Eclosion, Emergence

Allie Smith ‘24

i have never been fond of january. it’s always the month that love fleets, breaking me down until i become so fragile that just one tug, a whisper of his name, could make me unravel.

i never realized how loyal i had become to heartache until i noticed how often i was throwing up grief into the bathroom sink. and at the corner table in the dining hall. and at the train station platform. and behind my desk at work. sick in my stomach but still my favorite taste until i told myself i shouldn’t.

shouldn’tibeoverthisbynow? shouldn’t i feel different? shouldn’tsomethinghavechanged? shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t.

i did everything to try and suffocate my shame: scrubbed my skin with salt in the shower, forgot the phone number, shoved every post-it drawing and polaroid into a box, burned old memories the way wildfires spread: wreckless, and too eager to destroy. i spent so much time determined to change that it never occurred to me i didn’t have to.

dear grief, I am so sorry I tried to pretend like you didn’t exist. it’s just that no one ever told me it got better in a way that I actually believed. and to the version of myself that always felt half empty, I’m sorry I tried to convince you that I knew everything about love. and I’m sorry I tried to keep telling you it wasn’t there.

it was. it is.

it’s in the soft light of karina’s kitchen on valentine’s day, as she helps me wipe the brownie batter off of my stomach. it’s in the furrowed eyebrows of my parents as they try to help me beat my siblings at mahjong. it’s in my reflection in my bedroom mirror, as rina starts to play and I become my own favorite dance partner. and it’s outside my window, when I realize that the birds and the train passing by every hour aren’t just background noise anymore, and I can hear every sound in the universe, loud and soft, gentle and sweet, and spring hurdles at me like a child. it is there, it is there, it is here.

can I be honest with you?

I have never been in love like this before.

how wonderful.