Kendra Syrdal

There is no need to wonder about the how and the why. Because you aren’t staying; your shirt is already over your head and your shoes are sliding onto your feet. There’s no need for watching my phone because slowly but surely the screen will stop lighting up with your name. I need to stop avoiding the inevitable and let the water wash away every trace of you that is eating away at my skin.

Honestly not accepting a gift from Buddy the Elf is like taking a four-year-old to a screening of Krampus.

The podcast devoted to “the basics: love and death and justice and truth,” launched their second season with no warning yesterday. After over a year since the release of season one, fans of the podcast expectedly lost their shit when they pulled a Beyoncé and dropped a whole new, suspenseful addition to the Seriafam with no warning.

You are stitched together with broken promises from other girls and you’re looking to me to close off the knot. You aren’t comfortable in your decisions, in your choices, and you look to other people for validation. You thrown off by the silence between sentences and the spaces that our fingers leave when I pull my hand back to my own chest.

He’s there, scaling walls and risking life and limb for the craziest and most impressive picture. Because god FORBID that damn photo get less than 400 likes.

He’s a little more than a booty call because you know his middle name and all, but he’d never be your boyfriend because he still quotes Fight Club like it’s his religion. You know there’s no longevity with the situation.

Get your tissues, get your Adele playlist ready, and pick one of these super sad locations for the next time you need to get down with your depressed self.

I say that I’m emotionally damaged. I joke that the part of my brain that releases oxytocin has gone on a permanent sabbatical. I nod along when people tote the, “You just haven’t met the right person” banner while I silently disagree.

Take your bondage tape to the gym and get Fifty Shades of SWOL.

People will try to take advantage of your generosity, but that doesn’t mean you should lose it.

Do I do a rousing rendition of Creed hits at karaoke? Yes, yes I do. I love getting raspy and belting out potentially Christian, post-grunge rock ballads. I imagine myself rocking a strange khaki jacket in the middle of an abandoned field and hearing thousands of fans also singing, “Welcome to this place.”

Why someone isn’t texting us back. You know how a watched pot never boils? Well, a watched iPhone never notifies. Step away from the iMessage and breathe.

Kids are expensive; taking them out and about doesn’t have to be. We have become practically connoisseurs at knowing where the cheap and fun places in our respective cities are. And you know what that means? We can also plan hella cheap and fun dates. You and your wallets will thank us.

If you write about me, I was worth writing about. I wasn’t a drop in the bucket, or a notch on the bedpost. I wasn’t just another girl who said they liked your smile or who said, “I bet you’re going to do cool thing someday.” It means that I resonated, that I left a mark.

They aren’t your person, your love, anything remotely yours. And it’s awful.

It’s feeling like the same bland, sad, murky version of yourself day after day and just wondering if this is how the rest of your life will be.

Our love was unmanageable, wild, eating-past-our-fill, and staying up too late. It was sleeping in past alarms and not caring about things like “too much sugar.”

“Going out sounds awful, we should just order Seamless again.”