ve come.

i had a girlfriend then. she moved in with me. we gave it an honest shot, figured out it wasn't working, and ended things on good terms. i didn't ask her to leave after that. she moved from another state to be with me, packed up a whole life and carried it here, and i felt like i owed her more than a clean ending and a door closing behind her. so she stayed for a while.

and now here's the story, or rant, or whatever the fuck this is:

she used to tell our friends she was worried about leaving me on my own. she's sweet like that. warm. caring. very traditional filipina, which, gods, i hope isn't some racist shit to say. i just mean she has this quiet instinct to take care of people. she's always been like that. even now, with all the labels stripped away and us standing on opposite sides of whatever line people draw after breakups, she's still warm.

maybe that's one of the perks of handling relationships like actual adults, i guess. nobody leaves dragging a fucking corpse behind them.

she'd tell people she couldn't bear the thought of me surviving on processed food and instant noodles after she moved out. and every time i heard it, i'd think she forgot who i was for a second. i've been living on my own since i was sixteen. meal prep barely even registers on my list of worries. i used to think that.

today, i got home from work and barely had enough energy left to brush my teeth, but i did it anyway. oral health comes first. some things deserve respect. then i fucking died.

woke up in the middle of the night absolutely starving. looked at the clock. twelve. calling it dinner felt generous at that point. i didn't even realize i'd forgotten to lock the doors. only found out later while i was making food.

two packs of stir-fried noodles. i left them sitting for a minute, locked the doors, picked up the shit i'd dropped near the entrance earlier.

came back to the noodles. stir-fried noodles. and somehow i had already poured water in with the seasoning. why the fuck did i do that?

i stared at it for a second like i was looking at evidence from somebody else's life. then i ate it anyway. tasted like shit. just objectively terrible. after that i found a three-day-old slice of cake in the fridge and ate that too. fucking heavenly.

and now i'm here, lying in bed with a vape in my hand, trying to get the taste out of my mouth from turning stir-fry into some awful excuse for ramen. i keep thinking about how she used to worry.

god, she was right—about the food part, anyway.

but kidding aside, me throwing the most unhinged (i'm still holding back because i dont want yall to think im crazy) twists into the stories from the contexts you all sent has genuinely been helping a lot. it's been a nice distraction, and somehow it's keeping whatever creative spark i have left alive.

good night.

for a year and a half, i knew things about you that felt too personal to fit inside a phone screen. i knew about your family, your childhood stories, the songs you played on repeat when things got bad. i knew stupid little things too—things people usually forget to ask about. i knew what food you suddenly decided to hate for no reason, and which memories still followed you around years later.

and somewhere in the middle of all that, i think i just assumed i knew you. because how could i not? people don't usually hand you pieces of themselves like that—every time we're together, something felt off; not bad, just strange.

you'd laugh at something i said, but your eyes would drift somewhere else a second later. i'd catch you staring over my shoulder sometimes, looking like you were listening to something i couldn't hear. there'd be these weird little pauses where i'd suddenly become aware of the silence sitting between us.

and i kept thinking about it, because how does someone know that much about you, and still somehow feel half a step away? how were we so close here—through screens, through words, through midnight conversations—and then awkward when you were actually sitting beside me?

didn't you like me? am i too loud in person? too quiet? was i somehow translating badly into real life? hell, after a while i started wondering stupid things. maybe there was somebody else. once your brain starts overthinking, it doesn't exactly know when to stop.

then one night i was waiting outside a diner because you said you'd be there in ten minutes.

ten became twenty. twenty became forty. forty became me rehearsing one of those fake-calm speeches in my head. hey, it's okay if you're busy, i just think communication matters—that kind.

then i noticed people further down the street had stopped walking.

not panicking, just staring. that weird sort of curiosity people get when reality briefly starts acting out of character. someone had dropped a paper bag and oranges were rolling across the road. a bicycle was lying on its side. people kept looking upward.

so i looked too.

and there you were.

for a second, my brain genuinely refused—because no, absolutely fucking not. there is no way i spent a year and a half wondering if you secretly hated me—when you were too busy saving the city.

and suddenly everything clicked.

you gave me something to write about and i've been staring at this page for longer than i'd like to admit.

i don't know why i'm struggling this much either. people have been writing about it forever. songs, paintings, poems—people keep finding things to say about it as if there are still parts left undiscovered.

even looked around for things about it, thinking maybe i'd find some strange little detail worth holding onto. like how the sky isn't actually blue, or how veins only look blue, or how blue stars burn hotter than red ones despite feeling like they shouldn't.

funny, really. blue keeps turning out not to be what people think it is.

i could've gone another way with this too. i could've written about how you and your cat used to be best buddies in that quiet sort of way people accidentally choose each other. i could've written about your travels and the places that probably know you for a little while before watching you leave again. i could've written about how reddening your lips feels like the sort of thing that could start a war somewhere if people were weak enough—which, from what i've seen, they usually are.

i could've written about a lot of things, but none of them felt like mine to tell. they're pages you've left open, and i'm just someone reading them.

so i sat here a little longer and kept trying to think of something about blue, and somewhere in the middle of all that, i realized i've somehow been writing this entire time.

so if this turns out to be another writer's block coming for me, then what a nice thing it'd be knowing the last thing i managed to write before it happened was about blue—

or maybe, quietly,

i want to travel solo and meet someone that will definitely give me a lot of what ifs and ruin me for years

i used to want to travel alone. not for any dramatic reason. i just liked the idea of leaving without anyone waiting for me; arriving somewhere unfamiliar and becoming unfamiliar too. i liked train stations, departure boards, people passing through places they had no intention of staying in. i liked knowing everyone around me was temporary.

