it's never going to be easy to be four hundred miles from the first home you ever knew and it's going to get harder when your mother gets diagnosed with cancer and her best friend is dead and can't take care of her and you can't take care of her because you're four hundred miles away and you shouldn't have to take care of her because you're a scared 19 year old kid but you will anyway because that's just how you operate take care of everyone else forget to eat don't cry don't you dare ******* cry realize you haven't eaten since breakfast and it's almost midnight drink too much coffee lose sleep but if everyone else is okay you'll be fine
and it's never going to be easy to be who knows how far away from the love of your life the person you want to hold in your arms at night so maybe just maybe you can cry just a little and let go just a little and stop pretending you're okay and just hurt for awhile because for the love of god you're only 19 this isn't fair and everything ******* hurts and you're mommy is sick and the closest thing you had to a second mom is dead because she drank herself to death and you can grin and bear it but you're not okay and nothing else is either
so you sit on campus and pour out words so you don't pour out tears and your fingers are chapped and cold from the breeze off the ocean and the breeze used to feel like home but now it's just cold and you wish you were warm at home, home home your real home, with your mother and your cat and the things you've seen every day since you could see your eyes and nose are red and you don't know if it's from crying or the cold and you type so hard you forget to breathe and all you want is to go home
but instead you close your eyes and scrunch away the tears fighting their way out and you shove your hands inside your absurdly oversized sweater inbetween bites of the vending machine chimichanga you inevitably burn your mouth on and you **** it up and tell everyone you're fine and go to class and get good grades because if everyone else is fine you can be okay for a few more hours a few more days a few more weeks however long it takes
(but just because you do it doesn't mean it's easy)