the archive

May 17, 2023 | 2:22 AM

My friends are my family, but I don't know if they know that. I doubt that I am as important to them as they are to me, and I'm okay with that. But I just worry that they don't understand how much they mean to me; I hope they do.

May 13, 2023 | 2:05 AM

I hope one day that everything I do will be because I genuinely want to do it, not because it is expected of me. I hope the same for you, too.

May 13, 2023 | 12:15 AM

Reading all the messages is so unbearable. Everyone loves to suffer. It's masturbatory. We want to feel like we are unique and so we write out shitty poetry and post it on a website and now our lives are the romantic struggle we want it to be. I don't mean this badly, like people don't mean what they are saying. But the mere act of writing something like this out makes me feel so hypocritical. Just saying an emotion makes me think to myself "well, do you really feel that way, or are you just saying that you feel that way to make your life sound more interesting to yourself, to romanticize the image of your own existence?" I wish I could feel without questioning it like everyone else here. But here I go again! "Like everyone else here" -- I am making myself sound unique and dramatic and for what? Even by writing this all out I am contradicting myself. Everything feels fake. I think therefore I am nothing but my thoughts. And I think the sentence I just wrote is pretentious. So then why did I fucking write it?

May 11, 2023 | 8:57 PM

I have never had the courage or the words to say anything in the last year. I didn't want to say sorry another time and not mean it.

May 10, 2023 | 10:13 PM

Yale has been so real. so true. thank you for everything and im in love w my prof <3 just the bestest :)

May 10, 2023 | 7:25 PM

i can't stop thinking about when you and me saw a UFO. when we saw the UFO it ducked away from us when we saw it - why didn't we say anything? when we saw the alien pitch black with glinting eyes, i wasn't afraid. but i really was. i can't stop thinking about how we escaped, and i can't stop wondering if it was trying to communicate with us, or devour us. it's been over a year and i wonder, did this completely fuck you up too?

May 10, 2023 | 4:07 PM

you guys sent that mean text and I cried and even though I’m meaner to you than you could be to me I fantasize about violently cutting off both of you and moving back to california without telling you so you think about me for the rest of your life and you don’t move on and I thrive.

May 10, 2023 | 11:44 AM

As hard as life is sometimes, I'm really grateful to be alive. If you think about it, there didn't have to be a universe. The Big Bang could've not happened, or multi-cellular life could've never developed. The fact that we are here and that there's anything to experience at all is such a gift.

May 9, 2023 | 11:46 AM

you can't sit down and enjoy the view
you can't eat a weasel even if it sleeps too much
you can't have your cake and eat it too

May 8, 2023 | 11:48 AM

this is loosely adapted from a twitter thread i absolutely love:
(credits to mandy harris williams replying to @idealblkfemale)

"it's a lot of avoidant people in the world. we know that. folks who don't say exactly what they mean, who seem to have a richly bubbling emotional world beneath a façade of acceptable, reliably, socially congratulated behavior.

the worst of these commonplace avoidances is the avoidance of what our values mean for our actions, time, and attention. i am perpetually shocked at how dismayed we are each and every "shocking" [structural] tragedy with SO LITTLE application to the sources of our displeasure...at how we are so disgusted by gun violence, racism, etc. and we post or repost, and read and move on. i'm seeing folks who are talking about organizing and i'm happy we are at this part of the conversation. i am really praying to see the follow through.

it's about the addiction to avoiding directness and active changes to our lives. i love dj'ing and singing and writing and performing. but i knew that i had to focus on other things if i was going to mkae even a small droplet in the sea of change that required to live the liberated lifestyle our society has aestheticized and defanged.

it's going to take a lot more focus and a lot more sacrifice. there will be less "fun." it is time to face the reality of our paltry protests. we are ineffective. we are entertained. we are distracted.

to add here, i think our obsessions with youth and success and fame and notoriety make us extremely unfit for making impact social change."

it's a bit harsh but i just love this so much. we need to do the great work, and to do this, we have to give up some things that make our lives easy and polished and cute.

we need to rethink about the things we accept so normally and realize that a lot of the structures in place hurt us (and if they don't hurt you, they hurt someone else, and that is what we call privilege. that is also something people don't own up to enough. privilege is not feeling guilty about your own life. privilege is not about being defensive as a white person and say "but hey! i'm not like that..." no. it is not about you. that is the whole point of social movement and doing the work. it is about the structure that was built for a person like you and dismantling that. it is about aligning your values with those who don't have the same privilege as you and recognizing their issue is also your issue to help solve. ) it is frankly too simple and too sad to think you can live your life and romanticize it and think about it making it easier without helping a larger cause. it is too sad. so the great work continues.

May 8, 2023 | 1:30 AM

you make me feel giddy. a tingly anticipation that i hate. because i know that i’m mired in your (intentional? unintentional?) psychological game. and .. i’m so fixated on you. in spite of myself. and in a way i’m unused to, for all my time spent in meditation, in pursuit of detachment. i’m unfolding before you now, and i’m not sure you deserve this vulnerability. how is this possible, to feel both so close and so far from someone? to feel that you’ve at one point turned their soul over in your palm but now have no idea who they are to you, and you them?

May 7, 2023 | 11:21 PM

thank you for making this semester amazing. i can’t imagine life without you and i’m so excited to get to know you more.

May 7, 2023 | 11:20 PM

wish i could tell you how in love i am with you.

May 7, 2023 | 11:10 PM

You taught me the difference between being in love with someone and loving someone.

May 7, 2023 | 11:01 PM

Do you still think about me? The night we spent together—the first man you’ve been with. I really had a good time; I still remember you kissing me when you left the hotel room. Sometimes I see you around and I feel ashamed. Sometimes I see you around and I feel happiness. What do you feel?

May 7, 2023 | 10:49 PM

I am a forest, and a night of dark trees:
but he who is not afraid of my darkness,
will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.

May 6, 2023 | 8:36 PM

i wrote our names on the wall under the window of the library. i wrote, "solar is thinking about 206," and signed the date. i used to wonder if you thought about me as much as i thought about you. of course, i got my answer.

May 6, 2023 | 7:10 PM

I will leave my goodbye at the simple truths:

I love you. I forgive you. I am so sorry.

May 6, 2023 | 6:34 PM

A last note to a fisherman from his catch:

I know so much more now than I did when you first felt my shy tug at your unspooled edges. I know how it feels to clamp down on the hook, to be reeled in and gutted, to pray and be absolved. I’m sorry for being so unsightly, for the stain I left on your hands and your kitchen counter.

I know how a weary body insists on stripping nourishment from sharp edges. How blood becomes milk. I never learned what love should taste like and so I savor, catch myself licking my split lips for some trace of metal and salt. I am ashamed for my appetite.

When I say “there is a part of me that still loves you”, this is what I mean: The waters here are surrounded by men with empty stomachs, and if you were hungry, I only wanted you to eat well. I hope you are eating well.

May 5, 2023 | 8:58 PM

I have so many regrets from my time here, and I carry some of them with me still; I'm not sure when or if I'll ever let them go.

May 5, 2023 | 8:31 PM

i had a crush on you for some time. not the kind that made me feel like my heart was about to jump out of my chest but more like the soft flutter of a butterfly's wing on a warm, sunny day. it was the same feeling i got when i snuggled up with a cozy blanket while my friends and i drank hot cocoa and watched the first snowfall of the winter. but now, it's nothing more than the dull static noise i hear when a song on the radio fades out. i don't know where those butterflies have gone, but i'm still thankful for the stories, the is-this-a-date? dates, and the memories and dreams we've shared in between.

May 5, 2023 | 5:08 PM

lately, i'm remembering what it was like to talk to you. how it felt to be with someone so easily that i felt like i could do it forever. i'm so afraid i'll never be able to talk to someone else the way i could talk to you.

May 5, 2023 | 2:38 PM

I like you and I wish I could say it.

May 5, 2023 | 10:37 AM

Thank you for being one of my best friends at Yale. I'm so thankful to have met you. You are so incredible, and inspiring. It really hurts to not have you next year.

May 4, 2023 | 9:25 PM

my family embraced you with open arms, despite our differences. my mom always asked about you. you would've been welcomed in our home.

your family didn't feel the same about me, because of who i was. you couldn't even tell them about me.

i get it, though. your family's values are not under your control, and you couldn't hurt them. i'm sorry i couldn't be the partner they would have been happy with.

but i wonder, before they found out, before it ended, what you really felt.

when we went from friends to something more, when we mutually agreed we had feelings that just weren't going to go away, you told me that you were happy. i felt the same.

i wanted so badly to tell all our friends, to talk about you, to hold hands as we walked down the street. but you kept expressing all this doubt. that because of who i was, and because of who you were, we were doomed. we wouldn't last long. i remember crying in your room as you hugged me.

i wonder,
was there ever a moment when we were together when i did not weigh you down with a crushing guilt?

when we walked wooster square with all the cherry blossoms blooming, was there a pit in your stomach?

over and over, when you asked me to come over, did you ever feel terrible?

you were right. we didn't work out. when you told me, your voice was cold. but i hope i made you even a little happy.

to your family, i was a mistake. i hope i was not just a mistake to you.

May 4, 2023 | 9:00 PM

A part of me wants to stop, but another part of me wants to keep going. Whoever is winning depends on the day.

May 4, 2023 | 8:54 PM

My heart aches for you, and I can't help but feel an overwhelming obsession for you that surpasses my wildest dreams. You are simply amazing in every way, and I can't even begin to express how much I yearn for you to see me in the same light, even if just for a moment. As you prepare for your MCAT, I wish you nothing but the best of luck, but I can't help but wonder if we have a future together. Is there even a chance that we could be more than friends? Is there any way I could tell you that you are the only girl I've ever felt this way about, even though it's been a couple of years since we last spoke? I can't help but wish that we could be together. I need you to know that I am completely in love with you. Do you ever think about me the way I constantly think about you? In my mind, I've imagined a thousand different scenarios where I get to hold you close and kiss you. You have consumed my thoughts more than I would care to admit, and I have tried everything to move on from you, but there is just something so special about you. I don't think I can ever let you go. I wish you nothing but the very best in life, and I truly hope that fate brings us together again someday. You are the most gorgeous and beautiful girl I have ever laid eyes on, and I hope the universe tells you that every day.

May 4, 2023 | 8:33 PM

Dear Autowoman,

You say you love the Moon and its disciples:
“I won’t rest!”
Until every surface of your body is
Covered with ink of those brilliant
celestial bodies we call stars.

Your quest is in vain.
For every pore, scrape, and scar,
is already part of a most sacred constellation:
You.

You are not that which you love.
You are the Sun, and I am the moon.
I’ve learned so much about you,
and one truth is clear:
You always create your own light.

The Moon only shines because it reflects the Sun.
I am honored to be blinded by your beauty.

With love and eternal gratitude for making me a better person,
froggy

May 4, 2023 | 8:19 PM

I just read my admissions file, and I'm finding it a little hard to not be mad at my admissions readers for thinking I'm average/not caring. Jokes on you; I'm here anyways and I'm using all of Yale's resources.

May 4, 2023 | 8:17 PM

sometimes I get confused on whether or not I'm attracted to my friends, especially my female ones. I can't tell if these are real feelings, or if I'm just feeling really desperate to make out with a woman.

May 4, 2023 | 8:02 PM

There is a version of this where I had learned
how to trace and slowly erase my trauma.
Well before all the hurt I caused you, falling
into a cyclone of pettiness, revenge,
manipulation, self-hatred.
Never enough sober smiles.

We haven’t spoken in years.
Maybe you think I ignore this tortured past.
Maybe you think I hold my head high,
haughty and hideous.

If I dare to ask for your trust regarding anything,
let it be this, unequivocally:

I am ashamed of all the things I have done.

Though I have never truly shown it,
I still have much love for you. For you all.
Of glad volition and meek atonement,
I will spend the rest of my life chipping away
at the impenetrable surface of this insurmountable mass.

Can you believe that (?)
a perverse, budding part of me still hopes that
one day, one day, one day…
I'll be able to tell you what I think of all this.

I will never forget.

If I was any better, we could’ve been such great friends.
I should’ve learned how to love myself,
before indulging the dream of being loved by you.

Everything would've been so different.
You were right about so many things.
I’m sorry. I can’t stop saying it.

But yes, I know.
This will never be enough.

May 4, 2023 | 6:35 PM

I feel like an outsider, but that’s perhaps a bit of a hypocritical feeling, because I never tried to be inside, to be present, to feel as if I belong in the first place. If you don’t assert your presence in somebody’s life or a group, they won’t care about you. It’s as simple as that, really. Or perhaps, I couldn’t. I can’t start acting and enter any sort of fictional reality very easily. I feel so weirded out and think it’s pathetic and all in vein. But this too is not important anyways. Everything passes by as if I’m in kind of a dream. I do all these things, but never feel like I’m the one who is doing them. It’s sort of funny, how self-absorbed we all are. Anything is funny, really. When we realize how insignificant everything is. Moments pass by, people come and leave, my skin thickens day by day.

May 4, 2023 | 6:26 PM

they didn't listen to my side of the story.

May 4, 2023 | 5:07 PM

You are dramatic for no reason and need to calm down. Who cares that you’re not perfect. You can do bad every now and again. Life’s hard and you’re doing the best you can!

May 4, 2023 | 4:12 PM

I have always been too shy to confess my love to her, so when she began seeing someone else, I just distanced myself. But deep down, I yearned to tell her that she was one of the dearest friends I've ever had and that I regretted not keeping in touch even as just friends. We have barely talked for about two whole years now. The thought of us not being such close friends anymore weighs heavily on my heart, and every time I see her, I can't help but feel a certain way. I fear that she may have the impression that I dislike her and hold unfavorable opinions of her. However, the truth couldn't be further from that. To me, she is a unique and unparalleled individual, someone truly special (and will always be). I just hope that one day, we cross paths, and I will find the courage and the perfect moment to tell her how I feel.

May 4, 2023 | 3:50 PM

I know you loved me, but the way I loved you was simply different. I wanted to marry you, I wanted to grow old with you, I wanted to live with you, I wanted to die with you. You didn't want that. That's okay.

But a person doesn't love like that and just walk away. They heal and they scar. And then you come back and open that scar with your carelessness. How can I be your friend if you don't see that? How do we continue to be in each other's lives if you don't know how to respect me, the way I deserve to be respected? I don't want to spend my days wondering when you'll next break my heart.

I used to think you're the one that got away, but if anything it's the opposite. I doubt you'll ever see that either.

May 4, 2023 | 2:21 PM

We probably won't ever speak again, but if I knew you better I would have asked you out.

May 4, 2023 | 1:49 PM

Don't we do such a good job pretending that all is okay? Look at all the progress that we have seemed to make already. But the truth is, I am not ready to let you go yet. There isn't a time of the day that I don't think about what we were. I think about how your eyes crinkle when you laugh, your peaceful face so close to mine when we used to sleep next to each other, and how things seemed so natural between us. Don't you miss me at all? How are you so ready to let go of us. The world around me has been tainted by the thought and association to you. I see you in the streets that I walk down, the music that I listen to, and the conversations that I have with others. I've never felt safer with anyone else. I gave you all my all and I should've been more careful. Things have worked out perfectly with you. I just wished you cared a little bit more so I could be happy again.

