Category: Uncategorized

creative nonfiction by Delaney Don

I want to believe it didn’t happen. The utter shock that exploded from my chest to settle in my stomach has made a home inside me ever since. It stunned me when I opened the text, the shock from the few words across my phone screen robbing me of the movement in my legs. A sudden roaring in my ears drowned out the sound of my mother’s voice. It’s a perfectly normal thing for people our age to do, but it isn’t who I thought he was. How many times had he kept this from me? How could it be true?

. . . 

Everything I see is tinted red. The smallest things fuel the rage in my chest, bubbling up to the surface and erupting like a volcano on unsuspecting citizens. My normal self, trapped within me, smothered by uncontrollable fury. Silenced by things I cannot control. Words I don’t mean slip out my lips and into the hearts of the people I love most. The hole in my chest that held despair is now encompassed with an orange, burning flame. I stumble to grasp the burning sensation as it fights to escape and impose on another soul. It rips at my chest, agony in its rawest stage. The misery is so tangible yet the fire is just a feeling. Pressure builds inside and threatens to escape. The walls around me are closing in, each time he speaks the pressure grows stronger and stronger. I can’t contain it anymore. My eyes cloud with a steady stream of salty water seeking to douse the pain. The deafening roar within my ears grows louder and my mouth opens in a silent scream. Don’t touch me don’t touch me don’t touch me, I try to hiss. His face appears in my vision. The whites around my grey eyes are red from the sting of tears. My cheeks are blotchy and pink, my lips a dark rose, my palms dripping scarlet from where my grey painted fingernails pierced the skin. The chaos in my mind halts when he reaches out a hand and touches me. His fingers feel cool against my burning skin.

. . . 

It’s as if a mourning curtain had been draped across the earth. As I walk, the rushing cars and passing pedestrians are hazy and grey. The rain continues and I am not granted a single moment of relief from the damp misery. A woman lumbers down the sidewalk with her short, ratty dog, her face reflecting pure agony and there’s a storm brewing in her eyes. The cars in the street do not exceed five miles per hour, and the woman and her dog are struggling to reach the end of the block. My droopy grey eyes roam as I walk past the woman with her dog. A tear drips down her cheek and hits the sidewalk. When it collides with the pavement it blends with the other tears from the sky above. What could have caused this pain that warps the world? My mind is clouded by the onslaught of questions and thoughts and scenarios. What if what if what if? The sharp ache in my chest breathes and flourishes, encouraged by the feelings the hard earth emits from around me. The desire for a ghost of a smile teases my lips. Wanting, needing, pure lust for a dreg of joy pulls at my consciousness. The urgent need for the pain to disappear. Deserving but unachievable, simply too far out of reach. Oh, what it would feel like to see the vibrant colors of the world once again.

. . .

Curtains drawn, pure black obstructing the room. Doors closed, shutting away outside threats. Shutting myself in. Here, nothing can touch me. I am hunched forward like an armadillo after a fright. Armadillos have shells to protect them. Me? I have nothing but fragile skin easily pierced by the knife of betrayal. The layers of clothes I wear and duvet that conceals me act as their own forms of protection. My own attempt at a shell. The more my skin is covered, the less likely the knife he holds can harm me. I pull my sleeves over my balled fists and my hood over my neck. Despite the layers I wear a persistent chill blossoms in the air around me. Thunder erupts from outside my windows, the echoing boom still ringing in my ears. The only thing to accompany me, the steady sounds of the storm around me. With each passing moment and each tear that collects in my eyes, I separate myself from the world. Regret lives in my tears as they begin the path down my cheek, the salty cold stinging the raw flesh on my neck where my fingernails tried to claw the ghost of my previous tears away. I don’t want to believe it’s true but the realization crushes me beneath its weight. The darkness of the room cascades over my body. I can feel the tears now, cascading down my neck and under my sweatshirt, probably lost somewhere between my chest and my stomach. I sink further into the chill of my bed and the only remaining comfort I possess. I have been immobilized by a pain I don’t recognize. A raging fire trying to ward off the darkness. The fire burns within me. But that fire has been smothered by my tears.

. . . 

