do you remember that time i had a stomachache and you stayed up all night with me, drawing pictures on a pizza box? or the time tried we to skip rocks and mine would always just sink, sink, sink to the bottom and oh, how retrospectively that irony is killing me. i’d count my summer freckles and we’d try to count your always freckles but it was endless just like the dysphoria catching myself right before i fall. always, me. i’m sorry that i always use the wrong words, and i am sorry that i can’t always pull myself up by my bootstraps. and i’m even sorrier that i can only stutter paradoxes at the most cardinal of moments. instead of lub-dubbing my heart is singing that bittersweet symphony out of tune and it seems a little silly that it all happens like this. and it seems even sillier that i rub these things onto my skin like you’d rub the engraving of a tombstone, to remember that they disappeared but they’ll always haunt you.