May 4, 2023 | 1:15 PM

happy birthday my love. naggena bought me a chocolate cake slice to eat with you. she got a candle and everything. i also got my license today! i know you wanted to be the first person i would drive once i got it. i'll have to go to chick-fil-a and buy a meal for someone in your honor. nineteen never looked so good 💜 i hope you're resting in peace and love. i miss you so much.

May 4, 2023 | 12:28 PM

There is red everywhere: her truck, her walls, her hair. Red in the phone case she’d destroy whenever she’d drop it on her hikes, in the gargantuan water bottle she wielded at school like a mace, in the jerseys at the football game she took me to before homecoming. There is red on her skin, freckles and scars and in the flush of her cheeks when she was blushing–she was always, always blushing–and there was red in her grip, the way she held onto the oars as she rowed with a fierceness so disproportionate to the size of her body, the blood pooling in her knuckles with every stroke.

May 4, 2023 | 11:51 AM

fell in love with my best friend. wish I hadn't. I know that having feelings is not morally wrong in and of itself, but it's embarrassing. I don't know if they know, and I don't want to mess anything up. our friendship is probably the most loving, committed, mutually respectful, honest, and affectionate relationship I've ever had, and I'm grateful for that. shit -- that's probably why. we also live together (pray for me).

May 4, 2023 | 11:23 AM

I'm still talking to you in my mind. Today was a rough day so when I walked back into my room I instinctively picked up my phone to text you, only to be greeted by the immediate realization of how I just can't do that anymore.

So, yes I'm still talking to you in my mind. Yes, even after the letter. I hope you read it, it's okay if you haven't. There is no way of me knowing, which was partially why I did it the way I did it. I don't know if I want to know whether you read my unsaid thoughts or not; here or in a letter. I know you would reach out if you wanted to, which is a surprisingly freeing thought.

For years, I had this joke going on amongst my friends where I believed my soulmate was a squirrel and how I believed I would never be able to find them. And you, one night, out of nowhere, referred to yourself as a squirrel. I don’t usually go around looking for signs in life but I was pretty sure this was one.

I know you don’t remember where you leave things and panic when you can’t find them. So I will try to be exactly where we left each other if you ever decide to look for me. I might change but I promise I will try and be there in some form. Which reminds me of this new word I learnt yesterday: onsra. to love for the last time; or a bitter sweet feeling of knowing that a love won't last. So here is to you and a couple other things that exist in the spaces between words and time that make life so beautiful.

May 4, 2023 | 11:21 AM

I wish that we could be close again. I miss our late night talks, our inside jokes, the comfort I used to feel from being around you, and all the other intangible things that came from being your friend. I know some things were out of our control. For the things that were in my control, I'm sorry. And I miss you. I miss you a lot.

May 4, 2023 | 11:19 AM

if u weren’t such an asshole you’d be a catch
i don’t get why so many girls want you.

May 4, 2023 | 11:17 AM

you are such a pussy it’s honestly annoying as fuck but something still draws me to you and it sucks so much.

May 4, 2023 | 10:43 AM

Spending time with you makes me feel uncomfortable, but it's too late to confront you about any of it.

May 4, 2023 | 10:02 AM

I appreciate and love you so much that I literally almost cry when I think about you sometimes.

May 4, 2023 | 9:59 AM

This is a gentle reminder to be more kind and more forgiving to myself. Your future self will thank you.

May 4, 2023 | 9:27 AM

i've been chasing a higher goal. in high school i told myself that i wanted to come to the US to get the education i deserve, and when i made it to yale, i thought i would be happy with my achievements. i've been beaten down here, denied opportunities because i didn't do the 'right' things from the start or know the 'right' people. i have tested the limits of my potential from a young age and have considered pushed beyond my perceived limits, but im starting to hit the boundaries, and it feels terrible. i should be proud of all the things i have done to get to this place, but i feel like i havent truly been able to share the joy of being here because i've been conditioned to move on to the next big thing.

May 4, 2023 | 3:28 AM

The only barrier between us is touch. Physical touch is easier than words. It is much easier to kiss someone to show how much you love them than it is to try to put that feeling into words. But we don’t touch. Or I become just another one of his girls. Someone he was friends with for a while then dated then gone from his life. I have a feeling that I am here to stay. That our lives will find a way to wrap around each others.

May 4, 2023 | 3:27 AM

Sometimes after I hangout with my friends I feel so empty.

May 4, 2023 | 3:09 AM

I hated that you said no to me. So, I want you to want me every time you see me.

May 4, 2023 | 3:06 AM

I have always felt something for you. You might even call it love.

May 4, 2023 | 3:01 AM

I should’ve told you how much I liked you.

May 4, 2023 | 2:25 AM

You take forever to text back. I read through these messages and hope any corny one about "thinking of her" is you writing about me.

I'll miss you this summer. Sucks our timing was so bad -- almost a relationship but not quite, so summer breaks us off.

It annoys me how often I think about you.

May 4, 2023 | 12:13 AM

stan loona.

May 3, 2023 | 10:48 PM

i think i'm in love with you. but you're off-limits. what am i supposed to do?

May 3, 2023 | 10:08 PM

i think that you are lying to me and i hope that you do care.

May 3, 2023 | 9:54 PM

There is nothing more human than the desire to change the world.

May 3, 2023 | 9:52 PM

I'm sorry. I don't know how everything fell apart between us. I don't understand how, when, or even why we don't talk anymore and it breaks me apart.

There are moments when I find myself replaying our memories, searching for answers that I'll never be able to get. I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment when the tide turned, when we stopped being able to be there for each other. Maybe it was just a collection of tiny cracks that slowly eroded the wall we built, leaving us where we are today.

I want you to know that my love for you remains unchanged, despite the pain. It hurts to acknowledge that I couldn't fulfill the role I envisioned for myself in your life. There were times when I stumbled, made mistakes, and let you down. I carry the weight of those failures, and I'm sorry for not being the person you needed me to be.

If I could turn back time, I would be more understanding, patient, and attentive. I would listen to your fears and dreams, your hopes and disappointments, and be the rock to create your foundation. I would cherish the precious moments we shared and work harder to bridge the gaps that grew between us.

Although we may have parted ways, please know that I still cherish the memories we created together. I still hold a special place for you in my heart, where our love resides, untarnished by our parting. Life's unpredictable journey brought us together and, for a while, we were each other's refuge. I wish I could have been that refuge for you, always.

As I write this unsaid message, I hope it finds you in a place of healing and peace. I hope you find the strength to let go of any resentment or pain, as I strive to do the same. Our paths may have diverged, but the impact you had on my life remains ever-present. I will forever cherish the connection we once shared, and I truly hope that you find happiness and fulfillment. Maybe in another life, we could be happy, but for now, this has to be goodbye.

May 3, 2023 | 9:52 PM

i am going to tell you how much i love your touch
your heart
your gaze
your person
and you are not going to believe me
i am going to tell you i do not deserve you
and you are not going to believe me
i will never stop telling you.

May 3, 2023 | 9:49 PM

I just want to curl up into a ball and grow a shell - a really hard, thick shell - so that everything could stop hurting me so much.

May 3, 2023 | 9:38 PM

May 3, 2023 | 9:33 PM

nothing too profound here just a little reflection about disappointment. Do you ever feel really disappointed in yourself by how you let others down? Like everyone is busy, that's no excuse for why I shouldn't have been at your thesis presentation. And I know you're emotionally in a bad place right now but did I tell you how much worse I think I'm actually doing? I flaked on you because I didn't take the 2 extra minutes to schedule our hangout for the morning after that final project was due instead of the day of, and I feel like a little shit. I hate flakiness! Why am I being a flake??? I'm sorry. I could have done better. There is only time if I make time, and I should have done that for you.

May 3, 2023 | 9:10 PM

Reinstatement is lonely. I am finally about to graduate and I can't help but feel the grief of what I had wanted my experience to look like. All my meals are eaten alone but this time I cried while listening to the other graduates cheer their way through senior dinner. I'm proud of my accomplishments, despite the seemingly endless hurdles, but I am also sad. I'm sad I didn't get this with my original class. I'm sad that my college experience has been so heavy and traumatizing while others proclaim that these are the good 'ole days. I desperately hope mine are still coming. I'm angry about what happened to make me leave in the first place. I am angry that someone could treat another so poorly and that few took it seriously. I am angry for the version of myself who couldn't be. I grieve for all the days I dreadingly woke up to, for all the tears spilt on this place. I grieve for all the effort it took to get here unknowingly working for something that would nearly break me later on. Nearly. I now know I can do anything. I now know that doesn't mean I have to. The day I have been counting down to for so long is finally here. I will fly home, decorate my new and first apartment that I share with my favorite person and our beloved cats. I will rest and celebrate. I know that I have conquered this place and I praise the Universe that I never have to come back.

May 3, 2023 | 9:03 PM

It's funny, you're convinced I cry a lot as a person but you don't realize I have only ever cried around you

May 3, 2023 | 8:49 PM

I like you, a lot.

May 3, 2023 | 8:49 PM

you were my first, and maybe that doesn’t mean anything. but i miss you, and i miss your body, and i miss how you made me feel in that moment. i just want to be held and kissed by you again, and what’s the most painful is i know you probably don’t miss me or think of me the same way. sometimes i don’t know if i actually miss you or if i just miss not feeling so lonely, even if it was just for one night, i don’t know if i miss being held by you or just miss being held. but i think it’s both…i miss the feeling of just surrendering to something and someone else, of just trusting someone so fully that we didn’t think of anything except how much we wanted each other, *and* i don’t think i could really do that with just anyone. i think the fact i trusted you so much is what made it hurt, i trusted you with my feelings and my body and then you hurt me, and i don’t think you realized how much it meant to me when i let myself trust you. i really just wanted to feel loved, and i wanted to be loved by *you*, and i know this brief moment of connection we had wasn’t love and i shouldn’t confuse love with desire, but i know i still *could* fall in love with you so easily, and i want to, if you want to build on that connection and not just let it die. i don’t know how i’m going to feel when i see you again, but what i really want is to just start over and give it another chance. we could be so horrible for each other, or we could be really good for each other, but i kind of want to just try. but for now, i miss you and i can’t really stop thinking about you, and i probably just miss the idea of you and think of the version of you i’ve romanticized in my head, but still, for the moment it hurts, so bad. are you hurting too…?

May 3, 2023 | 8:44 PM

i wish you would talk to me again. i wish you would let go of your anger. i'm sorry. i miss when we were still friends. were we even friends?

May 3, 2023 | 8:40 PM

Pookie.

May 3, 2023 | 8:38 PM

I still think about you.

May 3, 2023 | 8:36 PM

I don’t love you yet, but the way you hold my face in your hands tells me that one day I will inevitably will—for better or worse.

May 3, 2023 | 8:35 PM

You think I didn't know. But I know everything.

May 3, 2023 | 8:22 PM

I miss you everyday. The thoughts and memories of you carry such a weight on me and so badly do I want to let it go, so badly do I want to let you go. But I cannot because your jokes, laughter, and jokes have made me my happiest self. To let you go would mean that I would be letting my best self go and I am not ready to do that either. I think I loved you.

May 3, 2023 | 8:20 PM

I have everything I wished for.

May 3, 2023 | 8:18 PM

I have been waiting for romance to happen to me for a long time.
Longer than the protagonist ever waits in the novels that raised me.
Longer than the main character ever waits in the Saturday-night living room movies I watch with my family.
Longer than my friends.
Longer than my parents did.
I fear aging now, not because it brings me closer to death, but because it marks another uneventful year of waiting.

I think "waiting" isn't what I'm supposed to be doing anyway.
I'm supposed to be searching, flirting, finding, trying.

Instead I wait. Unsure anymore what it is I'm waiting for. Unsure if it will come, and if it does come, unsure if I will know it has.

I refuse to speak about this to anyone, ever. In my silence, I preserve some sense of dignity. I may be pathetic, but at least I don't let it show. At least I am strong and graceful enough to bear it alone.

If my psyche was breakable, it probably would have snapped a long time ago under the fear and stress and pain of waiting. But it is too elastic, and instead it just stretches thinner and thinner to accommodate the accumulating weight.

Maybe if I knew when the waiting would end, it would be easier to bear.

May 3, 2023 | 8:18 PM

I wish we had never started dating because of how bad you always make me feel but we’ve been together so long it feels impossible to end. I hate you more than I love you.

May 3, 2023 | 8:15 PM

i wish grades mattered less in life, and that i could enjoy learning without having to worry about being scored for how well someone thought i was learning using their arbitrary criteria.

May 3, 2023 | 8:15 PM

I never should have given you the power to let your words affect how I view myself or my abilities.

May 3, 2023 | 8:14 PM

I know I’m going to do things one day. I’m gonna have a shit ton of stories to tell, a cool house of my own, and I WILL own a hedgehog. I’ll be able to help my parents out and let my dad rest. I’ll be able to have conversations with my mom and laugh and have compassion. None of us are perfect, all of us have made our fair share of mistakes. We’ve all been through hell and back, just in different ways. But these are the moments that challenge us to get back the fuck up and become better. My future will be a fucking amazing one, one that doesn’t rely on the presence of anyone else for it to feel fulfilling. I mean of course I want friends and family surrounding me, and I’ll love everyone who stops by. But at the end of the night, it’ll just be me in my bed, happy. Everything turned out the way it was meant to. I’m going to be somebody someday. I already am.

May 3, 2023 | 8:13 PM

I think I am a failure in life.

May 3, 2023 | 8:13 PM

I know we were not right for each other and I know our lives are going in different directions. You hurt me terribly, but you really were lovely, and I am going to miss you so badly when you graduate.

May 3, 2023 | 8:13 PM

I wish things had happened differently with us. I feel guilty that our friendship died when I left for college, but I know that it wasn't just my fault. Maybe we could have talked things out so that it didn't feel unresolved. I hope you're doing alright.

May 3, 2023 | 8:10 PM

I had proposed that we do the show together because I was hoping we would become better friends.

May 3, 2023 | 6:58 PM

seeing you in the periphery of my vision no longer makes me nervous. i used to take different routes that were out of my way and longer, just to avoid you. but i no longer know your schedule; i no longer remember your habits. i no longer remember when you take walks and where you take them. i no longer go out of my way to be out of your way.

i don’t forgive and forget. i hope that when you see me on campus, you remember everything. i hope you feel it in your bones, behind your teeth, in your throat. i hope you remember, but i hope it doesn’t cause you pain anymore. i’m tired, and i think you are too.

i don’t forgive and forget, but i think i’m finally at peace with you and what you were to me.

i don’t want to talk to you, but i wish you well. i truly hope you find what makes you happy in life. i hope you flourish in your passions, and i hope you cherish all you have. be well.

May 3, 2023 | 5:29 PM

this is a playlist i made about how i felt about someone and kind of for them as well.

May 3, 2023 | 4:17 PM

HOW CAN LOVELINESS BE A GUIDE TO TRUTH
You lectured well considering that you were filling in for Timothy Williamson. The fixation on plate tectonic theory was unnecessary, though it did remind me: a tectonic shift is what happened to us (I and he whom you will never meet). We were one piece and still are, just apart. If you meet us ever you will recognize our ripped edges our volcanos deep-sea trenches and fresh magma rising up to fill the cracks. We pushed a little, drifted more. Now we are continents. Teach me kintsugi?

May 3, 2023 | 4:02 PM

It has been tough.