and if i got lucky, maybe i'd meet someone. not forever, just someone who'd ruin me a little.

the quieter kind of ruined—the kind that keeps showing up years later in small moments you never invited them into. where you'd hear a song and think they'd probably like this, or end up somewhere beautiful and immediately think, you should've seen this. someone that leaves behind what ifs; enough of them that they settle into you and refuse to leave.

what if i stayed a little longer? what if they did? what if i had said something different? stupid things like that.

i always imagined meeting them somewhere ordinary. some city i'd never see twice, maybe; a train ride, some quiet little place where strangers accidentally become stories for each other.

funny thing is, interstellar travel turned out to feel strangely similar. people still leave. people still arrive. people still sit beside strangers hoping something happens. the sky just changes—that's all.

i met you in a transit medium between systems because every other seat was taken. we started talking, then hours happened, then days happened, and somewhere along the way i stopped paying attention to where we were going.

i remember realizing i was in trouble because there were stars outside—actual stars, entire galaxies stretched beyond the glass, things people would've killed to see centuries ago—and somehow i kept looking at you.

i remember medical pulling me aside.

i remember laughing when they started asking how long we'd been spending time together. i remember thinking maybe they thought i was sick, or maybe i'd forgotten some routine screening. i remember them handing me the report and watching my face the whole time.

prolonged exposure. cross-species incompatibility. i remember reading it once, then again, then looking back at you. you weren't human, and apparently that wasn't the problem.

the problem was our kind weren't meant to stay near each other for long—not because of wars, not because of politics, not because the universe hated us enough to make a tragedy out of it. just biology. just the universe deciding, very casually, that we were poisonous to each other.

i think i would've survived it easier if i hated you—if some tribal part of my dna had fired up and done me the favor of telling me you were different; telling me to stay away, telling me not to trust you.

instead, god—no, that's not right anymore, is it? we've crossed systems and somehow i'm still using old earth expressions—but we had something. and i hate that that's the part that stayed. not the report, not the diagnosis. not the neat little scientific explanation for why we were impossible. just you.

years later, i still catch myself wondering stupid things. what if i'd met you somewhere else? what if your species evolved beneath a different star? what if mine did? what if there had been some mistake in the report? what if i stayed a little longer? what if you did?

funny thing is, i used to think we'd grow out of things like this. humanity spent centuries advancing—we crossed impossible distances, bent space around us, reached places our ancestors would've called divine.

you'd think somewhere along the way we'd evolve out of wanting people. out of wanting the chase, out of looking at a stranger and hoping they'll ruin us a little.

she had a habit of leaving things behind.

hairpins on the bathroom sink, sweaters draped over chairs, coffee cups in places coffee cups had no business being. i used to complain about it, mostly because i liked hearing you defend yourself.

that morning, i found one of your hairpins beside the kitchen window. i held it up between my fingers and asked if you were planning on collecting them around the house one room at a time.

you were standing by the front door fixing your nurse's cap, your bag already by your feet, already halfway out the door. you said you were contributing to the home's character, i wasn't sure the home needed that much character.

you laughed, i remember that. i remember asking if you'd be home late, i remember you looking at me for a second like i asked something ridiculous.

you pointed at the glenn miller record sitting on the shelf.

you bought it while i was away. i'd only gotten back the night before, tired from traveling and half asleep at the dinner table. you could've played it without me, but you waited for me.

then you smiled.

"before dinner," you said. "i promise."

i remember watching you leave. funny thing is, i don't remember deciding to watch you that time.

the rest of the morning felt ordinary. cars passed outside. somewhere down the street, somebody was mowing their lawn. i remember standing at the sink washing dishes and thinking i should probably put your hairpin back where it belonged.

then i noticed people moving too quickly.

someone ran past the house. then another. then voices. for a moment, i thought something had happened to a neighbor.

people were gathering around radios by the time i got there. nobody was saying much. they were just standing close together.

i remember some of them looking at me. strangely. the sort of look people give when they know something and are waiting for you to catch up.

i almost asked why, but the radio kept cutting in and out beneath the static.

"...pearl harbor..." more static.

"...attacked..." voices talking over each other.

"...japanese aircraft..." for a moment, none of it meant anything. just words, just noise. then—

"...naval hospital..." suddenly i remembered where you were.

i remember staring at the radio. i remember somebody beside me saying something i didn't hear. i remember people moving. chairs scraping against the floor. feet against pavement.

the world kept continuing in these small, ordinary sounds while i stood there trying to understand how a morning could stop being a morning.

mostly, i remember looking at the clock. dinner was still hours away. i remember thinking, with a certainty i hadn't earned, that you'd still come home.

because you promised.

i didn't know it then, but that was the day i started waiting.

at first, it was for the evening.

then for the next morning.

then for next week.

somewhere along the way, i stopped keeping track.

your hairpin is still beside the kitchen window.

shower sex, to be specific. it’s not like the movies. it’s mostly slipping, recalibrating, trying not to die in a tiled room. i almost drowned—i don’t even have a fucking tub. (pun intended on “fucking tub,” although i have neither a normal one nor one for that purpose.)

afterward, there’s that quiet that doesn’t really belong to regret or satisfaction. just a pause where your body gets ahead of your thoughts. post-nut clarity hits different when it’s less about clarity and more about realizing you’ve been circling the same thing for a while.

i’ve only been sleeping with one person for what feels like forever, but we’re not together. we both know that. it just continues, like something that learned how to stay without becoming anything else.

basically two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, people stuck in a loop they don’t really rename. something familiar, something physical, something that doesn’t move into anything else. or whatever the fuck pink floyd meant in wish you were here—probably not this exactly, but close enough: repetition, distance, and the comfort of something that doesn’t change shape even when it should.