(1) I’d been feeling antsy, been stuck at home too long and all that. I wanted to get my body into motion before I became some sedentary organic matter crumbling into my couch.
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(2) I took myself out to a movie but made the mistake of sitting off to the side and way too close to the screen so by the end of it, my shoulders were nearly vibrating from the tension in them. I loitered a bit in my seat, waiting for everyone to filter out, digging my fingers deep into my neck muscles in order to unlock my aches.
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I followed these two girls out the door and stood in the lobby of the movie theater for a while, looking at all the energy going on around me. There were two people working at the snack counter, neither of them even college aged. The girl serving the customers seemed tired and had wisps of hair that were slowly separating from the rest of her head. At the ticket office a family of four was waiting patiently in line. The dad was typing on his Blackberry while the older sister reached over to poke her brother every few moments. Through the window the street was moving in slow motion, clogged up by snow that seemed to be drifting into every crack of life. Across the street there was a bar with the name “Mike’s!” in giant neon letters, as if it was proclaiming how excited it was to be owned by someone named Mike.
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(3) I shifted my weight, not wanting to stand any longer in the middle of the room, but not feeling ready to go home. Through the door next to me I could hear the dramatic swell of a horror movie soundtrack. Someone screamed.
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I wound my scarf tight around my neck and tucked my face into the collar of my jacket before heading out and crossing the street.
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(4) I didn’t bother to head for the crosswalk but cut through the middle of the street, dodging around the cars waiting for the streetlight to change color. A man in a blue sedan had his arm lounging out of the window, a cigarette dangling between his fingers. He eyed me evenly, showing no sign that the biting cold was twisting its way into his car. A wind picked up and some of the embers from his cigarette flew towards my face.
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(5) I shuffled into Mike’s! and immediately started depositing my layers onto the bar stool closest to the door. It was the sort of place that Davey would have liked, with a few people scattered throughout the badly-lit room, nursing their liquor on top of tables that looked like they had come prepackaged with a certain level of aesthetic grime.
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(6) Every person in the place slumped towards the ground, into the décor, their clothes blending into the surroundings. I could almost see the afterimages of their selves from previous days, returning once again to sit in the same spot and drink the same drink. I ordered a gin and tonic and the bartender nodded but kept wiping down the beer tap with a rag with idling movements, as if he knew that he could afford to take his time, that I wasn’t going anywhere.
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(7) Eventually, drink in hand, I cast my gaze over the bar again, looking for the ideal seat. Near the back was a man with golden stubble glittering on his jawline and a large beer occupying the space in front of him.
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(8) Without even thinking about it, I headed in his direction, rounding my shoulders and swaying my hips.
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“Mind if I join you?” I asked and he looked up at me. It took a moment for him to internalize my request but he nodded and gestured at the seat in front of him.
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(9) I sat down, took a sip of my drink and regarded him behind his beer.
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“You look like you’re waiting for something,” he said, and I wasn’t sure how to take that so I sat with it for a moment.
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“I don’t think I’m happy,” I responded, deciding that that was the most accurate thing to say. He nodded slowly, as if this was something that he had suspected. “Are you?” I asked.
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“Probably not,” he replied, then lifted his beer up to his mouth, I watched his throat contract as he swallowed and mimicked his motion. I held the liquid on my tongue, moving it around my mouth until it felt bitter.
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(10) We sat like that for a half an hour, an hour, maybe forever, exchanging small talk. I wasn’t paying so much attention to what we were saying but every few sentences, I shifted a little bit forward, moved my hand a bit closer to his. I could tell that he noticed but he didn’t do anything in reaction, negative or positive. I had made it through three gin and tonics and my knuckles were just barely brushing against the outside of his forearm when he stood up abruptly. He started to walk away from the table and I stared blankly after him until he turned to look behind him.
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(11) “Are you coming?” he asked, and I nodded and—
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(13) — I sat in his shower, feeling like there were things inside of me shaking, coming loose. I heard a knock on the door—apparently he had woken up.
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“Um… lady? You alright in there?”
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(14) I put my head between my knees, trying to breathe that moment out of existence.