May 3, 2023 | 3:17 PM

Many Yale professors are brilliant and incredible academics, but could do better caring for their students. Don't be afraid to talk to us about how we're doing outside of school, and try to make real personal connections! Yale students could use more of that and I think Professors may end up enjoying it too. Relatedly, talk a little less in seminar and see if you can get your students to make more insightful contributions which we're all capable of if given the space. If you don't know how to do either of these things, talk to Lincoln Caplan.

May 3, 2023 | 2:57 PM

I am made up of the people I love, of the pieces of themselves they offer me. Thank you for inviting me into your life. ❤️

May 3, 2023 | 2:52 PM

i wish we had met sooner.

May 3, 2023 | 2:18 PM

My little dermy wormy,

A man with legs so big and strong,
your nips so firm, your c..k so long,
thunder thighs, so strong and so bold,
mean you walk with a swagger, but you're just a cuckold.

May 3, 2023 | 1:29 PM

If I was a girl, we would already be together, wouldn’t we? I’d be your head cheerleader and you would be my peace. But I’m not, so I guess it’s just a drunken dream.

May 3, 2023 | 1:06 PM

This is an inner monologue, not meant for human consumption. There is an infinitude of things to worry about when the monologue begins, many of them self-contradictory. I lose sight of reality, so I want to reach out and touch it. I want to talk to you, to ask you how you are doing. But I broke things off so harshly, and without proper explanation, that I fear I have alienated myself; the horrible voice that starts the monologue stays for another day. I go through so many mental hoops and emotional gymnastics that I am left impure, dirty, tired, depressed. I feel different from other people. I feel as if there is no feeling, only turmoil. I feel guilty, embarrassed, and almost as if I am being mocked by a real person that is so evidently sitting in the foreground of my mind. They have changed, they have either suffered because of me or laugh at the thought of me ever hurting them.

What should I do, when I metaphorically and/or physically wake up tomorrow? I do not know. The last time I was this crazy, the worst thing that happened was I embarrassed myself in hilarious fashion; it was fucking great, because I realized I did not care about the actual person. I finally had separated looming, intrusive thoughts from what was ultimately a very simple confession to a confused human being. I don’t like to be manic, nor “spontaneous.” But sometimes I need this dramatic gesture to recalibrate.

I am going to kill this inner voice, gain some rational closure for an already emotionally resolved heart that still jumps with anxiety under the moon. With sadness at the gardens. With loneliness at the thought of food. I am supposed to enjoy life pain-free. All this is pain, so much unnecessary pain. Torture, really. Insanity.

Insanity because I have been here, going down this mental rabbit hole — oh, see there’s the rabbit I am trying to chase again — for months on end. I am soothed by my passions, by people who give me attention, but otherwise this is obsessively all that I think about. I am embarrassed to say, but it has affected my ability to hike, to fall asleep, to have civil conversation with people, and to keep a work-life balance. There isn’t much life in work-life currently. I have recorded videos, audio memos; scribbled all over my scratch work; threatened to eat the last ginger candy, only to realize I was threatening nobody; to no avail. I have this same monologue over and over again, wondering if you are tired of hearing this, realizing you aren’t hearing it, getting sad, getting angry at myself, worrying again about my emotional state, comforting myself, returning to address the imaginary person in the room and considering the first step of wondering again.

This is not love. This is self-hatred. I am so tortured by myself; I need to snap out of it. I can be better. I can love myself, in spite of moving on, which I view as such a tortured and ruinous decision, yet the choice was on the table for a while and the solid argument of incompatibility was presented. There should be no guilt in that. I must tell myself that I am not culpable in any way for what happened. I overthink things so hard that I blocked you because I needed the extra mental space. I was more worried that I would contact you than you would contact me. And I did it without mentioning it to you because then this whole bag of shit was going to spill out.

I think that you are a person with many admirable traits. I cannot speak much about your compassion: I only saw a very limited part of you. I know this because a young woman fell madly in love with me, and I looked at her innocence with disdain. I realize this is how you probably saw me: as an energetic dog that was not at the level of human comprehension of matters of the soul.

Only out of curiosity, I want to ask: are you still smart? Do you still do all those wonderful things of yours? Do your dreams shine as bright as ever? It feels like you have died and I am only working with a memory sometimes. But then I remember you are alive — and probably using my condoms (lol) — and that uncertainty of where you are, what you are doing, it gives room for the monologue.

May 3, 2023 | 12:17 PM

The Rabbit

The Rabbit, cunning and swift,
evades me in every move,
masquerading frailty,
through a sense of fortitude.

And I, for now, eluded,
dream with his presence.
Drooling, though secluded,
in conceiving of his essence.

Damned temptation of the flesh!
That sharpens my senses,
yet blinds me from all reason.

That in this unsettling stasis,
lowers my defenses,
and forces me to treason.

May 3, 2023 | 11:44 AM

you can't look at me that way if it's going to keep meaning nothing. don't look at me. stop. turn around. close your eyes. what is in your head when you see me? why won't you say it all to me? tell me this, tell me everything, i want to hold your hair and listen forever.

May 3, 2023 | 11:27 AM

dearest guinea pigs,

i loved you too rough for many years. then, i neglected you. we all did. i'm so sorry. you were wonderful guinea pigs.

May 3, 2023 | 11:22 AM

Why couldn't you love me more?

May 3, 2023 | 11:18 AM

i don't think i'm the problem. and i don't think we're meant to change people into the more tolerable versions of themselves.

May 3, 2023 | 10:42 AM

just remember the vision.

May 3, 2023 | 10:25 AM

turtles are the pancake of the sea.

May 3, 2023 | 10:23 AM

got fucked by my thesis grader but it’s alright bc i will make more money than him next year.

May 3, 2023 | 10:23 AM

Remember that no matter your personal situation, your own problems will inevitably seem paramount and insurmountable at some point. When this happens, it is important to take a deep breath, and recognize what you truly value. Remember to call you mom, spend time with your siblings, and cherish time with your loved ones.

May 3, 2023 | 10:21 AM

I think it is easier for us to blame each other than take accountability. To act like we have no other relationship than that of peers in the same class. If we had just spoken up a little sooner, things could’ve been different. Instead, I sit with less than a foot between us and the air is stone cold. I still haven’t wrapped my mind around the fact that we told each other everything and now cannot exchange simple words. And yet I am angry. I am angry that you never told me. I am angry that you repeatedly chose someone else over me after I supported you through everything. I am angry that every time I tried to check in on you, you were dishonest in your response. I am angry that you don’t see your place in this. I understand now where I went wrong, but you are not without fault. I am still angry. And the most frustrating thing is I don’t want to be angry anymore, I want to return to our lives three months ago. Except three months ago wasn’t healthy for us and that hurts. It hurts that it took us years to figure that out. But each time I try to think about it, I cannot escape the overwhelming anger. But most of all I am angry, I am angry because I forgive you, because given the option, I would choose to relive it every single time. And that anger has been my safe place for the last few months and I simply can’t give it up because that would admit that we will never return. So I hope that you are angry too.

May 3, 2023 | 9:36 AM

You’ve borne witness to my struggles, yet never acknowledged them, letting me deteriorate out of sight, out of mind. I may appear whole, but much of me is still mending.

May 3, 2023 | 8:54 AM

I have a crush on my best guy friend but we can't date because he's my friend's ex, and I'm afraid of ruining our friendship.

May 3, 2023 | 6:37 AM

you’re an idiot.

May 3, 2023 | 6:32 AM

don’t ever let anyone make you feel ashamed for being proud of yourself.

May 3, 2023 | 4:16 AM

A summer or so ago I decided to end it all again.

Seeing as I was alive after the other tries, I decided to make it easier on myself.

I was going to drink myself to death with water.

So I set a timer and every 4 minutes, I forced myself to drink another 20 ounce bottle of water for an hour. A grand total of 300 ounces in one short hour. A bit over 2 gallons in an hour. I figured with how constantly dehydrated I am it wouldn’t take too much to do me in anyway.

Easy.

They say the hardest part about finishing a task is getting started so I counted to ten and cleared my head.

One.
“Am I really doing this?”

Two.
“Why? Why would I do this?”

Three.
“Do I really need a reason?”

Four.
“Who will miss me?”

Five.
“I sure wont.”

Six.
“Give me any sign and Ill stop.”

Seven.
“Really, any sign at all.”

Eight.
“Nothing at all?”

Nine.
“Nothing.”

Ten.
“ ”

So I started. Bottle one goes down easier than anything Ive ever drunk before. My greedy little esophagus whorishly gulping water so as not to share any with my face, my chin, not so much as a single drop wasted.

4, 8, 12 minutes pass. Alarms go off. Bottles two to four go down easy as the first. Im unstoppable. Insatiable even.

You see, water never really tasted so good, so sweet, so rich and free before this.

For bottles 5 through 8 I really try and savor these last bits of life Ive got.

The birdsong is magnificent today. The Graham’s sage is blowing in the wind, I can practically catch the scent of the nectar pooling in the back of the flowers. The local hummingbird is here for the nectar, its plumage sparking and glittering in the sun like a million little spots of bismuth. The sun brightens, caressing, cradling, lapping at my face and arms with warmth, with life, with love.

The water is so sweet and lovely, I almost feel pity for the hummingbird. I couldn’t have picked a better resting place if I tried.

Bottle 9 and Im starting to feel a little abstract. A little fuzzy around the edges. A few points of heat on my crown, my temples, and my lower back.

By Bottle 10 the dreamy illusion fades. My head is starting to hurt, and I swear I can feel my kidneys, expanding, stretching the skin of my back glassy smooth. The urge to piss is strong, but I can hold it.

11 hurts. The water is still sweet, getting sweeter actually. The perfume, the smell, the water is turning into some adder’s honey - thick and sticky going down my throat. But this time Im determined to finish.

By twelve I give in and piss, because one way or another, its coming out anyway. My stomach is starting to get full. Its incessant sloshing churning is starting to make me seasick.

13, and my legs are wobbling. I cant even feel my my banging knees clanging against each other. Im starting to feel very light. Its not easy to stand anymore. For a moment, just a moment, Im scared. I wonder If its too late to stop.

14. I cannot stand anymore. My body is suspended in a ocean of pain. Water and piss dribble out of my waterlogged pores and other various holes. Lucky I landed on the toilet. My kidneys have taken to beating for my heart, sending wave waves of resignation through my body. Im not scared anymore. I asked for this. I deserve this. I start remembering every regret, every ill feeling, every mistake, every laugh, every kiss.

I realize I didn’t live enough. I wasn’t done.

No matter. Its too late. I can see the fuzzy blackness eating around the window of my vision, and I can just feel that when the blackness completely takes, I will be no more.

So I watch my ever-dimming world through my fingers and go through my rolodex memory of everyone Ive ever loved just to see them one more time.

But Im starting to realize that theres just not enough time to see everyone, the blackness is moving too fast.

I start flipping furiously through the notecards of my love and I carelessly fumble and spill them everywhere; I scramble to pick them off the squalid floors of my consciousness

My vision is a quarter spot on the mirror at this point, but I cannot let go before I see everyone. Its just not fucking fair.

Why did I kid myself? Did I really think I could just let go of everyone and everything I know just like that? Im many things, but supplicant is not one of them. Its almost surely too late, but I refuse to let myself die without thrashing, convulsing, screaming for my fucking life.

Theres not much time left, my dime of vision is ever shrinking, and shrinking all too fast. In a jerky movement, I slide ass first off the toilet lubricated by my sweat, pluck myself off the ground onto my shaky knees and punch and knead my inflated stomach with as much violence and force as I can possibly muster.

Nothing changes.

Nothing.

Nothing but a pinprick of light left at this point.

So I clasp my damp palms together in shaky embrace, and raise them quivering to the sky, a prayer of final violence silently whispered to my fading synapses.

Silence.

And all of a sudden my invocation is answered by arms, swinging back full force into my wrecked clammy body. The impact epicenter in my stomach immediately sends a fountain of thin watery bile out of my mouth into the toilet.

Aftershocks rock my bowels, the turbulence of tempest oceans building in my esophagus, and careening off the roof of my mouth, expelling the rest of this vile pale yellow liquid.

And as quickly as I thought it was all over, my vision clears, and im left shivering on my knees looking down at the poison Ive left in the bowl.

There I have a realization.

My whole life I assumed that this mess of burning stomach tar and other rancid shit was my identity. That it was as much me as I was it. That it defined me, was the worker, the toxic fuel of my body. But looking at this scene of vomit, water, sweat, and vile, just awful shit, I see that its not me at all. It was just inside of me for too long. Its no longer in me, but im still here against all odds. Its swimming lazily in the toilet, but Im here. IM HERE.

Im here.

I take a moment to just sit down and stop shaking. Then I get up, flush the toilet and clean up. I wipe the sweat off my body. Wash my glasses. Brush my teeth. Wash my face, and go back outside.

Then I grab my phone and call a friend.

“Hey, are you free to hang out tonight?”

“Yeah, I got some time around 6”

“Great, cant wait to see you.”

“You too. I love you man.”

“Love you too.”

May 3, 2023 | 3:52 AM

耶穌愛你！

May 3, 2023 | 3:51 AM

i love you and i want to be with you, but i am scared you don't want me anymore. please, just get back to me. i need you right now. i wish i was in your arms. i know i am a brat, but ti's not on purpose. i promise to be good (or whatever you want me to be)

May 3, 2023 | 2:40 AM

I still miss you. The time we spent have been the happy golden years of my youth; we were kids together.

‘Rather than dissipate, the connections I have fostered will be as never-ending as constellations in the sky. If our memories wane, the starlight that shines on us will serve as proof of our friendship.’

May 3, 2023 | 2:08 AM

One of the worst things I've ever done was break your trust. And even worse, I'm still doing it, I can't get it back.

I'm sorry. I am so so sorry for having made your past year so difficult. You were there for me when no one else was, you stayed next to me in my worst moments, but when you needed me, I failed you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have learned to expect less from me. I know it must have (and still does) hurt a lot.

I don't regret trying these past few months, but I regret that you probably do. I don't quite know what we are, or what will happen to us after we graduate, but I do know that I love you. I don't know if I can ever get myself to tell you directly, but I love you so, so much. I'm sorry if I've ever made you think otherwise. Thank you for being in my life. I'm sorry for everything. And thank you for everything.

May 3, 2023 | 1:46 AM

I feel like sleeping all day but I also have gone through enough YouTube where it gets boring staying inside and sleeping

May 3, 2023 | 1:43 AM

Mamá, tú me diste la vida. Tu vida fue muy complicada y llena de tragedias. Mi vida es demasiada fácil comparada a la montaña que tuviste que subir. Por ser niña, te di problemas tras problemas y entre todo eso nunca, ni una vez, me dejaste de cuidar aunque fuera a distancia. “Haz todo lo que yo nunca pude.” Esas palabras me dijiste cuando tenía unos 14 años de edad. Desde entonces, esas palabras suenan en mi mente. Esas palabras me motivan. Tu eres la razón por la que pude llegar a una escuela como Yale. Tu eres una gran parte por mi manera de ser y mis logros. No podría imaginar una mujer más valiente, lista, inteligente, y cariñosa como tu. Y yo llevo esa misma llama. Espero ser una mamá como tú.

May 3, 2023 | 1:24 AM

As hard as I try to be, I wouldn't characterize myself as a completely moral person. In the depths of my being, a subtle darkness lingers. I hide it, fight it, try to understand it, but it's still there. For the good I do in the world, I question what that darkness says about me as a person. And I question if we're all just playing along, hiding our own demons from each other.

