Dragged my eyes open with the room spinning, sheets twisted at my feet, last night’s shirt on. Barbarically hungover. Ten seconds of having no idea what’s even going on. 

Then it all returns in fragments. 

Warm hazy bar lights, deep gulps from a pint glass, yelling over music to talk with friends and they ask me if I’m okay and i say yeah. Like the answer even fucking matters. I’m in my 30s, get real. No one gives a shit. 

Wrapped the comforter around me and squeezed my eyes. Tundra inside the apartment because I like to sleep cold then wake up wanting to die. Outside it’s snowing so hard you can barely see the next building. My apartment has floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere so it’s like I’m laying inside a snow globe. It’s cinematic.

Fell asleep with my AirPods in and they’re lost somewhere in the bed. I remember listening to Last Flowers by Radiohead. 

I brought my knees to my chest and watched the snow fall outside the windows and played Precious by Depeche Mode on my phone. Every time the guitar strikes I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the chest. 

What the fuck is happening. 

I fell in love once a decade ago. She looked like prime Kate Upton. But her face was prettier than Kate upton. Turned heads when she walked into rooms. She was also an angel and the sweetest person I’ve ever met. I fucked it up. It was my fault. And it destroyed me. A year of total self destruction and fucking whoever to feel better about myself. It took so long to not think about her every day. 

Every girl after that got a different version of me. A shittier version. Every girl after that was compared to her. Unfair. Living in the shadow of her. It was always over from the start. 

I got older and just became numb. Thats why I left palm trees and beaches and moved up north. That’s what the winter is. It’s proof. Proof that everything dies. Ryan died around Thanksgiving. My grandfather died on Christmas. It’s something I despise but it’s something I need. Awareness of death. A spiritual craving. Sometimes I want to feel like shit. I need to feel it. It’s a reminder of my own mortality and the fragility of everything around me. 

I used to live by the beach where the weather was perfect every day. Blue sky, warm salt-tinged air, palm trees swaying in their lazy rhythm. Nothing ended there because nothing ever changed. No matter what the sun just kept showing up. Like a simulation. 

I couldn’t feel anything. There was no grief. No joy. No movement. I met a girl who should be my wife or at least fiancé right now but I just couldn’t feel romance (I’m sorry emily I love you). 

Winter is the ultimate reminder that everything dies. 

I need the green trees to turn brown and red then die and everything to turn to grey. I need know death exists. I need it to fall in love. 

I allowed it to happen again and this girl got the best version of me and now I’m left with nothing. But life has smacked me in the face and humbled me so many times that I embrace the emotional violence of it all. I can roll with it. 

The snow keeps falling and will bury everything. Memories, plans, old versions of yourself, love. 

Everything gets buried eventually. Everything dies. 

I feel destroyed. 

Oh you know what. Fuck it.