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I don’t know how I got here.

(1) I have been stumbling through the month. I don’t know how to be at home anymore but I keep coming back to it, revolving around it in circles like a comet drawing closer and closer until it sinks into the atmosphere. It’s too empty, and walking around feels like walking through layers of dust. I miss you.
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(2) I went out to a movie by myself at that movie theater that we always used to go to, the one with the seats that are much deeper than you would expect and so you sink into them for eons. Walking in, I remembered how we always used to sit in the back so that we could make jokes and whisper, and sitting anywhere near there felt like a violation of your memory, and so I sat near the front, in the seats that were so shitty that we never would’ve sat there together. I thought the movie would distract me but I drowned my eyes in Technicolor and I couldn’t stop the repetitive thought-cycling going on behind them. I tried not blinking, to see if I deprived myself of those moments of dark, maybe I could focus in on the screen. No dice.
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(3) After the movie, I couldn’t bring myself to move, I couldn’t think of any space that I wanted to exist in, there was just this sense of wrongness deep inside of me, fluttering in my gut. I once described the feeling to you like living out two alternate realities in one body. I feel like I contain a self slightly shifted from myself. Were those the sorts of things you were talking about when you said that I say things that make you feel like you’re suffocating?
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I decided to go to a bar because I wanted to flood my brain full of things that are not your emptiness.
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(4) I once told you that sometimes I step into traffic without looking to see if cars are coming. You got this look on your face that was the same look that you had when you told me you didn’t want to be around me anymore, and you quickly changed the subject. What was going through your mind at that point? For a while after that conversation, I would imagine that you had made me promise not to do that, would fantasize that you had made me swear an oath to you. While crossing the street to the bar, I thought about that, and maybe that was too much to expect of you. Maybe wanting you to hold me to that promise was putting a weight on you that you couldn’t handle. You always seemed so sure of yourself. I thought you could carry that weight.
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(5) The bar was the sort of place that you, me, and Davey would’ve loved to find in college. I saw Davey a few days ago for one of our Tuesday afternoon lunches and I told him that I’ve been having trouble sleeping, that my bed feels too empty. He said it’s not like we had ever had anything romantic between the two of us, so he didn’t understand why the bed’s emptiness would bother me. I didn’t know how to explain to him that it’s not just about the bed, it’s that everything feels emptier, and my waking up in the middle of the night feels like my brain wants me to relive that emptiness. It’s as if I need myself to know at every moment, even asleep, that your vacancies are living, breathing sores crouching in the corners of my life with crusting, weeping mouths. People always understand if someone’s upset about a break up, but what about a friendship that was a thousand times deeper than any sort of romantic love? I feel robbed of mourning you because I was never in love with you, and so I feel like I don’t have a right to the deep platonic absence that you’ve left behind. You would have understood. You always did.
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(6) Everyone in that bar looked like they belonged there. I felt like I belonged there. You know how we used to make up stories behind the people sitting in those seedy bars, the ones who you just know would go up to the bartender and say, “the regular.” We’d give them elaborate backstories for the reason that they were drinking. Well here’s one for you: She’s been feeling like she’s been spiraling downwards for months and her best friend was the only one she could talk to about it. Anytime she was upset, she could go to her best friend and… take all those awful thoughts and give them to that friend. She never thought about where those awful thoughts were going, what was happening to all that darkness. Best friend has now left. Forever. She orders a gin and tonic to dilute her pain. Guess who it is?
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(7) I didn’t want to sit by myself. I don’t think I could’ve stood any more emptiness. In some ways I’m so angry with you but you’re not here to be angry at. I needed someone, some body to reflect my emotions back to me. I needed to do something with them.
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(8) I walked towards a man that I saw. He looked lonely. He looked like the type of person I might think was attractive if I was still noticing that people were attractive. My hips swayed from side to side as I walked towards him and I know that if you were here you would’ve called me out on my performativity. But you’re not. Sometimes I feel like I’m a character written by someone who doesn’t know how to write anyone other than herself, so she does that, but writes versions of herself sexualizing herself. I don’t know if that means that I actually feel sexy or if I feel so detached from myself that I’m narrating my own life from afar, how I’d like it to be told.