The sky is littered with the remnants of dark clouds from the seemingly endless thunderstorm. The sun has begun to peek out from behind these ominous clouds, shining its golden light onto our faces. The warmth of the rays vibrates through my body, lightly brushing against my soul, an encouraging touch to coax the armadillo out of its shell. We had sat together for hours, hands clasped and eyes locked as we talked ourselves off the edge. Now, I have no trouble putting one foot in front of the other. The people around us rush about like bees in search of pollen, each separate person in a rush to finish their daily tasks. Unlike them, I am in no rush to get anywhere. My path is undefined and infinite. I inhale the crisp breeze and hold it prisoner in my lungs. When I exhale, the agony that dominated my life clings to that breath as it leaves my body in a rush of pure relief. His words are soft and white noise to my ears, he follows along quietly as I navigate the winding streets. He’s a steady presence amongst the bustling bees in the hive. He points out the shops of tangerine, salmon, jade, and saffron candies, toys that make children squeal with delight, and restaurants that are home to different foods from around the globe. The street is a river of cars and buses, wheels turning over the rough cobblestone of ancient roads like boats gliding through water. The sidewalk we follow turns into a large landscape resembling an artist’s canvas with sparkling grass and endless skies. Together, we step into the painting. A small smile tugs at the corners of my lips. 

The grass really is greener on the other side. And the sky is bluer, the sun more luminescent, the people vibrant and shining. He sits beside me, the sunlight bending to hit the side of his face, illuminating his walnut irises. My body is light, my head clear. The graze of his fingers over my arms real and anchoring me to this world. The breeze tastes sweet and is slightly tinged by the smell of the lingering rain. The grass, the color of emeralds, is soft under my fingertips. Prominent and sanguine music lives in the air around us, serenading the senses. The only things to exist in the present world right now are me and him, everything else is background noise, irrelevant to my development. My lips are decorated with a broad, toothy smile mirroring the one on his face. My mind heeds no protest as I reach my hand out to interlace my fingers with his. Light explodes across my vision and my body warms with pleasure. I feel alive. The final stage. After every storm lies the promise of a rainbow.

fiction by Sarah McLean

The old gods meet in the ruined temple once a month to discuss the state of things.

They don’t always all show up. This time, there are fourteen of them. They sit in a circle around what used to be the altar, and stare at each other with their myriad of eyes, beneath the crumbling statues of their ancestors. They don’t speak a language that any humans would understand. When they leave, it’s without sound. Gods are funny like that. They don’t stay for coffee at reception.

They were caught once. This is that story, and this is how we know what it is they do. I will tell you, so that when you find them in the temple, you will have some idea of what to expect. 

I. Prima Materia.

It happened that an acolyte of the Alchemist’s Guild came to the temple ruins to gather herbs. Certain plants grew on the slimy walls that don’t grow anywhere else. The young man entered the temple as he always had, stepping carefully under a pillar that had fallen and was leaning against the opposite wall like a megalithic tree trunk, trying not to slip on the stone floor that was damp with weird, greenish ooze. Algae and ground water, he thought. He had recently begun his training at the Guild, and had only visited the temple twice before. It fascinated him. The dripping slime, even if it was just algae, would make for such an interesting alchemical reagent. Whatever it was that produced the strange ivy on the Cyclopean walls would have unique properties of its own. Studies on this had certainly been done by the senior members of the Guild, but this intrepid alchemist wanted to try some of his own. Because, why not? Why did one become an alchemist, if not to try strange experiments for the hell of it and see what happens? 

He had finished collecting some of the slime in a slender glass bottle, and began scratching at one of the nearby walls, which had an inscription on it. Inscriptions are everything to alchemists. Some of their most treasured texts were weird things that someone had scribbled, somewhere, sometime. Herbs are not the only reason that alchemists come to the temple; they come mainly for secrets. Lost knowledge infests ruins. Everyone knows that. Scrawled on the wall in the language of relics.

Translated, it meant: You aren’t what you think you are. A profound secret. Perhaps that one should be taught before the ubiquitous “one is all and all is one,” or “as above, so below.”

The gods chose the ruined temple because it belonged to no one, and as such, was neutral territory. Their main topics of conversation are things beyond mortal comprehension, concerning places we have only seen in our dreams, if at all. They ask each other about solar rainfall and sweeping the base of the void and why there isn’t any sun in the islands anymore. (Which islands? I don’t know, but whatever sea they’re in, it’s not one of water.) What they don’t talk about, is transmutation. Or immortality. Or morals, or sex, or covetousness, or any of the other things that humans are concerned with. They don’t know what sin is. We’re as strange to them as they are to us, but unlike us, they don’t try to see us in their shape. When they do talk about humans, they are most interested in what humans do for them. They brag about how many offerings they get. They show off. They describe the temples built for them, what nice homes they are. They tell about how they inspire humans with visions and ecstasy at this or that ritual, and how fun it was, and then they leave. It’s not that humans are uninteresting to gods — humans are very interesting to gods — but they’re interesting in the same way metals are interesting to alchemists. Burn, boil, distill, sublimate, dissolve, ferment, and see what it does. Humans are the only animals who seek to understand gods, and don’t simply accept gods as being.

