it's not like we came here unprepared. we were sharp, even when we were clueless. we knew the day would come when life would drag us away from everything we knew and found comfort in. but still, it's just simply such an expensive reality to live in. a system devoid of depth but deeply demanding. trading souls for monthly rents. by the age of twenty-two, we'd be swamped with debts, both moral and financial. it's a harsh world too—one wrong step and we'll be free-falling into early bankruptcy. picturing marriage as a way to survive, pushing yourself to be content with mediocrity and a life of devoting yourself to others.

but even amidst this very real chaos, what we had still felt very real to me. sometimes i wonder if you ever think about the memory of our softer youth and find temporary shelter. because i do. i think about you in my hotel rooms, on train rides, in silent walks after a long day of work. i brought pieces of you into every part of my adulthood. you had become both a charm and a curse. your absence turns into the proxy of a moral compass, guiding me to places where people break their hearts and glue them back together.

to be in love is to be radically alive, and to lose that love is to confront void, absurdity, and chaos. can something feel real if it was never fully inhabited? we existed in the liminal space between cautious efforts of policing desire. it was exhausting, unaffordable in this economy. this is a time of genocides, loud misogyny, and trade wars between nations that see numbers but not humanity. we need to think about survival, not some distant dreams of star-crossed lovers. it'd be so much easier if we both were born with courage instead of heavy chests, if we had the power to weaponize instead of making amends. oh gosh, this is getting too political.

what am i trying to say anyway? it's been four years of doing all the labors no one asked me to. building cathedrals from scraps of your tweets and half-written intentions. although if you look closer, you'll see how my words have always been deep in reverence. affections hidden beneath what seem to be paragraphs of resentment. they're always full of love. it's been years, but my heart still gravitates towards you. all my kindness, my efforts to grow, are rooted in the sheer hope of making you proud. in prayers of accidentally bumping into you in airports or european pubs. it's so stupid. am i going to live the rest of my life like this? utterly in love but also entirely haunted?

in a sense, yes, you were the light of my life. beyond that, you were a whole metaphysical state. what is it about you that is just so compelling? was it because of age? we were so young when we met, even younger when you left. or was it because of my own intervention? i scripted fictions, rearranged gods, renamed reality, just to make room for you in my heart. i wielded our story with a passion that only a seventeen-year-old girl can have. the burning of innocence, the desire for something more. i was greedy and delusional, two bottles of poison flowing in my veins. Buddha himself would have wept for the way i willingly gave my soul to eternal damnation. but how else am i supposed to afford it?

corrupted and corruptive, i look at myself in the mirror. weary from societal demands, weary from the burden of us. how do i carry this very masochistic love? how do i carry it while walking down the aisle? while laying with my husband? while driving my kids to school? how do i carry this grief when you're in the corner of every room? evergreen and just so beautiful. how do i put you down when i've been swirling you into every poem? when i've turned you into the foundation of my ethic, the very basis of my ontological inquiries?

in the end, we are a product of a dysfunctional system. the weight of capitalism against our innate need for freedom. you resort to defiance in art and a quiet life in the suburbs, i resort to acceptance. i have grown to adapt to a fast-paced reality that speaks for power and financial stability. i moved to different cities to taste the bitterness of survival. because we really can't afford this. in the past, i have burnt myself over and over again just to pay for an hour under the shades with you. i'm all dried up now. i have nothing to offer in exchange for such inconvenient longing.

so there you go. you'll have me for the rest of eternity. a modern-day sisyphus, if you will. thousands of years from now, a new civilization will rise to adapt, to move forward. they'll leave all these -isms behind and embrace the new morning sky where equity beguiles. one day they'll find my remains and learn about the fool who held on. they'll know how much i loved you and how much it bent my bones. they'll understand how much it hurts, and maybe they'll learn to be more careful. they won't make the same mistake of rendering the world as a failed market where love is a commodity exclusive for the wealthy and holy.

and even until then, i will be yours. utterly, entirely, yours.