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The man let me sit next to him but it didn’t matter.
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(9) I told the man that I didn’t think I was happy. I don’t know if that was the answer to what he said to me. I don’t know if it mattered. I really just wanted to tell someone, anyone. I wanted to want to tell the man, but really I wanted to tell you, could feel the old habit of unhappiness tugging at me. I wanted to get my phone out and call you and sit with you on the line. Maybe this is why you were so upset with me. You felt that I only wanted you for my pain. But it’s not true and I feel…. if you could have tried a bit harder, then you would’ve seen that you mattered to me so much, and what type of best friend banishes someone from their life with no warning? You could have told me. I could have changed, done something. Why didn’t you tell me?
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(10) I ended up flirting with the guy. Touching his arm, moving closer to him, things like that. I watched myself from afar and I couldn’t bring myself to care whether I was successful or not. It was a thing to do, like anything. But I’m writing myself here, so I have decided to write myself as flirty, because that’s better than writing a void.
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(11) The guy invited me back to his place. I’ve been writing lists of things that I would tell you if you were still talking to me: how my day’s going, how the coffee shop around the corner came out with a hazelnut flavor that I think you would love, how the couple next door has started arguing again in wall-shattering screams. All of my lists turn into me writing out different versions of our last conversation, the points that I wish I could’ve made, the things that I wish I could’ve said to change your mind.
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(12) The guy’s hands were rough on my skin and I felt him moving from position to position and I felt like an animator, repeating the motions that I have been taught to do, but unable to activate any other form of movement.
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Sitting on his bed, he pushed my head down towards his crotch and I remember lying on my bed with my head on your lap while you stroked my hair.
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I felt so empty.
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He let out a grunt that originated in the base of his stomach and I told you that night how much I wanted to destroy my body, I could feel my body and it was hurting I was hurting and I just wanted it to stop. He maneuvered me to straddle him. I could feel your/his body going stiff under me.
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You held me down for two hours, not letting me move until I stopped crying, until I calmed down. You didn’t think I should be allowed agency, didn’t think I could be trusted to stand and move around the world without hurtling towards my own destruction. You were probably right.
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He flipped me around so that he was lying on top of me and started thrusting into me and I did not want this and I thought I did. I held very still until he was done and he rolled off of me. There were no terms of endearment or affection and our mediocre sex hung in the air like a tension. I thought about getting up to go home but that seemed too far and too immense. He got up to get a glass of water and I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
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The day after you saved my life was the day that you left. You told me that you loved me but that you couldn’t be around me, that my life was too much of a pressure for you to bear and how could you do that? How could I? I hate you and hate myself and I don’t know how to reconcile those two.
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I woke up in the middle of the night, as I’ve been doing for weeks now. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and will find myself reaching across empty expanses of sheets, shivering but with my blankets damp with my sweat. I’ll only wake up for a moment before falling back asleep but it’s several times a night, stretching the span of my sleep, and every time that I wake up, I feel in that moment all the other moments that I’ve had to wake up like this. That feverish, half-conscious state of mind has the reside of warped time collecting to it like stagnating pond water, and I can’t help but feel that I am doomed to live out that moment again and again. That somehow that moment is more real than the rest of my life and the rest of my seconds spent awake are grayshades, blurs existing between those seconds where I am horrifyingly aware of the emptiness of my bed and my body.
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This time, of course, I wasn’t in my bed. I felt the man’s arm around me and everything felt too heavy, too much, I am too much and this is too much and I am so so sorry that I was too much.
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(13) I tried to creep out of his apartment but was paralyzed with the idea of going home, of seeing that space without you, of sitting with my pain alone, and of sitting with the pain that my pain caused you.
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I opened random doors until I found the bathroom, with pristine white tiled floors. I dropped all my clothes there in a heap and sat on the shower floor, turning on the hot water until the sound of it battering against my head started to drown my thoughts. The guy knocked on the door to check if I was ok and I didn’t know how to answer.
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(14) I put my head between my knees, trying to breathe that moment out of existence.
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I don’t know how I got here.