Edited by Alloe Mak

My mom tells me I am a difficult person to love. The night of prom, I decided to get mad at everyone I knew. By morning, I wasn’t friends with the people I had stuck with throughout all of high school. I’m not sure what brought about such things. My birthday was a week later, and like a child, I cried without presents.

gripping marble floors

wheezing in

short gasps

I went to Japan a month later with my mom on a trip I had planned with those same friends, and she told me this: I am a difficult person to love. 

red shrines tell me I 

will find peace

in taking the shot

The albatross still weighs heavily. I did something I thought would be a kindness. Though the bird has become fattened, bloated. I did something I don’t dare regret. And I know the next step, but has Atlas ever truly shrugged? Can that bird be kept down?

My shoulders are bruised, and my birthday was yesterday. I feel summer, this time, might last forever. And on the beach, I taste sea air. 

crashing waves a 

threat of sand stuck 

in your shoes.