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Due to catching Covid, I stayed longer at my mom's than planned.
On the day after I was supposed to return to Berlin, I sat at the breakfast table alone and scrolled through tik tok.
Of course, your newest post was recommended to me, even though you aren't in my contacts anymore. I don't know why tik tok is reliant on connections that are long broken, but it is.
I saw the picture of the birthday cake, within a second i knew it was yours.
Car Seat Headrest decorations, Car Seat Headrest lyrics and Car Seat Headrest sound in the background. 92 likes, 3 comments, one of them wishing happy birthday to you, you replying thank you with a heart. <3.
Even in your typing I can recognize you. Even in the answer to a stranger you exude magnetic energy that makes everyone like you- like my therapist said, you do know how to make people like you; feed them their needs as she said it; and you do know how to make yourself look like a goddess; you need to, its where all your self worth is stored.
I understand now,
And I am no longer jealous.
Instead I sometimes worry for you, but even that isn't new, but the very reason I once stayed so long.
I always wanted to get to your core, suck the poison out of you, know what nobody else does.
It's why I always read to you. The most intimate I could get with you.
But even the deepest devotion couldn't make you let anyone in, let alone me, the autistic farmers child who got on your nerves with my needs and longings.
A shock goes through me the second the photos appear. It's like being electrocuted. I'm not quite sure it's panic, but for the first second it always feels like that. I pause the sound and stare into a sunbeam reflecting on the ground. My eyes fall and I can't move.
I think about how this reaction is less big than it used to be, I feel proud. The next second I feel helpless, because it's still there and we haven't talked in 6 months. When will it go away? I don't know.
Then I remember my conclusion that I find it okay if it never goes away. All that matters is that I never let you inside of my life again. All that matters is that i protect myself from you.
All that happens in the first ten seconds.
I remember I wrote a letter to you, one of many, that I put into my close friends story, which no one can see but I can still add to my highlights, to remember. That was three days ago. On your birthday. From which day these photos were definetly posted.
In it, I wrote that I was sorry i didn't write you a birthday message.
I still am sorry.
But I am scared of your reply, scared of it developing into a conversation, developing into you in my life again- and I promised myself I would never do that again. I know why. No one else needs to know. I wouldn't be able to explain yet, anyway.
I never feel like it's valid, especially when the topic comes up that you're 2 ¾ years younger than me.
Every feeling turns invalid whenever the nausea comes up.
Of how I loved a younger girl.
Of how toxic I became due to sticking around in that environment.
Since I left, I have never been as disgusting again.
I have been kind and full of life.
I will be elected into the awareness team of the communal student home i live in this semester.
People trust me, and rely on me, and I do my best to try and still give.
I feel it is harder now, though.
While I am kind again, giving has become harder.
Because I gave too much to you.
I know my skill of giving will return though.
I have never been as cold as I was towards the end with you.
And I hope I never will be again.
I look at your profile picture. You are on the side. You do not look like the person I knew anymore. You look like that person died and you took their place.
You are an imposter, a woman I don't know.
I have read what it does to trans people who detransition due to "being able to tolerate being the other sex too", and that makes me worry for you, makes it hard to not break the no-contact and care for you, guide you again, BUT
I can not know if it is the case with you.
You might be happy.
You might have died and been reborn.
It just proves I do not know you anymore.
I want to click on your Profile, but I don't. You would see.
I watch out I don't click "like" either.
I eat a piece of bread that is way to hard to be consumed, i stop and think that i shouldnt connect this shakey trauma response with eating, since i am already obese. I put it away and drink tea instead. Warmly, i feel it running down the inside of my body.
I start writing and the feeling slowly settles and goes away.
Not electorcuted anymore, i look up and see it's been twenty minutes. I finish the bread and answer my mothers text messages.
There is way too much to do. Mom's moving boxes. My home assignment. The thing about the exam next Wednesday, that I might not be able to attend due to Covid.
It is always too much.
I always feel like sprinting on 2 percent of my stamina.
That feeling keeps me busy enough though, and sometimes, I am happy.
Today, I am sick with Covid, and i have to carry moving boxes.
That is enough to focus on.
I keep scrolling.
