february again
On the 4th day of February, my months long relationship fell apart. There were already loose threads, but for the longest time I chose to ignore them. With animal impulse and teenage hormones to blame, I pulled the stray strings and the relationship unraveled, coming to an inevitable end. The month of love, am I right? Though I was the one who called the shots, I cried into my pillow that night. When the day was anew and the sun shone brightly, my eyes were rimmed with red. I told myself that we were never going to last anyways. It felt like being forced to drink cough syrup as a child. I needed it to feel better, but that doesn't mean I was particularly fond of the experience. I don’t think anyone likes nasty liquid medicine or break-ups, after all.
In the end, my medicinal words were right. I guess the thing about long distance relationship is sometimes it will never be enough for someone like me—My love is tied to gravity. When I fall, I face-plant into the ground. It hurts, knocks my teeth out of my mouth, and instead of spitting the blood out, I swallow them and let it take root inside of me like a seed. I wait for spring to come and make me blossom. It’s a long-term commitment. Calling on the telephone or texting each other from across the sea can only hold a relationship together for a fleeting period of time. We can’t borrow each others’ hoodies, link our pinky fingers together on the sidewalk, I won’t meet your mother and you won’t meet mine for a very long time. We were at the precipice of adolescence: the thin line between youth and maturity blurred.
Seventeen is a good age for romance and heartbreak. Conversely, it’s a terrifying age to be. On the night of my 17th birthday, I threw up. All the alcohol and celebratory food in my system curdled into a puddle of puke. It’s modern age baptism. I change everyday. Such a simple and heart-rending sentence. Sixteen and I ran from change, sixteen and addicted to self-mutilation, sixteen and sick.
I’m seventeen now and all I am is trying. Trying to be a better daughter to my mother and a better friend to my loved ones. Most importantly, a better person for myself. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life like this, so I’m changing. Now that I know more than I did, I realized I wasn’t ready for love that February, and I don’t think I ever was back then. I was damaged, fractured porcelain, practicing suffering like a religious ritual.
It’s no longer February. It hasn’t been February for a while. I’m talking to someone else, new and near, and I remember his eyes.
It must have been September. It was one of those days, where the classes trudged by slowly, and the sky was pale beyond the windowsill. Like the world was our lobster and we were sloths. Streaks of sunlight poured through the glass and drenched his hair—dark like a raven's feathers, tousled and falling in soft waves, framing his face gently—in a delicate woven gold. I have a bad staring problem and an even worse one: I harbored a juvenile crush on him, despite our complete absence in the field of normal human conversations. For months, our only form of interaction with one another was to stare at each other from across the dimly-lit lecture room.
Holiday break has begun weeks ago, but I still remember his eyes from the last time I held his gaze. Sable and honey when the light hits just right, like tea dregs at the bottom of the mug or tinted apothecary jars in cozy vintage stores. I don’t remember the last time I’ve ever crushed on someone like this. It’s terrifying, I’m in uncharted waters. The tides are tame, there’s no shark fins wading through the water making its way towards my throat, but I’m on the edge of my seat. Lately I’ve been staring at our conversations, utterly coloured by disbelief.
It doesn’t feel quite real, that he’s calling my name like the syllables have always been there all along in his mouth and treating me kindly. The more I know him and the more he knows me, I like him a little more. A little is going a long way. Sick with want, agonized by shame, and dizzy with disbelief, I whisper his name in the stifling dark. My tongue weaves the sound so tenderly, it sickens me.
A ripe fruit, softened and sweet. I don’t want to rot. I want to keep knowing him. He makes me feel like February again.