So, when the young alchemist had finished copying inscriptions and collecting ooze, and he found fourteen gods sitting between ancient pillars and statues, surrounding a slab of crumbling rock that used to be an altar… well. He screamed. The gods stopped talking and looked at the human who had intruded upon their meeting and made a series of noises — shrieks, burbles, whispers. They didn’t question the human. They just waited for something to happen. Either the human would stay, or he would leave. The man looked into the faces of Storm. Fire. Sun. Intoxication. War. Night. Sorrow. Growth. Movement. There were more, but the story varies, and it is not certain exactly which fourteen there were. 

It is said that any human who looks directly into the face of a god, goes mad. This is not technically true. Gods are difficult to comprehend, and anyone who tries, goes mad. It is the nature of humans to try to make sense of things that don’t make sense. To see their true forms is to experience the incomprehensible, to shock the mind. That is why gods have their statues, so that they can have human forms and faces, makeshift bodies through which they can speak to us. If one is able to look upon the god’s face and simply accept it as it is, then they would not go mad, though this is because they are most likely a bit mad already.

The gods began to whisper among themselves again, and one of them stood up to try to talk to the visitor, who was standing stock-still as his brain tried to swallow. It walked toward him, moving as though its feet were a few inches above where the ground was supposed to be, hidden by its dark skirts. Run, the man thought, but he still didn’t move. 

I don’t like alchemists, said the silent god with its non-voice. You aren’t fun. You aren’t useful. You try to be like us, but you just play with earth. What are you?

The young man blurted the first thing that came into his head. “You are not what you think you are!” 

Oh, said the god. What do you think you are?

Moral. Clever. Capable. “Human?”

No. You are like us, but squished down into that tiny body, said the god. It turned around, and walked back towards the council, having said everything it meant to.

II. The Chemical Wedding.

The gods left, soundlessly. There was no point in staying and talking if a human was there, and they had run out of things to say by now, anyway. Only one stayed, watching the man with eyes like bronze and wondering at him. It had a flickering semblance of humanity. It was shaped something like a person in robes, and had eyes where a face should be, and something like horns or antlers on its head. The man recognized this as a god that he himself worshipped. This was the god that had written the first books on alchemy and magic. This god had a cosmic library all to herself that was full of all the knowledge in the universe. This god had built mountains out of clay and lit lamps with fire from stars. This god was beautiful, stunning. He projected his image of her over its shadowy true form, and it coalesced into the lovely woman that he had seen depicted in statues. Beholding the presence of divinity, the man sank to his knees. Desire for her swam behind his eyes. Was that sinful? 

Alchemists try to fix the volatile, don’t they? The god’s voice was still a soundless whisper, but there was the shade of a sensual woman’s voice in it somewhere. Well, I am volatile. You are fixed. You need to become like me, and therefore I need to become like you. That is the way alchemy works, right?

“How do we do that?”

I don’t know. Do you know?

The man did know. 

The green sludge was gone, replaced by clear, pale water that trickled over smooth stone that shined like gold. Below, there was a beautiful woman and a beautiful man. As he lay with her, sighing and trembling in her arms, she gently washed his nude body with the bright water. Both were off somewhere else. Above, their souls mingled in blinding light, searing darkness. There, the man felt only dimly connected to his body. He and the god were both beings of light and shadow, shifting, mixing, separating and combining again. His mind was on fire. Information and insights streamed through it between expansive bursts of ecstasy and madness. In this moment, he was aware of everything, connected to everything, he understood everything — everything the alchemists had been trying to accomplish for centuries. And they were wrong, the secret was not in chemicals and never was. The way to touch God was to simply reach out and touch god. 

