It’s summer, 40 degrees in my room, too broke to get an AC, too anxious to make it happen even if I had the money. I sit nude on my chair, sweaty, eyes glued to my screen. This is my 5th match of League, also my 5th loss of the day. My poor PC unit sits on the floor, disassembled, my only tiny fan propped up to cool the CPU. All worth it for 8 hours of dissociation.

I chew on the inside of my cheeks every time I wait for the respawn timer.

I have so many things to tell you. I really wanna be there when you text me. I think that you’re such a lovely guy, I really like you, what a nice way to spend a summer. 

It’s somehow over 40 degrees out. We’re on a lake, on paddleboards. You chase me, I laugh so hard it’s difficult to paddle. Even with a head start you’re still catching up to me. My arms hurt super bad and I just can’t keep a steady rhythm with my anxiety being as is. I wish my body understood this was just a game.

Right when you’re about to run into my board, I make a split-second decision and jump forward, into the lake, and swim away. As I jump my mouth fills with lake water, my nose too. It tastes stale, I swallow some of it and hope it won’t kill me. I swim away and you stop rowing. You accuse me of surrender, to me this is escape. You laugh about it, I do too.

In the middle of the lake, I smoke a joint, it has tobacco too, gives me that nice little buzz. I tell myself it’s not smoking cigarettes, that this is somehow better. Maybe I smoke less tobacco, but my cough doesn’t seem to care. I tell myself I’ll quit once life settles down. We leave there tired and happy. My body feels heavy. I fall asleep in the car on the way home.

It’s summer, endless summer, still much too fucking hot; I sit on the bathroom floor, crying. My hand grabs at the rug, my fingers rub at the pink fabric. I bite the inside of my cheeks. You avoided telling me about a girl, again. I know we’re poly. I know I should be past this; I am not.

On the phone you speak to me kindly and softly. I’m so anxious I can barely move.

In the end you agree to compromise. In the end I feel grateful.

It’s about 30 degrees. I’m on a rock, lizard in the sun. This is what I imagine heaven feels like, I’m on some small island in Greece. This is all happening on a mountain, on the edge of a lagoon. The water is surrounded by rocks. On the rocks left warmest by the sun there are people. Most of those people are nude. All of them have fit and beautiful bodies. I imagine this is what the gods on Olympus must feel like. I can see where the myths come from.

I don’t even bite my cheeks.

When my skin starts to feel like the sun I jump into the water. When my skin starts to feel like the lagoon I go back to the rocks. Somehow all I seem to think about is you and tobacco. I lie to myself and say I’m thinking of weed. I also tell myself it’s butterflies, not anxiety. When it gets dark, I go back to my tent where I have enough bars to text you. I go to sleep thinking of you.

It’s still summer, 40 degrees again. One acid tab later and I feel like the sun. I miss Greece. I almost feel like I’m still there. A wasp stings me. There is fire in my arm. I have to keep myself together. The sun is so lovely. I try to look at the pain. For the first time, I experience it. Pain is alive. I feel alive and connected to everybody who has ever felt it before. There is fire in my arm. It burns with such beauty. I exist, separate from it; I think of the beauty all around me. I think of you too.

I forget I have cheeks to bite. With my skin touching a moss rug, I hope to also forget I’m human.

I sit out in a field somewhere. Hungover, phone to my ear, sun pressing down on my back. I’m not smoking, but my god do I wish I was. I bite the inside of my cheeks and eat the bits of me that come off. I enjoy their texture. I remember it’s not good for me; it makes me more anxious. On the other end you’re telling me about everything I did wrong.

How it was bad that I let a much younger, drunk and high friend sleep in my tent. How I am desperate for attention and invite trouble. How I had just promised you to never sleep with a person while high ever again, yet, after doing acid, I had let this friend sleep in my tent again. How he could have slept in his car instead. I grab at the grass next to me, tear bits out of it.

You speak of how scared you were for me. I try so hard to not interrupt with my sobs. I am grateful you called me still.

I end up agreeing; apologizing. Truth be told, I did promise, truth be told I did hurt you. If I can’t own up to my shortcomings, how can I expect you to own up to yours, right? I feel broken, wrong.