May 3, 2023 | 12:55 AM

It was always you. I still remember the first time we met and I instantly felt comfort which was something I rarely felt around anyone, especially here. You brought so much joy into my life in such an unexpected way and I will never be able to tell you how grateful I am for that. We had so much in common and no matter what we did I had fun just being around you. I would’ve done anything for you and I think you knew that too. Being around you started to hurt because I knew that you would never choose me but I still chose that hurt because at least it still came with you. We got distant at times but always managed to find our way back to each other and some part of me wanted to believe that was serendipity. Eventually, I became aware of my delusion and just wanted my heart to stop wanting someone that didn’t want me. I messed up. I made a mistake that I’ll never be able to take back and I’m sorry that it hurt you. I was led to believe that you didn’t care about it but I should’ve trusted my gut. I wish I could talk to you again but I respect your choice of silence. I truly do believe the situation may have gotten twisted and misunderstood but I’ve accepted that I will never be able to tell you my side of things. I still pray for you and hope that you accomplish all the dreams that you used to tell me about. I’m sorry that I won’t be able to be alongside you when you achieve them but I’ll always be cheering you on silently. I genuinely am sorry for everything. If you ever feel moved to forgive me I’d really appreciate that chance, but if not I understand. You will always hold a special place in my memories.

May 3, 2023 | 12:11 AM

Kiko, no tuvimos nuestro último baile y ni un día pasó sin pensar en ese momento perdido. Ramoncillo, te culpe por la pérdida de ese momento sin pensar en en tu también perdiste a alguien. Pa Mon, en tu sonrisa veo a mi abuelo de nuevo.

Les debo mucho. Les debo mi educación, mis raíces, mis valores, y mi éxito. Sobre todo, les debo una disculpa. Kiko, disculpame por perder de vista lo que realmente importa en esta vida. Pa Mon, disculpame por no haber conocido tu cara hasta los 18 años de edad. Ramoncillo, disculpame por negarte memorias con tu hija.

May 3, 2023 | 12:51 AM

I think the reason I feel at peace with college ending is because for me, it never felt like it really began. Do I really feel like a Yalie? No. It's so statistically improbable that some small part of me still feels like it isn't real.

May 3, 2023 | 12:46 AM

I honestly don’t know if I can ever stop loving you. Right now it feels like I can’t imagine marrying anyone except you. I want and don’t want for my feelings to change because all I really want is for you to love me back.

May 3, 2023 | 12:38 AM
I hope when you look at the stars and take pictures of the moon, you think of me.
I hope when you head to bed at 4am, you think of me.
I hope when you post on your fucking vsco, you think of me.
I hope when you see that one tiktokker I followed from your account, despite you only following your friends and music, you think of me.
I hope when you cook, you think of me.
I hope when your back is feeling sore, you think of me.
I hope when you drive down that long windy road you love, you think of me.
I hope when you open that cursed bird app, you think of me.
I hope when you play games on your computer, you think of me.
I hope when you watch la la land, you think of me.
I hope I hope I hope I really hope you think of me
A person truly dies when they’re thought about for the last time
Please don’t let Her die.

May 3, 2023 | 12:34 AM

do I matter to anyone? if I stopped reaching out, would anyone ever reach out to me?

May 3, 2023 | 12:26 AM

I've always thought you're kinda cute!

May 3, 2023 | 12:25 AM

I'm mad at my mom.

May 3, 2023 | 12:11 AM

i want to tell the world that i lost you, that you were my best friend and now you're gone but I'm scared of being pitied. i don't want people to look down on me. why does your death haunt me still? I've been holding onto this sadness inside me all year, scared to tell anyone but the weight is getting too heavy to hold on my own. when will i find someone to share my burden, to hold me as i cry? does anyone care?

May 3, 2023 | 12:09 AM

I'm glad to let things go.

May 3, 2023 | 12:01 AM

is it a crime to imagine being with multiple people? i think about three and i know i must choose one. but how do i choose when i don't know my own thoughts, my wants? I'm scared since I love all of them and this choice could destroy my friendships with the others.

May 2, 2023 | 11:59 PM

Don’t live the rest of your life in your hometown. Life is WAY too short to not explore the unknown.

May 2, 2023 | 11:52 PM

you have truly made this team. and I really wouldn’t be the same person without you! and I’ve been putting off thinking about you leaving because it feels unreal and I still don’t feel ready to know what it’s like without you right around the corner.

May 2, 2023 | 11:52 PM

May 2, 2023 | 11:50 PM
there are so many moments with so many different people where the world stops, the light hits them differently, and i see something beautiful and unique in its own way — something that makes me treasure the gift that is being able to hang out with them, walk down york street with them, say "hi" in the dining hall to them, to know them

May 2, 2023 | 11:50 PM

i wish you knew that the things i told you never bothered me, the things that i was okay with, i wasn't. but by the time i could admit that to myself, it was too late -- now it's my burden to carry.

May 2, 2023 | 11:49 PM

i have feelings too, you know.

i know you think you know who i am from the image i project or the rumors you hear about me, but i am just a person. i wake up every day and go to class. i try to be a good friend. i have an obsession with the dining hall couscous salad. i yearn to feel whole and loved (two things that often go together, but don't have to).

what is it about me that makes me such a good villain?

May 2, 2023 | 11:48 PM

when I said that we should get married I wasn't joking. I know you think I was. I know you were joking when you said yes. but i think we could be really happy. i know you.

May 2, 2023 | 11:47 PM

i don’t go here.

May 2, 2023 | 11:40 PM

there is a reason that college "dating rules" exist. no college-cest. no floor-cest. no suite-cest. no major-cest. no show-cest no society-cest. it never ends well.

why do i always think i'll be the exception?

May 2, 2023 | 11:39 PM

You’re like that jazz song you sent me that one time. I listen to it and think of you. I think about you a lot. I’m trying really hard to hide how I feel about you. And after this year it will be harder to explain why. I don’t know how to explain everything without hurting your feelings or my own feelings.

May 2, 2023 | 11:31 PM

I loved you.

You can try all you want to convince yourself that what we had wasn't love, but I know it when I feel it. And when I see it.

Our love was unexpected. I just didn't want to be the only +1 at a pregame for a society I was not in. I know neither of us expected for our evening to end with making out on an empty Woads dance floor and completing my 14 college challenge. So classy.

And from there, we only moved faster. At 4 AM that same night, I woke up and felt something different. No desire to run. No feeling of completion for a hookup well done, ready to move on. I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay wrapped in your arms for as long as I possibly could (which probably wouldn't be long because you have little twiggy arms and I definitely weigh more than you), but I wanted it nonetheless. So I poked you, gently laid a kiss on your lips and asked if you wanted to get up in 4 hours to get Atticus iced chai. You said yes.

So we dragged ourselves out of bed at 8 AM, even though neither of us are morning people, got ready (me in yesterday's clothes), and walked to Atticus. We took our drinks to go and headed for Murray (so I could, you know, NOT be in yesterday's clothes). We held hands the whole time. We sat on the swings in the first-year courtyard and looked at each other in a whole new light. A passing first year who spotted us at Woads waggled her eyebrows at me. I was so embarrassed. But also, I didn't really care, because I felt no embarrassment about being with you. I think that was our first date.

Officially, it was 2 days later, cuddling on the Vivi's couch and asking you to tell me your life story, because I talk a lot, and you'd certainly hear mine, but you're quiet and guarded and I knew you'd only share if I pried. You talked for 2 hours straight, but I could have listened for days. We took our boba and decided to do what we do best and break onto as many roofs as possible over the course of the night. We got 3 solid ones. There was a lot of kissing.

Oh, you also met my parents. To be fair, it was parents' weekend, but I instantly regretted showing them a photo of you the night before my senior acapella concert. They found you in the crowd and said hi. They thought you were sweet.

Things ended as quickly as they began. You asked to go for a "we need to talk" walk. You weren't ready for a relationship and too scared to keep going. This was over 6 months ago, but yesterday, for the first time ever, I heard you call that moment "our breakup." It felt weird. After all, we were never really together? Were we?

But you know all of this. You were there. What you don't know (or maybe you do, but now I'm confirming it 110%) is that I loved you.

I loved you a LOT. Every moment I spent with you, I felt that all encompassing feeling, where all the empty space between the atoms in your body are suddenly full. It's warm. It's love.

And the most crushing part of it all is I have to pretend that I don't still love you. When we run into each other at parties, or work on projects together, or any other classic Yale ways of never being able to escape people you've slept with, and someone asks "how do you two know each other", we look at each other for just a moment, and I see in your eyes a flash of what we used to be. The love that still lingers in us both. And then you cut in with "MCDB."

Which isn't even true. We totally met setting up for a party.

But I digress. I loved you. I love you. I will continue to love you until there's a reason for me to stop. Because when I think of you, I always feel the space in between my atoms filling up.

And God, I wish you felt that too.

May 2, 2023 | 11:11 PM

don't let me be the one that got away.

May 2, 2023 | 11:03 PM

I'm sorry I have not been the person you needed. I have not set strong enough boundaries, I have been too afraid to do anything that would make me (even remotely) look like the bad person. I hope things become different soon. "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own." John 15:18-19

May 2, 2023 | 11:02 PM

I walked to meet you for dinner. My boots dragging on the ground, I was dreading yet another meal where I put on my mask and force the get-to-know you questions out my mouth. The superficial conversation that comes hand-in-hand with "grabbing a meal." But when I entered the common room, I immediately recognized you; it was as if you had been adorned with a glowing halo atop your head. When I saw your radiant smile, I felt a flicker of light reilluminate my soul. When you embraced me – a stranger – yet your tight squeeze was so familiar, so warm, so inviting. When you told me your passions, I felt as if I was holding up a mirror and looking back at myself; an older, more sophisticated, finally-got-herself-together version of myself. Tears swelled in the back of my eyes but I didn't let them fall. I smiled back at you. Grinning. Ear to ear. Though our paths had just now converged, I felt I had known you forever. You were my proof that destiny existed. That night, you were my sign that life could be beautiful, and relationships were precious, and hope was not lost. After our meal, I squeezed you tightly – confident this would be the second of many many more. When you were out of sight, my tears fell. They streamed down my cheeks – a release of an all-consuming homesickness and fear and anxiety I would never find my place. I called my parents as I skipped home in the rain. "We're going to be best friends!" was the joyous refrain of my exclamations. Over the following days, I imagined riding shotgun while you drove us down winding country roads. I am playing the songs you recommended to me the previous week. We are singing along. Soon, we are stopping at a picturesque coffee shop. We sip our chai tea lattes and debrief the week. You cry, I pass you tissues. We laugh. We pick flowers. We have each other. Three weeks later, I think back on the dinner we had with a confusion. I check our texts. Still no response. So many romanticized plans still spinning in my head. Tears swell at the back of my eyes. This time, they are out of self-pity. I still have not found my place. Did you not feel the instant connection I felt? You are now my proof that destiny does not exist – just coincidence, and bodies bumping into bodies, unfortunate cliffhangers, and innocent hope meant to be lost.

May 2, 2023 | 10:49 PM

i hoped you would text to ask for a meal, coffee, drinks. after the last time, i promised myself i wouldn't reach out first. i thought to myself, he would reach out if he really wanted to, if he really enjoyed me and my company. if he wanted me. i finally sleep well knowing you don't.

May 2, 2023 | 10:52 PM

I miss you every single day of my life.
I wish I didn’t feel this way.
It hurts as much as if you had left this earth
Which you did not
She just took you away from me
Is love ever that strong?
Or is it just a façade?
Is it love what you feel?
Or is it fear of being alone?

Is forgiveness even possible?
They say times heals all the wounds but it’s been two years and it still hurts the same
I wish she’d never came into our lives

She, the unnamed, took you away from me

I just want you to know that no one on this earth loves you as much as I do
No one on this earth looks after you the way I do

Te extraño mucho papi. Te extraño con toda mi alma.

May 2, 2023 | 10:52 PM

i get annoyed when you ask questions twice. when you don't understand me the first time i explain something. but i know there will come a time when all i'll wish is to hear you ask me a question. when all i'll want is to get on the phone with you to tell you something again and again and again. so while i can, i'll answer anything you ask.

May 2, 2023 | 10:49 PM

May 2, 2023 | 10:35 PM

Still, every love song is about you.

May 2, 2023 | 10:29 PM

Protect the Unborn.

May 2, 2023 | 10:25 PM

Wanna hang out tonight.

May 2, 2023 | 10:18 PM

I love you.

May 2, 2023 | 10:09 PM

today (5/2/2023) has been a lovely day. I wrote part of a history paper in the morning, phoned my mother to check in, and ate lunch with a friend. we discussed our finals, summer plans, and the impending end of college. in the afternoon, I went to my advisor’s office hours and then another professor’s book talk. At dinner I helped a friend think through her latest hookup quandary. Now I have just returned from hosting an evening study break where I got to catch up with some classmates whom I don’t see often enough. I am feeling a strong sense of belonging, for which I am very grateful.

May 2, 2023 | 10:04 PM

i fell so so in love with you nine months ago, and analyzed every single tiny detail of our interactions for months trying to find signs that you felt it too because on some level i believed you did. nothing happened because people like you do not fall in love with people like me, but i am endlessly grateful for you because you made me believe that something was possible, that i was possible, for the first time in years. i should know better and i mostly do, but when i see you, i still see you through my eyes in august and you look like the sun.

May 2, 2023 | 10:03 PM

i want a love that feels like sinking into warm water.

May 2, 2023 | 10:03 PM

Sometimes I wonder if we were ever actually friends.

May 2, 2023 | 9:55 PM

You'll never think it's your fault, and I've had to come to terms with that. I'll continue to be the bigger person, but it hurts that, by default, I had to be in the first place.

May 2, 2023 | 9:55 PM

I am struggling, but instead of being one of my confidants, you are one of the causes. I can only hope that more time will help us both heal, and that maybe, just maybe, we’ll pick up the pieces together when we return in the fall.

May 2, 2023 | 9:55 PM

i wish i could confess to you, but i don't even know if this feeling is something permanent enough to be released out to the world. do you feel the same way? do you want to try this with me?

can't you look at me? can't you see my questions reflected at you in my eyes?

in this liminality, i can't move on from you.

May 2, 2023 | 9:53 PM

i am so much more than enough.

May 2, 2023 | 9:48 PM

my love may be taken advantage of. it may be trampled and spat on. it may be absorbed and unrequited. and that's okay. i love because i can. i love because i have so much of it in me. i love to my fullest and i think that's the best i can do.

May 2, 2023 | 9:47 PM

I wish my relatives didn't make me so insecure about my weight growing up. I don't think I've ever had a good relationship with food as a result and healing and loving myself as I am has been an uphill task. Hopefully, I'll get there and know how it feels to be on the other side of the hill.

May 2, 2023 | 9:46 PM

im secretly scared that im unlovable.

May 2, 2023 | 9:45 PM

my discomfort shouldn't be an inconvenience. i don't think you'll ever be capable of understanding how i felt and it hurts that you won't. but i don't have to assuage your guilt.

May 2, 2023 | 9:44 PM

I can never hate you, even though I should. I was my worst person when I was with you.

May 2, 2023 | 9:39 PM

i thought about stopping and kissing you as we ran for cover in the rain. part of me told me that maybe i should wait. nonetheless, thank you...for holding my umbrella and showing me a good time.

