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 fucking 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 fucking 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 suck 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)