III. Aqua Vitae.

When the man came out of his haze, the god was gone. The temple was no longer bright and shining, it was again a dark ruin. Most of the information that had entered his mind in the strange wordless language of the gods was gone, like the fading ephemeral memory of a dream. But he remembered the important things. Are we all like that? he thought. We are all great beings confined to flesh, and the alchemist’s purpose is to become that great being while in the flesh, to be both at once? He stood up, and there was no slime on his body, or anywhere. Another inscription caught his eyes — this one was clearly modern, and scrawled by an alchemist. Maybe he had written it, in his madness: Solve et coagula. That was banal to him by now. In fact, everything was. The great secrets of the universe were all so obvious! Plain! It was when they sank in that the mind reeled.

Those who keep their sanity after an encounter like that usually become successful, especially as mages or alchemists. After his success, many others went seeking the gods in their meetings, hoping to see what they really look like under the masks that they give them. Most didn’t see them. Gods find you, even if they don’t intend to. 

This time, there are once again fourteen of them, sitting around the empty altar. They speak of the ineffable. You have come to the temple to listen, and maybe you’ll find the answer to whatever truth you are trying to find.

A short story by Madeline Cho

We met, both a little drunk, in the kitchen of our mutual friend’s cramped apartment. A moth had flown through that window above the sink and was circling the old yellow chandelier, its wings making a soft brushing sound you insisted could be heard over the din of the party. So we planted our backs on the floor, knees bent, gazing up at the moth knocking clumsily around the box of a room we were in.

In any other circumstance I would stay well away from a moth-inhabited kitchen. Something about the bug had always rubbed me wrong; perhaps it was their fat, furry bodies or how they could always find their way inside no matter how hard you’d try to keep them from doing so. Granted, I would not, in any other circumstance, lie elbow-to-elbow with a near stranger on the floor, but there I was. 

Let’s let it out, you said. 

The moth danced, unbothered by its audience, casting shadows above us like our own private show. Best seats in the house.

I fixed my eyes on the ceiling, knowing that if I turned my head ninety degrees to the left I’d catch you glancing at me and our eyes would meet and I’d start to see you differently. Already I imagined you gingerly scooping up the little bug in a way that wouldn’t crush its papery wings, and I would open the back door and watch you free this poor helpless thing, almost jealous of the bit of care it received. 

Instead of looking at you squarely, I swayed to my feet and waved my arms in an attempt to make you smile and to coax the moth outside, successful only in the former. We jumped and laughed like kids, and suddenly, for a second, I could imagine a younger you — braving the sting of a scraped knee, prying apart the sections of an orange to give to your friends, loving your parents so truly and innocently before you really saw them as people. Youth flashed across your face and I wished deeply that I could have known you back then, known you longer and better. We wouldn’t have our first kiss until July became August, when I stuck my head through the driver’s side window as you dropped me off at home. 

In the middle of our giggles, the moth had slipped out between the glass pane and the chipped windowsill back into the star-filled night. You led me hand-in-hand out the kitchen door and watched, speechless, as the bug found its way to a brighter light in a different window. We lingered outside, pressed in the two-foot gap between the exterior apartment wall and the neighbor’s wooden fence, knees barely touching. It was deep into the summer, but the misty breeze from the Pacific cleaned out the heat of the day in a way that felt like rebirth.

poetry by Emily Burksa

I still can recall when these faces around me
were shining, untouched, porcelain dolls,
with no mud caked in their aging cracks
and their smooth, white surfaces knew no flaws;

When hope still shone in those painted eyes,
long before the colors did chip or fade;
and when they watched from their shelves in awe
as I promised to make them proud someday.

This was many years past, I am sure,
but the only true sign is the way they have aged.
Nobody warned me how fragile they were,
or I’d have surely found them a better place.

But, alas, they stay up on my shelves, broken,
fated to watch as I break them some more,
and break promises made about making them proud,
and break myself, too, with their glass on my floor.

Porcelain faces should not be left
in the care of someone unknowing or young,
for when they grow up in remains of hope shattered,
they’ll turn back in shame and wonder what they’ve done.

A Short Story by Brodie Fazio

The drive home from work every night had become therapeutic. An open highway, with nobody else on the road besides his music and his thoughts. He looked forward to this drive home every night. Somewhere he could escape and be completely alone for a while. The 2003 Toyota Camry, which was gifted to him by his mother, gave him the freedom to finally be alone. He finds comfort in loneliness. That paired with the sound of Frank Ocean’s album “Blonde,” an album which he listened to religiously while driving home, made him feel like the only man left in the world. 

