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i just found out that my best friend is moving to LA. you might remember them from my first post. we are a little bit codependent and i am a little bit crazy so this is very hard for me to accept and process. i have actually broken out in a crazy rash about it, which is very fitting. if you know them you'll understand.

Hey! Listen up, you. You who are heartbroken. You who are in pain. You who can not confront that pain. You who externalize that pain by turning it into a story you are telling someone else. You who are telling that story to no one. You who are telling that story to yourself. You who can’t pick up the phone. You who can't strike up a conversation at a party. You who see yourselves as an “acquired taste.” You who drag your feet on every step. You who relish in the comfort of disaster. You who are addicted to pleasure but afraid of satisfaction. You who run to your best friend's apartment at the first sign of trouble. You who have become too comfortable and reliant on those open arms. You who will be forced to live without them.

To you, this is an emergency. To you, who did nothing to prepare for this inevitability. You who hate to invest in new relationships, who find it painful and laborious to text even the people you love, let alone the people you don't know. You who hate the labor of love. You who relish in the relief and care granted to you by those who do it for you. You who can’t pick up the phone. To you, this is the greatest disaster that could befall a person. You who are awkward and unlikable. You who are avoidant and distant. You who are the duckling. You who won’t pick up the phone.

You know the realities and parameters; love spans miles, crosses countries, moves mountains, will always flourish when fed. You, who are incapable of feeding love, know this. You who see your fate before you. You who feel the distance blooming even now. You who dreamt of this separation before it was even real. You who know the failure you will bring to this; the unanswered voicemails, the ignored texts, the empty aching desire to reach out with nothing at all to say. You who can predict your failure and suffering by timed and rehearsed steps, as if a dance choreographed just for you. You who can plan and promise to make a great effort to change. You who will plan and promise to change. You who have two hundred and thirty two unanswered texts and sixty eight missed calls. You know the realities and parameters.

You who feel this love profoundly. You who cherish all of it. You who cherish every minute sat in that white chair. You who cherish every night spent in those tan sheets. You who cherish every beer and cider and glass of wine, every bite of Wegman's sushi, every sip of water from those stolen cups, every bit of bile flushed down that elementary school toilet. You who will suffer greatly at the loss of potential for more. You who would stare emptily into that brand new toilet bowl until everything you’d ever swallowed came back out just to be able to have left it there, in that place, in that room.

You who idolize, you who worship, you who cling, you who follow, you who love. You who know that this is surely the wisest person that you have ever met, if not the wisest in the world, and the smartest and kindest and most charismatic too, who can not fathom how you could have fallen into their good graces and remained there for so long. You who long at every second to introduce them to everyone you know, to show the world how lucky you are, and to rub in their noses that they will never occupy your place in the hierarchy of orbit. You who get paranoid about losing your place as it is. You who dream of them being far away from you, even when they’re right here. You who would do anything to keep your place. You who see stars. You who love.

You, you all, you who bear these traits. You must open your eyes to the world now. You must let the stars fall away. You must listen as you are told your past and your future. You must see it for what it is. You must bear this gaping wound and the suffering it will carry. You must see the scar that it will form one day and want it, genuinely want it, more than anything. You who will wear the scar forever. You must want it because it will hold everything, all these things that define you, all these things that you can not make permanent. You, who will never recover from this, will need it to be written into your skin. To scab and bubble and ooze. To itch.