May 2, 2023 | 9:39 PM

you were awful to me, a waste of my time. I never should've put up with any of it but I did and it ruined me. and you still think it's my fault. you need to grow up and see the world as it is and see that you make mistakes too, and not everyone will sit around and wait for you to get your act together like I did.

May 2, 2023 | 9:35 PM

i'm worried we'll never find a middle ground. i feel the pain, there are some things that are too close to home. things that you could never debate or discuss. that's totally fair. but why can't we depend on others to do the listening and debating? maybe it's the optimist in me, but how do you just cut people off without being willing to let them grow from their mistakes or listen to their reasons? is that so wrong? i knew these people before their actions or ideology. we were friends ... we ARE friends ... how am i supposed to just forget that part of their humanity so easily ?? i know i can't fix them but is ostracizing them the right solution?

May 2, 2023 | 9:35 PM

I like you. I liked you a few months ago. But now the feelings have resurfaced but this isn't all or nothing. So here I am, being by your side, enjoying your presence, and hopefully, you'll never know that I thought the possibility of us being more than friends.

May 2, 2023 | 9:29 PM

Yale is not a place for free thought.

May 2, 2023 | 9:17 PM

There is something beautiful about your thoughts. They are all yours.
For once they are written down, they become tangible.
And everything tangible
Is meant for someone else.

May 2, 2023 | 9:14 PM

you make me feel uniquely loved. like the time I was deathly ill in bed, and I texted you to bring me a peach cup and was immediately disappointed when I heard ur phone ring near the bed. to my delighted intrigue, you entered the room bringing me a refrigerated peach cup anyways. i asked you how you knew to bring it even if your phone was still in the room. you smiled and just said “what do you mean? i know you girl”

May 2, 2023 | 9:12 PM

I love you, but it’s hard to be your shoulder to cry on, because I know your shoulders are too fragile to support tears of my own. Sometimes when I hug you, I feel so lonely.

May 2, 2023 | 9:08 PM

i'm in love with you.
i have been for over a year.
we're best friends. that's all we are.
the other night, you cried and told me how you felt no one would ever love you.
after you fell asleep, i sat in your common room and cried too.
i can never tell you. i know you can't return my affections. and our friendship is too precious to risk.
but i know your favourite foods and your triggers and how hot you like your tea. i know how to read your mood and how to make you smile. i know the sculpting of your muscles, which ones need a gentle touch to ease away the soreness after a long day. i spend my paycheck on flowers and food for you. and i would give anything for you to know that not only is it possible for someone to love you so deeply and wholly - it's the easiest thing in the world.

May 2, 2023 | 9:04 PM

If you want to rule the world, you just have to be a little bit braver than everyone else.

May 2, 2023 | 8:57 PM

you have done everything for me, and yet my biggest insecurities are because of you. you more than anyone need someone to be there for you, and I'm the only one who can, but I'm figuring out life myself.

May 2, 2023 | 8:56 PM

I don't want you to leave.

May 2, 2023 | 8:54 PM

perhaps you should stop ignoring the voices and labor of color in your life. <3

May 2, 2023 | 8:54 PM

why would it be a sin to simply love someone else. after all, isn’t your whole message to the world about loving others? yet, i sit here, a closeted homosexual, afraid to live my truth. afraid of experiencing the purest, strongest, most treasuring emotion that you created. i fret in my conundrum: “what if they’re wrong? what if i can be with the woman of my dreams? but, what if they’re right? what if i go to hell?”… i’ll never know: analyzing all the different interpretations of texts discussing homosexuality in the bible is like jumping down a bottomless pit. what i do know is that i’ll never be truly assured, truly content, truly happy. honestly, it all feels like a sick trick: true love on earth vs. divine destiny. the funny part is that you know i won’t stop believing in you too. meaning, there’s no escape, just as there is no longer a glimmer left in my eyes when i think of my future. “just marry a man, have sex, and start a family that way to avoid condemnation. just live as an imposter to your true self and you’ll be golden...”

…
woohoo! oh boy! i just can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with no joy!

May 2, 2023 | 8:53 PM

we should all refuse to pay student loans back they can't get us all

May 2, 2023 | 8:53 PM

hey,

i need you to be honest with me.

you said that you like me, that you love me in a way that you don’t love most people, that we’re similar, but i don’t get it. richard siken said ‘if you love me, you don’t love me in a way that i understand’, because i don’t. i don’t understand. i know you but i also don’t. i thought you just wanted me to leave you alone and i almost did until you kissed me that night that we had too many whiskey sours and shared too many childhood memories with each other. i keep thinking about your father walking you home from school and i want to know what your sister looks like, because you think so highly of her and i trust your opinion of everything.

you say that you like me but you don’t talk to me or spend time with me unless i make you. but you also come to me of all people in the dining hall when you could sit anywhere and no one’s making you do that. so what does that mean? i overthink every interaction i have with you. am i important to you? you’re important to me. maybe too important.

you said that you could consider yourself close to someone and not think about them a lot. was that your way of telling me you don’t think about me? i think about you when i go to the bookstore. i think about you when picking vegetables at the grocery store. i think about your shit handwriting when i’m taking notes.

i think about you all the time. i go through my day imagining what you would say about things. i want to know what your opinion is on everything. i wonder if you also have bad dreams like i do, if you have nightmares where i don’t love you like i have about you. i wake up and wonder if you even want to be my friend. last week i cried for almost an hour because i can’t figure out what you want from me, and i’ve always been able to figure it out.

i know that you’re scared. you’re scared of a million things, and maybe you’re scared of me and how much i could love you if you let me. call me selfish but i want to stay in your life. i want to keep laughing at your jokes and keep talking about nothing and everything at the same time. please let me walk two miles to get coffee with you on a saturday. please be honest with me. here is me being honest with you:

i’m so happy that i met you. it’s one of the very few things that happened this year i that i’m happy about at all. you’re the only person i know where i can tell you things and you take them in and hold them close to your heart instead of letting them pass through you. you make me feel like i don’t just exist but that i can live. maybe i’m being dramatic— i tend to be that way. i feel emotions in a way most people would dismiss as being ridiculous, and i only have one more year until the teenage melodrama excuse becomes null.

now please, do me a favor and tell me you were lying about liking me, because at least that would make more sense than the alternative. you said you were trying to lie less, but i hope that you can give me one last lie. i won’t take it personally. i won’t tell you about how at night before i fall asleep i sit in the chambers of my own heart and wonder if i should have just kept my feelings to myself.

i love you. it will end. i think we could make a love that is meaningful but i’m speaking into a void. and as selfish as i am i want you to live a life that you’re happy with even if i won’t be there when you grow old like you said you wanted to. do you want to know my real secret? i don’t know what love really is. there is nothing more to this story.

May 2, 2023 | 8:50 PM

I'm counting down the days until you graduate and I never have to speak to you again, not despite but because I love you. I can't do it anymore.

May 2, 2023 | 8:49 PM

We were inseparable and then something happened and I'm not even sure what it was. It was so long ago. Do you remember? It was so many small things that each grew insidiously. You pushed me down to prop yourself up in front of everyone you wanted to impress. I folded inwards so that you could soak up the sun. I put up with it because I knew you were insecure and I knew why. I wish I told you how much it hurt then. I wish I could tell you now. You've moved on, but a big part of me is still there, reeling. Resentment and anguish bound to me as a wound that won't heal.

May 2, 2023 | 8:48 PM

I’m sorry I didn’t help you: I loved you too much to know how.

May 2, 2023 | 8:47 PM

i'm sorry for lashing out! I wish we could go back to how we were before!

May 2, 2023 | 8:45 PM

My toes haven't bent the same way since the incident. I notice a difference between my left foot and my right foot; the toes on the left curl differently. It makes me wonder if it'll be more of a problem when I'm not 21 years old anymore. I drew this diagram on the day that it happened, December 11th, 2020.

May 2, 2023 | 8:44 PM

Man, I can’t stop thinking about her.

May 2, 2023 | 8:43 PM

a medium of hurt, you
claim your intention
as good as kind
yet slyly slither under my skin
and break my lonely bones.

May 2, 2023 | 8:41 PM

I miss our friendship.

I often think about how much time we spent together, and how it washed away like nothing had happened. It's painful to think you so easily dismissed what I thought to be one of the best platonic relationships I had developed here, yet here we are. I admit I fucked up in the way I reacted, and I should have brought up the issue to you sooner because I knew you wouldn't say a word about it without me starting the conversation, but no, I decided to give the cold shoulder just hoping you would give a simple, "What's up?"

Nothing.

I know I could have avoided this, but on principle I felt I needed to be upset about what had transpired just before. It just floored me that after weeks of being together nearly everyday, going to parties together, telling each other things we hardly told anyone else, that you could just drop off of the face of the Earth without a hint of what was going on. For weeks, I tried to make some kind of contact, but I can't force you to open your phone and text me. It just hurt. I have had friendships fall through, people skip on plans, friends leave me out of events and not invite me anywhere, the works, but I felt like you actually wanted to be with me, so you can understand why the person I spent so much time with and so much love on suddenly vanishing out of my life can be so disturbing.

So when you resurfaced like some animal we all thought went extinct, I was upset, and I wished you would have just said anything so we could talk it over, but you never were the one to take initiative like that. So we stopped talking, stopped seeing each other, stopped being friends, I guess. As time grew longer, I would think about how you never reached out, and I had less and less hope for recovering what was lost. Most of my other friends didn't understand why I was upset, but that doesn't make it any less valid. Regardless, I realized I could only fix it by reaching out to you, but by that point you wouldn't even give me the time of day, and up 'til now you still haven't opened a single message from me in over a year and a half.

Now I'm just hoping one day I can run into you around campus and awkwardly bump your shoulder and try and talk to you and try and be friends again. I'm hoping someone will say something to you and you'll have a change of heart and we can make up. But now all I hear is that you don't want to make any friends anymore and you just want to graduate and leave and that you don't go out that much anymore so I wouldn't even see you on campus. Writing this, I think maybe you'll see it and maybe you'll know it's me and maybe you'll finally message me. Yet I know that you probably won't see this, and if you do you wouldn't even text me.

But that doesn't make it hurt any less.

If by the grace of God you read this, just know that I wish the best for you, and I have gone through hell without you. If you truly don't want anything to do with me, a single text would mean the world just for the closure. I know you don't like confrontation, but it would be better to know than to be left wondering. If you don't hate me at this point though, I would do anything to have back what we had before. Maybe we can have it, if only for a fleeting moment before we move on to the next phase of our lives.

I'm deeply and wholly sorry for anything I could have done to upset you, and I miss you more than you could imagine.

Sincerely, me.

May 2, 2023 | 8:37 PM

There's a person I hold so dear,
My love for them grows every year,
They light up my day,
In every single way,
I thank fate for bringing them near.

May 2, 2023 | 8:37 PM

Thinking of you helped me through some very dark days. Well, I should be specific: thinking of you and me. It's partly due to my own mistakes you'll never see me the same way, and partly due to random chance. It's also a good thing, by any reasonable standard. And yet here I am, putting out the thought into the world. I wonder if that's a sign of my personal foolishness, another entry in the catalogue of stories that that the heart wants what it wants and brooks no questions, or merely a statement on the darkness of the days? I wonder if I'll find ever find out, in another life, or, perhaps, in this one.

May 2, 2023 | 8:35 PM

please hold white women accountable.

May 2, 2023 | 8:35 PM

The biggest thing I am going to miss at Yale is playing soggy biscuit with my friends. It gives me an amazing adrenaline rush. I am not sure if I am going to find like minded individuals when I move into the real world and that makes me sad. I have never lost.

May 2, 2023 | 8:33 PM

I don't really understand why I cared for you so much, or why I still do. Everything about us was so weird. It didn't line up with what I expected a relationship to be, and that scared me. If we became more, how was I going to explain myself? I left because I was scared, and I would do it again. I know we haven't talked for a while, but every few weeks I think of you and feel a lot. It's still so beautiful to me that I don't have a shred of doubt that you think of me too. I know you think I didn't care as much as you did, and that might be true. I wish it wasn't. I wish I could talk to you again. I wish we could've met differently.

May 2, 2023 | 8:33 PM

I always loved this picture of you - your lips look so pretty.

May 2, 2023 | 8:30 PM

You clearly forgot about me even though you said you wouldn't. So I forgot about you. But you didn't even care in the first place - at least not as much as you claimed you did.

May 2, 2023 | 8:29 PM

When I first laid eyes on that absolute tree trunk of a third leg in the showers I knew you were the one, but I know that you don't feel the same way... Hopefully one day our paths will cross and you will come around xox.

May 2, 2023 | 8:28 PM

I'm not really sure when/why/how you started gaining interest in me or my life. I'm even less sure of why you began to say I love you back or express being proud of me. I hate that it matters to me. I hate that it validates me in a way I was looking for since I was born and never found in myself.

May 2, 2023 | 8:27 PM

I wish you would make things happen for yourself because you deserve them and I hate to watch you wait.

May 2, 2023 | 8:27 PM

I really liked being around you. What did I do wrong?

May 2, 2023 | 8:26 PM

I’m sorry for not telling you how special you are to me, that I maybe loved you, that I maybe still do. You treated me horribly. But if I said any of that stuff, would you have done better?

May 2, 2023 | 8:25 PM

Dating you taught me that talk is cheap. I wonder if you actually believe that you did all you could to love me and care for me. I'm guessing you do, and that makes me unable to blame you for my pain. You hurt me a lot, and made me question myself, and wonder if I was overly needy. Even so, leaving you was the hardest thing l’ve ever done. What do I do with this void?

I like to imagine that that message posted at 4:13 AM, May 1, 2023 was you. I know you can’t be bothered to do this kind of thing, but I still like to think that that is how you feel.

May 2, 2023 | 8:16 PM

yesterday I tripped on shrooms and took a walk around campus. I lay on the grass with blooming trees around me and felt the earth breathing below me. I felt myself sinking into the grass and becoming one with the dirt. It felt like mother nature was giving me a hug. At one point I thought I was decomposing into the ground, but it didn't feel like I was dying, it felt like I was being enveloped by the nature around me and I felt happy because I knew that my body would eventually give rise to new life.

I remember thinking that everything was going to be okay. I am my own universe. Everything I experience is me. Everything is everything. Everything is going to be okay.

I decided to keep walking and found myself under this tree and I felt like I was in fucking Narnia or something. It was great!

May 2, 2023 | 8:16 PM

the feeling of a warm summer breeze whistling through your hair.

May 2, 2023 | 8:15 PM

i am not sorry for choosing to save myself. i'd do it again.

May 2, 2023 | 8:14 PM

I read in the news today that there is a loneliness epidemic in the U.S. After laughing superficially for a few minutes, I feel a subtle sadness rise in my stomach. The notion that a third of people in this country feel alone in this world shows that our progress as a society has been illusory. To be at the point in human history where we are most virtually connected through technology but can no longer connect or be there for each other at a human level says much about the society that we have become in the mission of maximizing productivity and profit. At the risk of sounding cliche, when did we lose our humanity? When will we realize that memories and human connection are worth more of an investment than anything else?

May 2, 2023 | 8:13 PM

I think I loved you when we were together. And even after, for a while.

May 2, 2023 | 8:12 PM

You did hurt me. You were foolish and selfish.

May 2, 2023 | 8:06 PM

I’m sorry I farted and it stunk really badly 🤥 I know you heard it happen and thank you for not saying anything <3

May 2, 2023 | 8:03 PM

I am so fucking sorry for pushing you away like I did to those who hurt me. You didn't deserve that. You weren't them; you were so much better. I wish I knew how much you cared and I wish you knew how much you meant to me.