This lonely yet comfortable man goes by the name Kinsley, and this will be the fourth time in four nights that he is returning home late from work. Before reaching his home he decides to make a quick stop, just like the past three nights. He rolled past his driveway and parked his car at the apartment complex 4 spots down. Once parked, he turns off the radio and tries to make a phone call. Unsurprisingly to him, the call doesn’t go through. Nothing new. He hops out of the car and walks up to the back door, giving it a light knock once arriving. He checks his pockets to make sure he has his cigarettes while he waits. When the door finally opens, he’s at a loss for words. She looks even better than the night before. Megan was an old friend. To be more specific, an old girlfriend. They had maintained their relationship as friends after breaking up over two years ago, but some feelings had maintained as well. She was expecting Kinsley, as this was the fourth night in a row he had made his way over to her apartment. They sat and talked for a while about what used to be and what could have been. These types of conversations have been plaguing both of their minds for a while now. Attending weddings and baby showers was starting to get old, and the jealousy and angst about their futures was beginning to become a serious reality. The commonality that kept Kinsley and Megan connected in the first place was growing up in their hometown, but as everybody began to leave and move on, neither of them did the same. Megan returned home after college, finding a good job in the area and enjoying her young life as it came to her. Kinsley never left. He decided to leave school during his freshman year and return home. He started working for a small construction company to keep himself busy and earn some money, but he didn’t seem to have a plan in sight. It’s been 12 years since Kinsley’s freshman year of college, and that same construction company has been keeping him busy ever since. The other commonality that kept Megan and Kinsley connected was the fact that they both enjoyed smoking weed, something they would do while they were together. The stresses of growing into their futures could be temporarily forgotten about within a few minutes.

 They walked out and sat on the porch together with the pungent smell of skunk violating the air. This is when the conversations would really get interesting. Megan was emotional, and she would remind Kinsley of her feelings during their time together. The true love that she felt and communicated to Kinsley wasn’t reciprocated until it was too late. He let her go. He thought that he could move on without a problem. Now it’s two and a half years later and he’s smoking weed with her on her porch, listening to her talk about the ways she got over him. That was what killed him. They had become such good friends again that she was comfortable enough to talk to him as a friend, not a significant other. He knew this before tonight. As they finished smoking their weed and the evening was coming to a close, Kinsley offered her a cigarette. She took the fourth cigarette out of the packaging and he lit it for her, continuing to talk until the cigarette had been finished and Megan had become tired. They walked to the front door together and held each other in a warm embrace for a moment, thanking each other for the conversation and time that they had given. He walked back to his car and threw the pack of cigarettes in the middle console as he opened the door. The second he arrived back at his apartment, he fell asleep, physically and mentally exhausted from the day. 

By the time his alarm woke him up for work in the morning, he had shifted his mental focus from his emotional instability to his work assignments, and that was it. His job kept him extremely busy throughout the day, so much so that he barely even had time to think about Megan. Their company had suffered severely in production over the past few years, prompting the administration to cut down on simple work virtues like a 45 minute lunch break and smoke breaks. The 45 minutes had been depleted to 25 and smoking was effectively banned at the workplace, causing the majority of employees to fully quit smoking cigarettes, including Kinsley. It was physically taxing and mentally grueling, a long day for anybody involved. Kinsley waited all day to punch out and begin making the journey home, cigarettes in the middle console and Frank Ocean playing softly through the speakers.

A Short Story by Jillian Dean

Swipe left. Swipe right. 

Bumble. Tinder. Hinge. Forty-seven likes await you as you open the app after a long day. Yes, no, no, yes, no, yes, yes, no. 

You’re cute. Insufferable conversation. Generically handsome boy asks if you ever come out his way because New Haven does have the best pizza after all. The “Tour de New Haven” he calls it, and you’re actually excited for this one. 

You drive to New Haven, but no pizza this time. Some gastropub with New American bites and artisanal cocktails will have to do. 

Order two beers and Brussels sprouts with bacon because he loves apps. He calls appetizers “apps”. Tells you people on welfare should “just get a job” and stop using drugs, but took Adderall to get through school. Loves capitalism. Always assumes he’s the expert on issues. Proud of himself for tweeting that women have a place in the working world, but thinks the left has just gone too far. Thinks climate change is a hoax, but is socially liberal. Try to engage in conversation, but you hate it. You hate him. 

