Mila Jaroniec

Because someone just started playing Robyn and you’re getting how you always get when you listen to Robyn.

What killed me was I knew it could have been avoided. I knew that if I had just taken care of it alone without telling anyone I wouldn’t have had to deal with the social repercussions. And yet, some small vulnerable part of me reached out for help, for support.

If you interact in any way on Tumblr, you obviously need to have sex. But then again everyone on Tumblr just needs to have sex with each other. Just a massive internet orgy of political correctness and hipbones and love.

As awesome as it can be to think so, you can’t “win at life.” Not even if you’ve got tiger blood (??). No one’s keeping score and besides, we all know how it ends.

Just going to class (or not) and getting A’s in stuff will not do anything for you, I promise. You’re paying out the ass for this education, and if you really do want to be there, why not make it worth the time and money? Just do stuff. Seriously.

Well. I only hope that one day I will stop making stupid mistakes in favor of educated ones, and be able to plan things, and operate a rice cooker. I always burn rice when I boil it so I hope I figure out that last one pretty soon. But even when I have all those things down, I still want to stay young.

You’ll take blurry pictures together and put them up on the fridge, ask each other’s opinions about what to wear for a first date or a night out. You’ll meet each other’s girlfriends, boyfriends, parents and one night stands; you’ll see all these people and discuss them in the kitchen the next day.

Bright stretchy leopard-print shirts for $2.99 puncture the greyspace. Scattered kiosks with bored dark-skinned men offering cheap ear piercings and tongue rings topped with spiky neon koosh balls. Stick-legged girls with too-bronze foundation and meticulously straightened highlighted hair. Acne-scarred boys who smell like pot.

Because you’re addicted. Because you know exactly what Edward meant when he called Bella his own “personal brand of heroin” and you’re ashamed to admit you feel that way.

Too often, people will make emotional arguments while trying to get you to see their side of things. But this is to be avoided, as only weak-willed earthlings make emotional arguments.

A clock keeps ticking somewhere. Two clocks. They’re ticking at different times. Tick-tick. Tick-tick. Tick-tick. The noise becomes unbearable. You can’t find the second clock.

In customary self-indulgent Tumblr fashion, the two bloggers’ bios were overflowing with adjectives and descriptions (“FAAB,” “objectum sexual,” “transabled” “demiplatonic,” “aromantic,” etc. — you get the picture), all put there to give the reader an idea of their fascinating “otherness.”

Do you know the idea of marriage makes me feel claustrophobic? Do you know that when I say “yes,” I want to be absolutely sure? Do you realize there’s no guarantee that will happen?

I could have taken a picture of my bent copy of Hopscotch blowing open next to a caipirinha in an outdoor café, water droplets sweating down the glass, and it would have seemed the ultimate in tropical vacation relaxation, although at that moment I was feeling empty and desolate at the flat possibility of never being loved again.

Let’s be honest, honest like we’ve never been. Let’s tell each other the truth about things, why not? The blunt horrible fat-legged truth is what really gets someone to like you, not those drippy approximations; no one falls in love with you until you show them some grit.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to forget you, I have. My best friend still thinks I’m not trying hard enough, I think I am but it’s not helping; it’s that weird sticky residue left behind after peeling a price tag off plastic. Recently I learned there is a term for this. That term is “heartworm.” I feel better knowing that other people struggle with this problem.

I sat in the examination room for a few more minutes and tried to process. I tried to imagine a living thing implanting itself inside of me and growing there, feeding off my energy. It was unreal. It was nine weeks old.

When it feels right it’s going to make you feel level, supported. Everything will stand still and make sense for a minute; suddenly you’ll have the last word in the irritating crossword puzzle. You’ll fill it in, stand back and acknowledge, and everything’s going to be right where you put it. And then everything will be clear.