estudentetser diaries

i still rehearse conversations that never happened.

What If

The scary part is I knew exactly how bad you were for me and yet that didn’t stop me from loving you.

The First Thing You Learn in University Creative Writing Classes

honey feels quite at home in green tea,

“Isn't it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most?”

You’ve dreamt about it since you were a kid: a secret, a funeral, a spreading cough, and then it starts—the end. The whole, terrible end. For years, you’ve kept one eye on the shadows swilling above the door, waiting for the arrival of the God of Doom. What to do now that he’s here, sipping coffee in our kitchen? We sneak glares from the sink, mutter apologies when we bump in the hall. He’s an awful guest, of course—tracks blood everywhere, cries when we feed him, screams if we don’t. So we keep the freezer stocked with dumplings, black fruit, beans to last a month. We take turns hefting his bulk, keep him placated with a soundtrack of pickaxes, songs about death camps and microplastics, circular fretting, it’s only a matter of time. When it storms, he yanks open the windows; he polishes our worst parts; steals, constantly. At night, he raps at the wall behind our heads, just as he did for ten thousand nights before he showed up, just as he’ll do for ten thousand nights after. Meanwhile—well, you know. Meanwhile. All our kin is dying at a distance. The coast’s been burning for weeks. Filling the kettle, you catch me humming, The dream that you dream will come true, and we laugh, though nothing’s funny but this: We knew the end was coming here. We knew it, and like idiots—like perfect idiots—we stayed.

The loudest of voices are the ones heard, but what of the smallest one, strengthening? What of the orchid in the window, getting just enough light?

He wasn’t really breaking up with me because we weren’t ever really together. We’d just been two people who helped each other when we needed it and got our hearts fused together along the way.