Nodding enthusiastically as he tells you all about himself. A doctor. Impressive. He tells you the story of how he heroically saved a patient’s life last week as an intern because he gave them a sodium blocker when the other doctors said they were fine and you still find yourself nodding along even though he meant calcium. Wrong. He is so fucking wrong. 

Unable to listen to the rest of his spiel, you start to fixate on every little thing about him. His hair is perfectly coiffed—not too long, not too short. A wave with a dip in the front that bounces every time he talks. He’s clean shaven and his head is tilted slightly upwards in a way that makes it look like he’s smirking at you. A Patagonia—of course. He looks tired, maybe uninterested. You can tell he doesn’t really want to be here either, he just likes talking about himself and you indulge him. 

He finally turns the conversation towards you and you tell him you like surfing and breweries and all the same things and for both your sakes you don’t order another round. He tells you he lives right around the corner and you can come over—only if you want to. 

Bingo. There it is. 

Back in your apartment you reach for your phone that’s been buzzing all night. Three text messages. One is definitely from your mom. Maybe he texted you. What if he didn’t? Why do you even care? 

It’s him. “Hope you got home safely would love to see you again.” 

Smile. He’s not that bad! He’s actually really sweet.

Swipe left. Swipe right. 

Bumble. Tinder. Hinge. Can’t remember who is on which app anymore. 

Oh, he’s cute. Forget the other one—you didn’t even like him anyway. 

Good job, tolerable conversation. You exchange numbers and weeks go by and you make small talk and then big talk and he asks to meet and says he’s been dying for some New Haven Pizza—oh my fucking God liking pizza isn’t a substitute for a personality and liking appetizers doesn’t make you a foodie. 

Oh, and he mentions he’s moving across the country, but long distance doesn’t bother him. So, you say yes—because he might be the one and what’s one more night out of your life, really. 

Stand awkwardly at a Mediterranean wine bar until they squeeze you in at a high top over on the side. He’s cute in a way that your grandmother would pick him out for you. Kind of doughy face with a genuine smile. He says he’s sorry pizza didn’t work out, Greenwich is just much easier for him. Order wine, order apps. He loves apps. 

He scans you up and down and you watch him nodding along as you tell him all the things you know he’s not even listening to. Your dirty blonde hair that’s perfectly done, but undone. Eye makeup—not too heavy, just a swipe of mascara. His eyes trace your pronounced collarbones as he looks you up, and down. Just jeans and a sweater. 

What is he thinking? Say anything. 

Watch his eyes come back into this dimension as he mutters under his breath how incredible the Brussels sprouts and rice balls are. 

Repeat it back as a question and smile and nod as he aggressively shoves food onto your plate. Tell him yes, you love apps. Say yes when he asks if you want more, but not too much. Say yes, you love tapas, because who doesn’t? Nod enthusiastically and say you could have drinks and apps every night of the week. Say you like wineries. Say you like breweries. Say yes to New Haven Pizza. Say no to deep dish. Say you like it all, too. 

When he turns the conversation back onto you, you find yourself telling him everything you think he wants to hear. You travel all the time. Lie. You love winter sports. Lie. You love the outdoors and going on long hikes. Lie, lie, lie. Tell him all the things you wish were true about yourself and for what, because you don’t even know if you like him or not and who cares what he thinks anyway. 

He smiles. He’s intrigued. 

Eager for a reason to show off his camera roll, he swiftly grabs his phone off the table and shows you all the pictures from his last hiking excursion in Arizona with his family, and tells you the story about how he got lost and needed to get rescued. Great, they’re a family who goes on camping trips. He accidentally swipes too far and shows you a photo of the whole family running a 5k on Thanksgiving. Even better. Truth be told, you can’t imagine which scenario is worse. 

You start to think about how you’re sitting across from this random person you never would have met otherwise, thank you Bumble, Tinder, or Hinge. 

The night closes with a hug and a kiss, and a, get home safe and it might be all the wine, but you manage to convince yourself you might actually like this one. And, you’re overly cautious when it comes to dating. You fail to see the green flags because you only see the red ones, but he’s what you call wholesome and you’re close-minded. 

But, days go by and every time you get a text your heart skips a beat. Worried it won’t be him, worried will be him. Probably just another dick pic. 

So, you text him. He tells you he enjoyed meeting you, but he just doesn’t think he has enough time to see you again before he moves.  

Are you fucking kidding me? 

Whatever. You didn’t even like him that much anyways.

Swipe left. Swipe left. 

Feel nothing.