May 2, 2023 | 8:02 PM

i hope your wildest dreams come true, even if i am not there to witness them.

May 2, 2023 | 8:02 PM

not everyone comes from the same environment. something that is completely unacceptable to someone is maybe completely fine for someone else. do not judge people for who they are without having a constructive conversation about. pc culture is very alien to people sometimes, take it easy.

May 2, 2023 | 8:00 PM

i wish you'd take it back. all of it.

May 2, 2023 | 8:00 PM

I have made out with several guys this year alone and you know about every single one of them. What you don't know is that almost every single hookup has been a futile attempt at getting you off of my mind. You are one of my best friends on this campus and I cannot and will not ever do anything to jeopardize that. And I know it would never work out, not in a million lightyears, but by now it's clear that I have feelings for you and that terrifies me.

May 2, 2023 | 7:59 PM

I'm so tired of loving and caring about you more than you care about me. I hate that I love you unconditionally, and that the way you treat me doesn't change how I always miss you and want you close to me. It feels so unfair and I wish so badly that I could change how I feel. I never know how to move forward with you. Sometimes I wish we never met.

May 2, 2023 | 7:58 PM

Happy 15th birthday! I didn't get to tell you this, but I loved seeing your dress because you looked awesome + it reminded me of home and when I was in my friend's quince court.

May 2, 2023 | 7:58 PM

i smile every time i see green bikes. they remind me of yours. how you loved to ride it. how i grew to love you. it was just as easy. once i learned how i could never forget.

May 2, 2023 | 7:58 PM

i hate that i still miss you. i wish i could submerge the thought of you in the deepest ocean and let all illusory hope sink there and perish.

May 2, 2023 | 7:57 PM

That night I told you that the stars were pretty, hoping you would remember our first date. But there were no stars anymore. We both knew that: the only thing in the sky was a hint of ghostly white from the moon hidden behind the storm clouds.

May 2, 2023 | 7:56 PM

stop spending your days wishing you were anything other than yourself. there is so much beauty to your originality and wishing it away in pursuit of a happiness that can only be attained by loving what you have is futile.

May 2, 2023 | 7:56 PM

I wish that you could've told me why.

May 2, 2023 | 7:56 PM

I don't know how to have fun at college like my peers.

May 2, 2023 | 7:56 PM

Just because you treat them with love does not mean they will love you back. Let them go.

May 2, 2023 | 7:55 PM

you once told me you love me in a way you’ve never loved anyone else. i think about it often. i wonder, ‘why me?’ often. but it would be a disservice to your character to assume anything but honesty from you. you sometimes know me better than i know myself.

May 2, 2023 | 7:54 PM

i've loved you since the night of my father's second wedding. i had braces, acne on my back, and a hair cut that was slightly too short. you pulled me towards you on the dance floor. you said i was the most beautiful girl you had ever seen. you asked me to dance. i said no (why? what would my life have been had i said yes?) after that night, you never saw me that way again. i wanted so hard to be loved by you. i wanted to love you so hard. what happened? i wish we could talk now. i hope you feel my love from afar.

May 2, 2023 | 7:54 PM

Seeking glory, the ruins crumble, but the pillars of truth stand tall.

May 2, 2023 | 7:53 PM

I live in almost constant fear. I don't want to die too young, I don't want to be a failure, I don't want to let my parents down, and I want my sibling to be safe. It can be exhausting to worry so much. Then I worry that my worrying is making the things I worry about increasingly likely. It can be an exhausting and claustrophobia-inducing cycle. I hope one day I can feel more at peace.

May 2, 2023 | 7:53 PM

Stop paralyzing yourself with negative self-talk. Understand that you are worthy of love and respect and have much to give to the world. Treat yourself better.

May 2, 2023 | 7:52 PM

boop

May 2, 2023 | 7:52 PM

beep

May 2, 2023 | 7:52 PM

I really worry that I'm being too selfish in my life; that I'm not giving back enough to the people who made me, and only ever operating in my own self-interest. I simultaneously worry that I'm not doing enough for others when deep down I know I don't take good enough care of myself. I'm scared for the day someone calls me out on this.

May 2, 2023 | 7:52 PM

Fuck you.

May 2, 2023 | 7:51 PM

I wish we can go back to the garden where you told me you loved me. go back to the time when you told me you loved me.

May 2, 2023 | 7:50 PM

متاسفم که قدرتم خیلی محدود است. اما من به کشور شما باز خواهم گشت و با شما به کار، مبارزه، کمک به دیگران ادامه خواهم داد.

May 2, 2023 | 7:49 PM

I want to stop lying to myself but I don't know how.

May 2, 2023 | 7:47 PM

I wished I asked for help sooner from them and told them that I was in pain rather than thinking that they knew and chose to ignore it. I realized that a good amount of my pain came from this unknown, this guessing game. in these last few years, the biggest lesson I've learned is how many times people don't mean to hurt people.

May 2, 2023 | 7:47 PM

Love is where I came from and love is where I will return to.

May 2, 2023 | 7:47 PM

I wish I felt more comfortable around people.

May 2, 2023 | 7:46 PM

My four years at Yale have been the loneliest years of my life, and I'm extremely relieved to be graduating and leaving soon. I wish loneliness was talked about more commonly at Yale. I feel like I'm the only one on this campus who doesn't feel at home here.

May 2, 2023 | 7:46 PM

I wish I had more people to provide me emotional support. Or who I could open up to.

May 2, 2023 | 7:45 PM

has nice feet.

May 2, 2023 | 7:45 PM

intellectual curiosity isn't valued in elite colleges anymore even though they were built on a reputation of elite academics. Each day, I think I grow further and further from the joy of learning which brought me here.

May 2, 2023 | 7:45 PM

I still don't understand what went wrong. you were my best friend. it hurts so much more that our friendship just fizzled. I can only hope that you would still pick up if I called you.

May 2, 2023 | 7:44 PM

We walked, gravitated like planets, under the star-speckled skies.

May 2, 2023 | 7:43 PM

sometimes I miss how we used to be. it seems like everything has changed, but we're still holding on. I'm scared I'll wake up one day and won't be able to hold on anymore. but I know I might not be strong enough to let you go then.

May 2, 2023 | 7:41 PM

i thought you cared. i should’ve known better.

May 2, 2023 | 7:41 PM

I miss my girlfriend, we're long distance and I won't be able to see her during the summer :(

May 2, 2023 | 4:59 PM

I jog to sweat the excess water in my body so I don't cry but sometimes it's okay to cry.

May 2, 2023 | 4:50 PM

I think we are better friends when we don’t live together.

May 2, 2023 | 4:46 PM

I still think about you a lot even though I haven’t seen you and we haven’t talked for years. You still like my Instagram posts and it would be so easy just to text you hello, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

May 2, 2023 | 4:17 PM

From the day we matched, we clicked. I almost thought it was too good to be true. Who knew that (if you're on it for long enough) Hinge actually works? I can't say that I love you yet because I don't, but I really really like you. I like your face, your hair, your deep skin, your lips, your website, your writing, your music, your emails, your skating. You are all that I've been looking for in a man and I didn't even know it until you showed me. When we collaborate, we make amazing things. I never thought I would make a comic, let alone voice act. You encouraged me AND added your beautiful song in the background. Thank you for making Whales N' Wicks the way that it is.

May 26th is our big day, the day we meet each other in person, and I can't wait. Of course, I'm excited about our Zoom calls (since you're on the Android team) but I'm really stoked to see what it's like to hug you. To smell your cologne. To feel your hand holding mine. I'm excited to experience you, S.H.

May 2, 2023 | 2:40 PM

I want to tell you that I am in love with you in an unwavering, eternal sort of way. I feel like I keep unearthing bits of you, and at every turn I find myself unbearably enamored with the things that I discover. You are somehow exactly as I had imagined and yet not at all predictable at the same time. Somehow, no matter what it is that I learn about you, I love it all.

I feel very acutely that there is so much that I do not know about you. I want to know what you think about everything; I want to share everything I’ve ever loved or hated with you to see if you feel the same. Because I can’t tell you that, I just keep turning over stones within myself and bearing their long-hidden underbellies to you. That which is most vulnerable in me, I offer to you in the hope that without speaking, I can make it clear to you how much more of you I want to see.
You are leaving soon, and because I cannot ask you to stay, I am learning to look forward to the joy I will feel upon seeing you after missing you for a while. Truly, I love you in that eternal sort of way.

May 2, 2023 | 1:56 PM

i regret staying with my ex so much because i feel like i wasted the past 5 months of me being unhappy.

May 2, 2023 | 1:02 PM

the crush was not a mistake.

May 2, 2023 | 12:33 PM

It's fucked that part of me still thinks we're meant to be. That you are the only person for me. But seeing the way you're going about this, I can't help but think maybe it wasn't love, maybe it was just painful. / It's always confused me that you're a daddy's girl when I know he beat your mom. And I know you know. You're not shy about it. How can you still love him like you do? But then I think about your relationship with my dad, and I think about how I'm a mama's boy. Am I doing it too? / I don't think people believe me when I say I'm not sure how much longer I'll be here. It sounds dramatic but I don't think I've had a good day that didn't end in wanting to end it. It's like my brain keeps trying to find the 13th reason when my heart doesn't want to keep looking. / I don't think I should've come to Yale. Or I think I played the game wrong. Or I think I've penalized for not playing the game? I'm tired of being talked down to. I would like to be seen and valued and given the benefit of the doubt instead of belittled. / Someone is praying for my success, I feel I owe it to them to continue.

May 2, 2023 | 12:28 PM

Nothing in life really matters as much as we think unless it involves dying. Wouldn't you agree?

May 2, 2023 | 11:34 AM

i'm really tired. i can't do this anymore. i've been struggling so much and i don't know how to move onwards.

May 2, 2023 | 10:22 AM

beware of the random chimp event.

May 2, 2023 | 9:52 AM

I am sorry I did that to you. In the end, you were right. You were not perfect but I picked the wrong side and you suffered for it. He hurt me badly too, but I am so glad you are still alive.

May 2, 2023 | 9:51 AM

I liked your college essay, and your mom is a joy but I understand now why you were quiet.

May 2, 2023 | 12:57 AM

Not the 4am reply.

May 1, 2023 | 11:59 PM

i miss the good ol days but that's okay because i really enjoy my life today.

May 1, 2023 | 9:52 PM

I feel like I'm in love with everyone these days.
I see the beauty in them all
their smiles or eyes or gestures
the way they take care of each other
how they dance.
It's strange and scary to love everyone so much,
but I'll take this over the alternative any day.

May 1, 2023 | 8:39 PM

i've been in love with you since the day i met you.

May 1, 2023 | 8:27 PM

The things I miss: are her laugh and the comfort I felt in the silence of her company

She used to drink beers in the shower
I would lie, say I did too.
The truth is
I'm too scared to smoke weed,
I smoke cigarettes for the looks,
I make art because it fills me,
drink because it fills me too.

Now I eat oranges in the shower.
Oranges would fill her poems,
now there's a pile
of them on my desk.

I guess we're both growing.
From limes to mangos,
Gilgamesh to Enkidu
Calypso to Ithica
We are both growing.

May 1, 2023 | 8:02 PM

I should have paid for your coffee that day.

May 1, 2023 | 7:28 PM

I think you would’ve been so proud. I miss you so much.

May 1, 2023 | 6:36 PM

i think we are both hesitating. because why start something when everything is ending? why start something when you are leaving and i'll be staying? why start something when we don't really need to right? if there was supposed to be an us, maybe there will be in the future, when somehow all the stars align in our favor. should i wait until then? will you wait until then?

May 1, 2023 | 5:19 PM

I think I've fallen out of love with you, and that scares me. You've been all I've had for so long, and I don't want to let you go.

May 1, 2023 | 3:41 PM

I wish we could've known each other more. Now that you are leaving for two years, it really is sad to see you go and know that once I am gone, you will be too.

May 1, 2023 | 3:37 PM

I don't remember the way we met, but I never forget how you make me feel when you come visit and after you leave. You watch me struggle in my relationship and I do the same for you, and something tells me that maybe we're both missing the obvious. I think I love you. I hope our paths converge one day.

May 1, 2023 | 3:33 PM

We shaped each other, that was an unfair responsibility to give 16 year olds.I'm sorry for how you turned out. I wish you'd apologize for how I turned out.

May 1, 2023 | 2:26 PM

i ran past you on a misty morning sidewalk
and told you I liked your shoes.

you smiled, and waved back,
and there’s so much more i wanted to tell you,
how the peeling dinosaurs on your rain boots
reminded me of the plastic model dinosaurs
I collected on my windowsill when i was your age,
and how I never closed the curtains because I loved the way the sun casted triceratops shadows as it rose,
and how I watched jurassic park and decided I wanted to be a paleontologist,
and how i’ve given up on that dream but i haven’t given up on telling little kids i pass on the street that they can be anything they want to be,
how i thought about leaping behind you into the gutter puddle and thought better of it,
how i have a little cousin that’s about to be born and how i don’t want him to grow up afraid of the world like i was,
how every time i go home it looks less and less like it did when i was your age,
how i thought your shoes were fun.

there’s a world bigger than my memory
(or so i’m told)

but i don’t know that, and neither do you.
and i will pass you on the early morning sidewalk
and i will forget we ever met
and i will forget what your little face looked like
and i will forget why i even noticed your rain boots.

but what if i don’t?
what if you fit neatly into my imagination,
a friend, only palatable,
because i know nothing of you and you know nothing of me,
which makes us perfect,
so i imagine a version of myself who owned a pair of dinosaur rain boots and decided, unrelenting, at the age of 5
that I was going to become a paleontologist.

that morning,
the sun served as a sleepy spectator,
and every time i blinked and opened my eyes again the river reflected a different color,
and the fog lifting over the leaves confused me,
and every few seconds i forgot how old i was.
i watched it all from the misty morning sidewalk.

May 1, 2023 | 1:46 PM

i don't like my roommate and i'm so excited to NOT live with her next year.

May 1, 2023 | 1:46 PM

finding out my twelve yr old sister had been vaping and smoking weed completely eliminated the already-small chance that i would have kids. this might sound fucked up but she ruined my trust in children; if i have a child i will raise it waiting for the day it disappoints me, for the day it hurts me and breaks me down. it just hurts so much because i had to give up so much for her. i cried and cried because i never wanted to grow up, but i was forced to become an adult way too soon when the responsibilities of being her stand-in parent were thrusted upon me. it infuriates me seeing her treat her childhood like it's meaningless after i had to lose mine to give it to her. the little girl i was died for her sister and her sister didn't even care. the only child i'll trust is the one inside me, the one whose innocence was stripped too early. she will never hurt me because she knows what it's like to be hurt. she weeps because a child hurt her and now my protective instincts don't want to allow a child near her again. how could i keep her away from other children if i myself were to bring one into this world? i just can't do it.

May 1, 2023 | 1:39 PM

do you really not realize how your actions affect me? everything is always about you and what you want.. and when I finally escape this tight grasp you have on my life, you’ll finally realize how bad of a father you were to me.

