Descriptions of People I Love, No. 2

This essay is apart of a larger, unfinished project in which I attempt to chronicle the people I love. When I write about people, I often do so in a faux-academic, flowery, but playful tone. I like to make bold statements and end with a string of words that haunts the reader long after it’s over. With all else staying consistent, today the haunting words come first: you killed yourself.

After we first met, we went on to share a room, to smoke a million joints, to laugh, to viciously fight, to accidentally wake each other up in the middle of the night, to play tricks, and to plot the demise of the anal girl who told us to move out of her way twice. And sometimes things were fun between us and sometimes things were weird. Either way, our interactions were always heartbreakingly human.

While my heart hurts too much to get into details, there are things I will say about you:

You were an artist; an acutely positive, exceedingly jumpy human who couldn’t read social cues but had a flaming sense of sincerity. You were overwhelmingly eccentric and unapologetically queer. While I hate to romanticize your death, lately I’ve been recklessly thinking that maybe you were too rare, too wild, too ethereal to be loved by this world.

Anyways, I don’t know where you are or if you can read this: I just want to say thank you for February 1st– thank you for looking me dead in the eye on the worst day of my life and handing me your last shot of tequila.

The artwork on this page is yours. Rest in peace.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Call: 1-800-273-8255

Descriptions of People I Love, No. 1

This essay is apart of a larger, unfinished project in which I attempt to chronicle the people I love. If you think this is about you, it might be.

I was friends with a crazy girl who made a lot of good points. She once said you should introduce yourself to beautiful strangers by giving them a little lick on the cheek. And if they don’t respond favorably, never look at them again. This advice is coming from a girl who smashed an avocado in the face of a politician.

She was insane and completely oblivious to it. And I loved that about her. Her perpetual state of borderline clinical insanity was refreshing. Her single-minded dedication to getting attention was cartoonish, but unintentional. She was simultaneously self-absorbed, empathetic, and sincere; she was pretty and she was powerful. She was objectively beautiful, but never cute. She, as a person, was a thing of fairy tales.

Our friendship started off as playful display of love but ended the way it always ends with her– in a goddamn firestorm.

And, still, I will always love her.

To clarify, I don’t love her in a pathetic, pining way. And I don’t love the unkind parts of her.

Who I love is the fearless girl who showed me her nipples before introducing herself with a name.