“Meeting You Was Like Listening To A Song For The First Time And Knowing It Would Be My Favorite.”

Just because I "long for their undivided attention" and "daydream about pinning them against a wall" doesn't mean I'm gay that's just how rivalry works.

"homoerotic undertones" my ass I just want my rival to be down to fuck

I lost my best friend 3 years ago- not lost as in dead but lost as in we only text each other on our birthdays now. Movies and books don't tell you that a friendship dying is like the sinking of a ship, you try to get higher and higher and hold onto the rails and unanswered texts, the captain tries to steer it to safety and salvage pieces of two broken hearts until you're left with memories of what once was. We were friends for a decade and knew each other's diaries by heart, I still remember her phone number and the way she took her coffee. Seeing her in streets is like breathing in a scent you forgot you knew but it immediately takes you back to a summer in '07.

Movies and books also don't tell you that friendships don't just end after one fight or incident, it's like the rusting of a bridge, the slow decay of flesh and bones and secrets. It took weeks, months- until one day I woke up and I realized I hadn't thought of her in a while. And I wrote a poem that day and I titled it 'The dying of a best friend' and I put all my love for her in a tiny box with my half of the matching pendant of a dolphin we had and stored them in a corner of my heart under the heading Grief. Where else can one hide unspent love?

It's been 3 years since I lost my best friend, lost as in I still carry our secrets in a tiny box but we only text each other on our birthdays.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

Edit: here's the visualizer for this piece

Actias dubernardi - Chinese luna moth

Mary Oliver

i forgave you for things you would’ve hated me for, bro we different

i never aimed to give you a talisman!! i had something to say to you!!!!!!!!

The found family trope is for those who were never a first choice. Those that always carried the baggage but received no tips in exchange. It’s for those that needed a wall to lean on but learned to build one on their own . They looked at people as potential. As someone who could very well become an important part of their life. This is the trope for those who listened but were never heard, those that seeked an idea of a home in souls and not walls. It is for the ones that yearn for a love the weight of blood, but came with no obligation- no -they wanted to be chosen , they wanted a familial bond that escaped the scopes of biology . They wish for their presence to have meaning. For it to be significant. And for their absence to be nagging. Brutal. Loud.