May 1, 2023 | 1:31 PM

i really enjoy finding things that remind me of people but sometimes im a little afraid to send it to them bc it is hard to know if they care as much

May 1, 2023 | 12:58 PM

i still remember feeling my heart drop
we were cuddling,
i was ready to take a nap and fall asleep in your arms like the usual
this was not the usual
you turned on your back and look up and the ceiling and said
"i want love. i want to find love"
love was there next to you
love was there holding onto you
love was there
love has always been there
but my love was not what you wanted
because what love can a pretty girl who only wanted to be friends at first give?
i don't know yet.
and what love does a pretty boy who moved on while being with me deserve?
i didn't know that either.
you will never know what it is like to really be loved by me
i love too strong too hard too much
you made me hate how deeply i love after teaching me how to love
-you- didn't deserve that
you had love. you found love.
i hope you continue loving, knowing that you'll never be able to have me again.
you'll never get to experience and feel my love, my love.

May 1, 2023 | 12:05 PM

i held you once and knew you'd never just be mine. you and i will go on to love other people, to lie in their arms, to squeeze them in a hug with a smile and a sigh, to kiss them fiercely, and to tickle them and kiss their cheek so tenderly it'll make them want to cry. i am a read book tucked away on a bookshelf, a childhood street no longer visited, and another one of your momentary obsessions left in your footsteps. it's true that we both moved on. we've found new friends, new people, new lives. but that doesn't mean i don't wish you talked to me sometimes. let me know you still think about me, that i was more than a glitch in your movie or an empty moment between songs. you meant so much to me. how can i mean nothing to you now?

May 1, 2023 | 12:03 PM

I don’t know if I love or hate my father more.

May 1, 2023 | 11:57 AM

speaking can be a lot said, but actions are where the true cares lie.

May 1, 2023 | 11:56 AM

Sorry, while a word that can meet a lot, is not enough to make up for what you have done.

May 1, 2023 | 11:55 AM

It means a lot more to me for you to show up then to receive gifts or apologies. I want you to be there for me at my events, to actually try to be there rather than your making excuses and not being there. to me, it shows that you actually care. Late apologies and excuses tell me that in fact you don't care a lot at best, at worst none at all.

May 1, 2023 | 11:51 AM

Being as It may, i Give and give. But i am Overtly sure, Overtly to a fault, that things will never like what it was Before. Sincerely, yours.

May 1, 2023 | 11:28 AM

I love my time at Yale. It has been some of the most loving and rewarding years of my life.

May 1, 2023 | 11:20 AM

Breaking up with you broke me.

I have always been the person who loves more in relationships. In friendships and other relationships I give my all and only receive a portion of that love back. And although that has brought me a lot of pain, it has also made me who I am today. I am someone who loves whole heartedly. But for some reason I wasn't able to replicate that with you and I felt like I was becoming the type of person who has hurt me the worst. I don't regret my decision to end things, I think it was for the best, I think you deserve someone who loves you. What I haven't been able to tell you is how difficult it has been since the break up. I feel this intense feeling of hurt, of heaviness, of guilt. I continue to pile up my schedule to keep myself busy but I feel like at any moment I could break down and cry. I think time will help, I think the summer away from everything will help. I guess I'm left wondering when this feeling will fade. I hope it fades.

May 1, 2023 | 11:07 AM

my life is nothing but room for you.

May 1, 2023 | 11:00 AM

this place is unsustainable for everyone: students, workers, and New Haveners. who is yale far? what is yale for? if it is not for us

May 1, 2023 | 10:55 AM

It can sometimes suck to be the only girl in this lab! please be nice to me :')

May 1, 2023 | 10:28 AM

you don't see me in the way i want to be seen. i've been learning to accept that, but i don't know what to do with it.

May 1, 2023 | 10:27 AM

I wish I were more so I can make a real difference.

May 1, 2023 | 9:57 AM

The worst thing I've ever done is what I've done to you. If it makes you feel any better, I've been in pain every single day since the affair began. I think about you all the time; I have nightmares about you at least a few times a week. I know what we are doing is wrong. If I were a stronger person, I would've demanded that he tell you the truth. I can't reconcile his lying to you with his very good heart. Maybe you know; maybe you're looking the other way. Or maybe you really don't know (I doubt it; i know you're smart). I owe you a huge apology. I know there is nothing I will ever be able to do to make up for what I've done to you. His behavior (as well as my own behavior) will remain a mystery to me until the day I die. I'm sorry. I wish very much that I didn't love him. I wish very much that I could stand up for you. You deserve better. It's strange to think this much about someone who doesn't even know I exist. But I do. I think about you every single day. And I will never get over what I've done to you. It will come back to haunt me (it already has). This love has torn me apart. I am in pieces on the ground. But my pain is nothing compared to yours. I bet we would've been friends. I bet you're a lot like me. And someday this is going to happen to me too. But unlike you, I will be deserving of it.

May 1, 2023 | 9:51 AM

"What the world will become already exists in fragments and pieces, experiments and possibilities"

-Ruth Wilson Gilmore

May 1, 2023 | 9:15 AM

I wish we loved each other more. We spend so much time tearing down and compressing. Why can't we focus on uplifting and expanding?

May 1, 2023 | 9:15 AM

i know i was vague, but i just panicked. i still think about you. if one thing had been different, would everything be different today?

May 1, 2023 | 9:06 AM

i look up to you even though you think i look down on you.

May 1, 2023 | 7:50 AM

I love you forever and through everything, but our relationship will never be the same as it was. You took so much from me.

May 1, 2023 | 6:54 AM

To this day, Yale is a white supremacist plantation.

May 1, 2023 | 6:36 AM

i like the beginnings of romance. i constantly have a new crush and like daydreaming about them and me together--exploring new places, eating nice food, and studying late at night. but i prefer those prolonged unrequited loves where i don't need reality. i think it's because i'm scared of becoming committed. i know i'll get obsessive and too sacrificial for the other, so i just want to stay selfish and unloved.

May 1, 2023 | 5:35 AM

4 years and I never found my place here. And there are no re-dos.

May 1, 2023 | 4:24 AM

Please stop breaking the college hammocks. I just want to relax.

May 1, 2023 | 4:21 AM

When will you return from war?

May 1, 2023 | 4:20 AM

Yale publications are all so fucked. They fuck over contributors of all kinds and can only get away with it with their respectability because none of us are here long enough to hold the people at fault accountable.

May 1, 2023 | 4:18 AM

I feel inadequate knowing that I'll never live to my full potential. I'll always be in your shadow.

May 1, 2023 | 4:16 AM

Stem here makes me feel trapped and existential. Also stupid. Like I should have learned this before, or not have as much trouble learning it now.

May 1, 2023 | 4:14 AM

The dining hall should put out more centerpieces so I can... Appreciate them. You know, in the better lighting of my dorm room..

May 1, 2023 | 4:13 AM

I'm sorry. You meant so much to me and I never meant to hurt you. All I wanted was to take care of you, and I failed. I still care about you, and I always will. As much as I want to tell you, I can't bring myself to because I don't want to cause you any more pain. I wish you nothing but happiness.

May 1, 2023 | 4:12 AM

Arethusa is the best ice cream on campus. You're wrong.

May 1, 2023 | 4:08 AM

Had a crush on you, it was quickly dissolved by the UNREADABLE mixed signals you gave. Still cute though.

May 1, 2023 | 4:06 AM

We get together and shit talk you once in a while. You doing all of the things doesn't make you cool and tragic, it makes others have to pick up where you slack off and aren't able to keep to your commitments.

May 1, 2023 | 4:01 AM

Your hair is the shiniest I've ever seen. Way to go. That shit's mesmerizing. Spent 10 minutes in class trying to figure out what possible hair routine could get those results. Still a mystery.

May 1, 2023 | 3:58 AM

I feel like I'm not getting the most out of Yale. I'm just focused on graduating on time. I am not "✨attracting the best people at the networking events✨" because I don't go to any events.

May 1, 2023 | 3:56 AM

She doesn't want to fuck you and you fetishizing a Spanish woman as a Latino man is some sort of self-colonizing thing you can work out with YC3.

May 1, 2023 | 3:54 AM

You can't be a Feminist™️ if you hate trans people. You're lucky you got emotional labor out of us before we knew.

May 1, 2023 | 3:52 AM

You shouldn't be getting engaged your freshman year. Please stop coming back from breaks with a ring on your finger.

May 1, 2023 | 3:49 AM

I have no idea what job I'm going to get after undergrad. A non-stem degree leaves so much up to chance. I feel like I'll end up at minimum wage trying to finish and publish a novel for the rest of my life.

May 1, 2023 | 3:47 AM

I miss home queers. Yale queers cannot flirt or recognize flirting to save their life.

May 1, 2023 | 3:42 AM

As a FGLI student part of me wants to date here for the money. The other part feels like a class traitor. It's near impossible to relate to Yale rich ppl when I *do* date them.

May 1, 2023 | 3:38 AM

Every person with a penis I've had sex with here has been disappointing. To the point of questioning if I was asexual. I'm not asexual. You just don't know how to fuck.

May 1, 2023 | 2:51 AM

Sailing out of the cove of my discontent and charting the shoreline of my relationships, I stop and reflect as I near you - my proverbial beached white whale. That our emotional liaison has foundered on the shoals of long stretches of distance, differing ambitions, complex feelings, and overworking is not merely lamentable. It is one of the biggest regrets of my short, hardship-filled time on this oversized cerulean-green marble. My voice carrying fathoms down, I muse aloud, perhaps a small part of me hoping you are listening, and a small part wishing just the opposite were the case: Do we dare revive the old remains of what was once a deep, rich, communion or let that which has passed remain just that - in the past?

May 1, 2023 | 2:43 AM

hey! we used to be so close and i wish i knew what happened. i'm happy with where i am in life and you seem to be too, but i still think about you and how things could have been. and i've always been confused about why you didn't want that anymore. it felt so sudden to me. sorry that i did something wrong, and sorry i haven't figured it out after all this time. maybe we're too different now to be the way we were, but i'll always be here for you if you need someone. i'd be so happy to reconnect. if this speaks to you, please take the leap and reach out. who knows what could come of it?

May 1, 2023 | 2:33 AM

roses are red
and violets divine
it'd make me ecstatic
if you were mine

(please be mine)

- M

May 1, 2023 | 2:06 AM

take a deep breath, call a loved one, light a candle

May 1, 2023 | 2:04 AM

I am scared all of the time. I think I am scared all of the time because I am a person. Being a person—being a consciousness in a body—is fucking scary. I don't talk about that much.

May 1, 2023 | 1:40 AM

I should’ve given us a chance.

May 1, 2023 | 1:38 AM

An Echo of Ibn Hazm's "I Would Like to Split My Heart"

Will
You cut
Me open
With her knife
And let Me slip inside
Your severed chest?

May 1, 2023 | 1:35 AM

i want to tell my former crushes, no matter how small, that i liked them, just to let them know. i think everyone deserves to feel love, even if it fizzled out. they deserve to know that i thought their smile was cute, or their hair was beautiful, or their jokes lit up my morning. obviously, it’s a big thing to tell someone you were crushing on them; it usually implies that you want something more out of your relationship. but in reality i don’t care anymore about how we end up, i just want them to know that i felt that way about them. it’s liberating!

May 1, 2023 | 1:35 AM

You were lounging in a window,
Sitting there right on the open sill,
Pillow behind your back as you held a cigarette,
Seemingly unafraid that you were on the second floor,
Or of the smoke fluttering around your sunlit face.

I was walking home, face flush with sun, and body slick with summer sweat.
Despite my sore feet and heavy eyes,
Something compelled me to go the scenic route,
To take that turn down the residential road by the river,
The one I’d only found a week ago.

I always look towards the rustic houses,
And that’s how I saw you.
You were a ways away,
But despite the distance,
You must have noticed my gaze,
As your fluffy hair danced in the summer breeze,
You gave a friendly wave.
I was too stunned to wave back,
All I could do was smile wide,
And as I kept on walking,
All I wished was that someday I’d hear you say “Hi”

May 1, 2023 | 1:21 AM

i'm still in love with you and i don't know when i'll ever stop being in love with you

May 1, 2023 | 1:29 AM

Every time I’m around you I get upset - that I have to see you. Because I was lonely and reaching out, and somehow never fit into whatever life you were creating. Not a thought in your mind. Peripheral, ignored, I wondering if it was me for much to long. I hate you, but not in a angry way, but in a surface level one. I’ve found other people, moved on and above. You are now no one, but who could have been something. Or at the very least a comfort. In that in between time when each day felt like losing a piece of myself, struggling for reasons to open my eyes. So that’s it. I’m just resentful, but not angry. But I still hate to see you, the not-so-stranger. Guess that means I haven’t moved on as much as I thought. But fuck you anyway.

May 1, 2023 | 1:26 AM

You're a coward.

May 1, 2023 | 1:25 AM

I wish I was more in touch with how I feel. Sometimes I don't know what I want or what to do until its too late.

May 1, 2023 | 1:21 AM

i'm still in love with you and i don't know when i'll ever stop being in love with you.

May 1, 2023 | 1:16 AM

I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us. I wish you the best. But the saddest part about saying goodbye is that I know you can’t hear me. Or maybe you just chose not to.

May 1, 2023 | 1:16 AM

I don't love you, I never did.

May 1, 2023 | 1:15 AM

There is so much to say to you, but those words haven’t been invented yet. That’s why I loved you, you understood my heart before I did.

May 1, 2023 | 1:13 AM

you showed me your truest self. and no matter how much it should have scared me, it was you. and i loved you. but you loved being loved. you loved what i could give you, or rather, what parts of myself i could carve off just so you wouldnt starve (you have never known hunger). i hope the piece of me you took haunts you, nameless and faceless but ever there. sitting at your window in the dark. i dont want you to be scared, i know youve been scared enough. i just want you to change, maybe double check to maybe sure your windows are locked, or even second guess if the yes you pleaded out of her was really consent.

May 1, 2023 | 1:10 AM

you are utterly unprecedented. don't you ever forget that.

May 1, 2023 | 1:11 AM

I love it when you speak French to me, you know I love the way that you can make me bleed. And I don't know why I feel so difficult. From the bottom of my broken heart, I can feel us fall apart, baby.

May 1, 2023 | 1:10 AM

you are utterly unprecedented. don't you ever forget that.

May 1, 2023 | 1:09 AM

Oye, Luna, ¿que tal la telenovela?
¿Te gusto este casi algo?
Por lo menos te entretuviste, ¿no?
…
silence
…
No me respondió. Veo sus cráteres e imagino dormir ahi, en el ojo de la Luna sobando su hendedura fría y polvorienta.

A single joint danced between our fingers.
You lit. I inhaled. Your turn. Thank you.
Clouds of smoke perfumed our path trailing behind at the dawn of eve of this ancient city.
Could you sense me trembling? You wordlessly unrobed and clothed me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

May 1, 2023 | 1:08 AM

I love you so much. I tell it to you nearly every day as if you could forget, but I wish you understood just how much I adore you. You scoff when I compliment you, but I mean every word. You're my best friend and love, and I cherish every moment with you. Even on the days when I cry and am upset, raging against the world, you calm me down and bring me to Earth. I don't know if you'll see this or not, or if you'll roll your eyes at how incredibly cheesy this is, but know that every word is true.

May 1, 2023 | 1:08 AM

How did it work out?

May 1, 2023 | 1:07 AM

you have taken so much from me. my self worth. my pride. my drive. my love. my compassion. my achievements. I know i’ll never get an apology from you but I hope you stand one day and face judgement for what you’ve done.