I tell myself you are so kind to forgive me and I can’t wait to see you tomorrow and fix this. After we’re done talking the inside of my cheeks is raw. The drive home is long.

It’s the day before my birthday. It seems to always be too hot. I’m on some tree stump, in some forest. I smoke a joint – with tobacco. I feel bad for craving the stuff so much. If it were cigarettes, I’d probably smoke 50 a day, at least. The thought makes me feel anxious, I bite the inside of my mouth and chew. The dead skin comes off easily, satisfying. This only worsens my anxiety. I think of how it sucks that my anxiety has gotten bad lately. How it sucks that you met me at a time like this. After I quit tobacco, I’ll be less anxious. As I walk home, I try to guess when you’ll text me next.

It’s about 30 degrees now, almost autumn. I’m in front of my desk, phone in hand. You got bumble and neglected to tell me for three days. I cry feeling lost. I break up with you via text. We’re not even in the same country. Maybe it just means I am not ready for dating like this, maybe we’re just too different. I keep thinking to myself that you’re such a lovely person.

I almost go back on my words, almost change myself to keep you. I chew on the inside of my mouth. I text you a long strain of words that end up saying nothing.

You suggest we end things mutually, I agree to this, think of it as kindness, understanding. I convince myself that I want too much, and that you tried. I am still so happy to have met you.

You promise to stay friends and this means the world to me, I still hope you’ll read one of the books I like and we can discuss it, I also hope we can still talk. Truth be told, I miss you already. After we talk, I cry.

It still seems like endless summer. I stay up most nights to paint, or carve wood, or anything that can keep my hands busy and my mind at least half present. I play the same one song on repeat enough so that it becomes my top song for the year. Sometimes I text you too much and wish I had less things to say.

Sometimes I manage to not exist for a while. Sometimes I taste blood when I press my cheek in and bite.

Some days it’s still very fucking hot. I sit alone in my room writing bad poems about my pain, poems that I hope you read and validate. My chest feels hollow, so I compare it to a seashell, write about how you lay your ear down on it and listen to the sea. About how we were so different, about how I miss you still. We’ve never even seen the sea together.

I send photos of the best ones to you, feeling sorry I feel this bad, feeling hopeful you understand me. You reply rarely, short, understanding still. I tell myself you need space, maybe you hurt too, maybe I am too much. Maybe you miss me too. Sometimes the anxiety is 

overwhelming. I chew on bits of my mouth.

It’s colder outside, I’m on the couch in my living room. I’m hanging out with my friends; they tell me about your new girlfriend. She just finished high school; I think that this is so unlike you.

We had seen one another a week before, you had hugged me, told me you still look at my photos, told me you hurt too, for a while. I understood that you moved on, admired you for it, wished I was more like you. You spoke of not being ready to date, deleting bumble, I was so proud. I thought you were doing so well.

When I see your texts to her it’s two days after the couch; later that day I block you on everything. You used the same sweet tone, same big words, you put her on the same pedestal, and I understand.

We had nothing.

It’s not warm anymore, at all. I miss the sun. I’m in my living room. I smoke my morning joint. It tastes like shit. I finish it anyway. It grosses me out so bad I stop smoking tobacco. Quitting sucks. I cry a bunch; I yell at people a bunch. Mostly I just want to smoke tobacco, any tobacco. It reminds me of dating you. I manage to quit for good.

It’s about 15 degrees out now, we have not spoken in a while. I still miss tobacco; it’s bearable now. I still chew on the inside of my cheeks. Right now, I’m watching some Romanian film called TRIP. I quite like it. At some point, there is a part of the movie where one of the characters reads a poem while some nonsensical things happen on screen. I really like that part, so I listen. This poem starts describing a chest so empty that you can almost hear the sea if you put your ear to it.

Your friend showed me this exact part of the movie, back when my chest didn’t feel so hollow, before I was writing you poems. It was 40 degrees out, I was chewing on dead skin, I was stoned. I remember wishing to write like that. I think of my poem to you.

So, it turns out that I have nothing; not even that one original verse I was so proud of writing.

And lately I keep thinking that maybe you had nothing too, just some pretty words and some pretty girl to believe them.

And yet I have nothing still; just the words I use to write, and some of them aren’t even mine.