today, i woke up as terrified as always. bright sun, clammy sweat, flashes of images i’ll never see again. the mornings have been the same since the summer started. so have the days, the afternoons. so have the nights. i stumbled into this one as if it were no different. nervous, cloudy, alone.

i spoke to my girlfriend over the phone the night before. she’s away for an internship. i haven’t seen her in 3 months. we’re both supposed to get on a plane to her hometown on saturday, and it’s the only thing we’ve been able to talk about. every day she’s been gone, connected by invisible thread, halfway across the planet from each other.

i cried to her, anxiously. terrified that something would fall through, that 3 months of waiting would end in nothing. i’m not good with vacations or planes and i’m not good at trusting in nature, that things will move the way they should, that happy things can happen without a catch. i don’t think i believe in inertia. i always operate under the assumption that i won’t ever get what i’m supposed to. it saves me from questions when things go wrong. everything’s working against me. this world has yet to convince me otherwise.

i’ve got no morning routine, so i stare at my laptop till my brain goes numb. stand up in filth, walk two steps to my desk—a visible surface, for once—and upgrade from studying in bed to studying somewhere kind’ve normal. i try. it goes bad. i’m too slow. i don’t understand.

i count down the minutes, the hours. it’s 2 o’clock and i have to get to work. should i add an hour to my travel time? i need food, so i ask myself if i deserve some today. i think i do. i eat it. i feel sick. guilty for spending the money. okay. i need coffee. i get some. now i’m anxious, now my hands shake. i catch my bus 30 minutes early.

i get to work. now i’ve gotta deal with the problem i’ve been putting off. i’m scheduled for 3:45-10, but 7-10 is my exam. so i tell my boss, i disappoint her. same way i disappoint everyone. i try to study some more and can’t focus. i call people to cover for me. no one’s picking up. good. i’m too anxious to speak anyways. i fail to study for the 2 hours i’m there.

i write my exam. i think i know some of it, then i doubt myself. who am i kidding. this is probably all wrong anyways. i hand it in an hour early. no sense staring at empty pages.

i leave campus. freedom washes over me, slow and sure. i smile, i laugh at the sky, i go home and let myself realize that it’s 3 months of shackles finally off my wrists. i’m allowed to be happy now. i deserve it.

i get in bed and she calls. something’s different. this is it. the first thing she says is, “i kissed somebody else.”

i wake up every day expecting something bad to happen, and then it does.