May 1, 2023 | 1:06 AM

I am scared of long distance and our future. It makes me anxious to even think about our relationship post-graduation. You are my best friend and I don’t want to lose you. I feel as though it is inevitable though. I feel helpless and sad. I will always love you even if we don’t work out, but I don’t know if you will be the same. I understand wanting a clean break, but I can’t imagine you not being a regular part of my life. ❤️

May 1, 2023 | 1:03 AM

Getting to know you better and be your friend has given me memories that I’ll cherish for years to come.

May 1, 2023 | 1:01 AM

I miss you every single day. There’s so much that’s happened since you decided to leave. Every day, I blame myself for it. I wish you would’ve stayed for just another week, another month, another lifetime. I try to have empathy, to wonder what it was truly like for you, but it hurts too much. I think of you with everything I do. It’s all to make you proud. I love you forever.

May 1, 2023 | 1:00 AM

I did like you! I was just transgender. Sorry I didn't figure it out sooner; sorry I was too scared to tell you when I did.

May 1, 2023 | 12:57 AM

can we slow tf down?

May 1, 2023 | 12:57 AM

this is so fun and this website looks fantastic. sry just had to let you know.

May 1, 2023 | 12:56 AM

Barbie movies are so good. Everything childish and girly in this world is good. Barbie (2023) by Greta Gerwig will bring about world peace.

May 1, 2023 | 12:55 AM

I hate the idea of marriage. It confounds me. It invokes great fear and anxiety in me. But I refuse to be the only one who isn’t a part of it, because then I’d just be left lonely. I wish there was an alternative.

May 1, 2023 | 12:54 AM

I miss home.

May 1, 2023 | 12:51 AM

i miss you dad.

May 1, 2023 | 12:50 AM

You were right to say goodbye, even though I had wished you wouldn’t. I’m where I need to be, and who I need to be now, and I hope you are too. I don’t know if you knew I loved you, but I didn’t show it well enough.

May 1, 2023 | 12:49 AM

if only i had the courage to talk to you at the start of the semester.

May 1, 2023 | 12:48 AM

i wish i knew you.

May 1, 2023 | 12:46 AM

Join the Yale Foreign Policy Initiative.

May 1, 2023 | 12:34 AM

Thank you Roku tv.

May 1, 2023 | 12:39 AM

You left so quickly I still haven't accepted that you are gone. It was normal to not see you for years, so this seems like just another lapse. But then something exciting happens and I want to call, thats when I remember the phone has been disconnected. You aren't there, you never will be again.

I didn't get to go to your funeral, a pandemic took that away. Instead I cried the next time I saw my little cousin because I knew you should be there with me. I knew that you were there but I couldn't see you. I felt you there.

I can never tell you how much you meant to me, the show ticket you bought me changed my life. You were the last one left, I lost all three in 9 months. But you, you were special, you were different.

May 1, 2023 | 12:39 AM

your name still makes my heart flutter and i dream about you all the time. i hope we find our way back to each other in this lifetime.

May 1, 2023 | 12:38 AM

i love you and appreciate you.

May 1, 2023 | 12:34 AM

I wish we would have stayed friends. Our first year we got so close, but drifted away when a pandemic separated us. We had so much fun together and life was going to be so different from how it is now. Now, you barely acknowledge me on the street, someone who used to live through every secret we shared. This sounds all deep, but three years later I still wonder. What would our friendship have been like if you were better and texting, if I hadn't gapped, if you hadn't broken up with your boyfriend? I guess we will always stay in first-year.

Apr 28, 2023 | 2:19 PM

your fits inspire me. maybe one day i can be as cool, as chill, as friendly as you are.

Apr 26, 2023 | 12:41 PM

I resent how long you've shut me out, but it doesn't matter. I miss you, and I want our friendship back.

Apr 25, 2023 | 6:47 PM

Better to speak your mind than to keep it inside. Keeping it inside will eat you alive until you die.

Apr 25, 2023 | 5:14 PM

Dedushka, it pains me that you left this world when I was so far away from you and wasn't fast enough to come back and say goodbye, and hold your hand one last time. To be honest, I still struggle with wrapping my head around the fact that you're gone, I think the distance is probably a factor here, and how it all happened so unexpectedly. The day you passed I had a feeling that I would be too late to see you, but I really hoped I was wrong. I wish I had the chance to call you on Whatsapp one last time, the last time I tried you felt too weak and tired to talk. It's still hard for me to believe that I won't get to see your warm smile again or hear your words of encouragement. Your face keeps popping into my head. I would be lying if I said I wasn't crying as I write this, but I guess that just means you mean a lot to me. I hope you're doing well wherever you are and know how much you mean to me, even if I didn't have the time to read every email you thought was cool and forwarded to me.

Apr 25, 2023 | 1:39 PM

i loved you and sometimes, i still love you. thank you for teaching me about myself and for loving me. sorry we didn't work out.

Apr 25, 2023 | 6:55 AM

Giving and listening is better than taking and speaking.

Apr 25, 2023 | 3:06 AM

i wish i could hold your hand again and watch movies on the hammock by stiles courtyard on a friday night while everyone else is partying. miss you.

Apr 25, 2023 | 1:38 AM

so much i want to say to you, but knowing i can't and i likely never will, is something I'll just need to accept. i wish the world knew the weight i feel of the words 'im sorry' and how it doesn't even do slight justice to you. a million words on my mind. i truly wish you nothing but the best and the happiest of the happiest life after yale. you deserve everything. ill occasionally be thinking of you because you were my first, and the immense discomfort/regret i feel will carry on. as i deserve.

"i am not a rapper
but you're a five-star tapper
you say I'm the galaxy but between us
losing you would be a bigger tragedy
you call me steve jobs
because im the apple of your eye
im not too sure about that
but you sure are sweet as pie"

Apr 25, 2023 | 12:19 AM

Sometimes I think I spend a little too much time wondering what my life would be like if I had chosen you instead. Would I be happier? Would I be more myself? Would our union and then later separation have led me down a completely different path than I am on now? Would it have ended before I even got to find out? I guess I answered my last question.

Apr 25, 2023 | 12:16 AM

Live. Consciously and Viciously. Like there is something out there that needs to be harvested. You don’t have to know what it is. Just tear at the weeds, angrily, frantically, manically, whatever it takes to keep you charging into the world. Because the day you lose the will to surge forth, and the clutter of your life starts to pile in heaps around your bed and on your sheets, you would have already died a thousand deaths.

Apr 24, 2023 | 11:10 PM

You’re doing great, I’m proud of you. Maybe today was bad, but the sun will always rise tomorrow for you to try again.

Apr 24, 2023 | 7:47 PM

sometimes i dont say or write negative things down, as if i was hiding their existence

Apr 24, 2023 | 7:47 PM

After it all, I am finally happier. Thank you for everything. Thank you for the healing.

Apr 24, 2023 | 7:24 PM

You only get so many sunsets.

Apr 24, 2023 | 7:11 PM

I wish I never met you.

Apr 24, 2023 | 6:59 PM

i wish i never let you into my life.

i think about how much better of a person i would be now.

instead you’ve only hindered me.

Apr 24, 2023 | 6:20 PM

Was it the cancer?

Was it the chemo?

Was it the girlfriend that you hid?

Was it the money?

Was it the business?

Was it the life you never lived?

My mind is burnt, my heart so empty. This so-called "entitlement" has made me grow constant.

You never said sorry but I still forgive you.

Apr 24, 2023 | 5:57 PM

Just because I miss you and still love you, it doesn’t mean I would take you back.

Apr 24, 2023 | 5:48 PM

"Epilogue"

I think life is meant to be lived and hearts are made to be broken. How beautiful is it? To be able to partake in these trials and tribulations? To love and be loved—even for a brief moment. It is a miracle, that in the grandiose scheme of an ever expanding universe, we happen to be bundles of atoms whose existence was somehow chanced with the capacity to feel.

So love hard, love deeply.

Apr 24, 2023 | 4:51 PM

Tell them how they made you feel.

Apr 24, 2023 | 4:08 PM

I regret not loving myself sooner.

Apr 24, 2023 | 3:59 PM

My heart aches. I wanted you to have the carefree childhood that I experienced. A world even better than I had. A place of safety, kindness and love. A place for everyone to be themselves and appreciated for it. I wanted you to feel safe and secure. To travel wherever you wanted with joy and wonder. I'm not sure where it all went wrong. Was there a sentinel moment or was it slow and insidious? I will probably never know. It certainly is not what I wanted for you. For anyone..I send this heartfelt apology to you. I wanted to have everything just perfect for you. I'm sorry.... Look for the good in the world-it's out there. You may find it in the simplest of things, but it is there. Perhaps together we can build on it . Grow it. Pass it along. But until then I leave you with my anguish . My atonement . My love.

Apr 24, 2023 | 3:55 PM

I still think about you and have dreams about you. I still imagine what our future could look like together. You’ve had such a chokehold on me for the past year, and I don’t know how to escape it.

Apr 24, 2023 | 3:39 PM

Sometimes I wonder if we are truly friends.

Apr 24, 2023 | 3:28 PM

so many things i wish i had said or done. but i am very grateful for everything you have shown and taught me.

Apr 24, 2023 | 3:28 PM

so many things i wish i had said or done. but i am very grateful for everything you have shown and taught me.

Apr 20, 2023 | 7:48 PM

For four years I have complained about you. Too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. So why does it hurt so much to leave?

You are my home, goodbye New Haven.

Apr 20, 2023 | 5:44 PM

I’m starting to realize I need to acknowledge how I feel and how what I’ve experienced influences who I am. It’s not pleasant but it seems necessary. Otherwise, I’m doomed to stay the same forever and that’s not an option. change sucks. can’t I stay oblivious a little while longer?

Apr 18, 2023 | 2:19 AM

Division within the US is heartbreaking. Breeding hate for this place we live in is somewhat naive as we have the privilege and the opportunity, as the people, to improve and change the country for the better. Though we see time and time again that our systems can fail us, there are a limited number of places on earth where the people have the opportunities we do. We cannot let these failures further divide us. Instead of sitting back and ridiculing, hating others on the other side of the isle, we should strive to make it better and foster understanding even in disagreement. Even if it is a daunting task that seems impossible, we cannot give up.

Also, taxes should just be included in the price tag.

Apr 15, 2023 | 1:14 AM

Whenever I have spare change on me, I leave behind coins with the head side up hoping that it'll bring luck and joy to its finder.

Apr 10, 2023 | 11:50 PM

And in the midst of it all, I have to remind myself that it is a gift to feel good. To feel bad. To feel anything at all.

Apr 7, 2023 | 4:32 PM

Last November, you sat next to me on the bus ride from Cambridge to New Haven and fell into a deep slumber. Soon enough, your head was falling to the side, bobbing back and forth from time to time. But eventually, you ended up finding solace on my left shoulder. You rested here for the entire two-hour commute, but I didn’t mind. I was happy that at least one of us could sleep. And the best part is, once we arrived at our destination, you woke up, got up, and left; you had no clue.

Apr 4, 2023 | 4:06 PM

I know we're not best friends anymore, but I still think about you a lot. I smile when I think about our barbie playdates, neighborhood ripstik rides, and cringey middle school days. I regret not trying to maintain our friendship, and I'm sorry. Even though we don't talk anymore, I'll always be here for you.

Apr 2, 2023 | 8:00 PM

I'm not ready for this to end.

Mar 31, 2023 | 3:17 AM

You told me I’d look ugly with bangs. Well, guess what I did last week? And P.S. you were wrong :)

Mar 29, 2023 | 10:02 AM

5 easy things that will make you feel at least a little better:

1. a 10-minute walk outside

2. a cup of water

3. your favorite snack

4. a warm shower

5. a hug

Mar 23, 2023 | 12:09 AM

I'm staring out into the ocean, and I can't help but think about your blue-gray eyes. Damn, I miss looking into them.

Mar 23, 2023 | 5:14 PM

I think if people were just a little more compassionate, a lot of the world's issues wouldn't exist.

Mar 20, 2023 | 5:55 PM

Do decent men even exist anymore? Asking for a friend.

Mar 19, 2023 | 1:01 PM

I'm sure we're taller in another dimension.

Mar 16, 2023 | 3:20 AM

And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it – freedom or loneliness?

Mar 15, 2023 | 2:49 AM

I get doubts that everything you say is a lie. I want to believe you, but at the same time, sometimes I worry that maybe I’m being naive and choosing to look past indicators of a false reality. Am I paranoid? Or am I a fool? I don’t know how I will ever be able to tell.

Mar 12, 2023 | 9:04 AM

Even though you're not in my life anymore, I still think about you a lot. It's crazy how two people can go from talking every day to being strangers again. But it's definitely for the best. Anyways, C, I hope you're doing well. Take care of yourself.

Mar 9, 2023 | 7:21 PM

I'm afraid that I'll never build up the courage to follow my true dreams. I currently have a well-paying 9-5, but I'm not happy. When will I decide to finally take that risk? I don't know. Soon, I hope.

Mar 7, 2023 | 11:44 PM

P.S. I never told you, but I was falling in love.

Mar 7, 2023 | 11:28 PM

I'm sorry for making you cry when all I really wanted to do was make you smile.

Mar 7, 2023 | 11:04 PM

You were on the corner of Prospect street this afternoon. Red hair, headphones, converse, and all. You were beautiful, and I wish I had the courage to talk to you.

Mar 6, 2023 | 6:46 PM

I still save a bite for you every time.

Mar 6, 2023 | 3:25 PM

The opinion of others used to dictate everything from what I wore, to what I studied, to what extracurriculars I got involved with. Nothing about me was real, and I hated myself for it. It wasn't until I met Zoe that I saw the true beauty of self-expression. It wasn't until Zoe that I saw how irrelevant others' opinions were. I used to care so much about what other people thought about me, but now I can confidently and proudly say... fuck what other people think. Live this life for you, baby!

Jan 17, 2023 | 1:19 PM

Although I'm too embarrassed to say it to you in person, thanks for always being there.

Dec 11, 2022 | 7:10 PM

I’m terrified of staying this way forever.

Dec 9, 2022 | 3:51 AM

Despite everything, you’re still the first person I search for in a crowded room. And while you probably won’t be searching for me, a part of me still hopes that maybe one day you will.

Dec 8, 2022 | 2:17 AM

You once asked me to write you a letter:

In my letter, I’d want you to find the strength of a thousand lions. A shield from any demons that might try to pull you under.

In my letter, I’d want you to feel the overwhelming comfort only a hug from your best friend can give you. An ocean of warmth that engulfs you.

In my letter, I’d remark on your intelligence and special way with words. I’d joke how I could never get a word in.

If I could have written you a letter, I’d remind you how much I love you. I’d ask you to hold on a little tighter.

Every day I remember something new I’d write to you. One more thing I would say. One more time I would hold you.

Dec 6, 2022 | 9:45 AM

During our time together I wish I had been less worried, less fearful, less overwhelmed and less angry. I should have been a better wife. We were already in over our heads when the cancer came, and I wish I could have saved you from its consumption. Our son is 15 now; mature, smart and beautiful. Every day I miss you, I still love you.

Dec 4, 2022 | 8:24 PM

Maybe in another life, huh?

Dec 2, 2022 | 2:42 PM

I’m sick of feeling pathetic for missing the idea of a sister I never had.

Dec 2, 2022 | 2:41 PM

妈妈，您在西方极乐世界好吗？好想您！

Dec 2, 2022 | 2:40 PM

I wish I got the chance to say goodbye to you.