The Idea

I moved here in 2023 for university. It had always been a childhood dream to travel overseas for my study, so loneliness was not a concern I had at all. Somehow it still crept up in ways other than simple homesickness. I’ve beem doing better this year.

it’s not the absence of people – of that i am sure. i have always been the one who leaves but i’m
disappointed when no one knows who i am. i’m eighteen and i do the whole teenage routine:
chop my hair, fly over oceans, rearrange myself to seek out the kind of love i want. eldest
daughter tired of looking after everyone else, blessed victim, cursed god, whatever complex you
want. one of the millions of this same exact story. no, loneliness is not the absence of people.
loneliness is the absence of one person. i find myself looking for you everywhere i go. standing
in crowds, spotlight beams, thinking you’d have something to say about this. i’m twenty and i
feel like the most difficult thing in the world to understand. you made it look so easy but no one
seems to be able to replicate it. i’m scared no one ever will again.
except i’m just twenty one. every year feels like i’ve aged a decade but there will be more
crowds, more spotlight beams and i’ll cut my hair a hundred more times. someone will see me –
actually see me – again; new lover or new friend or the bartender at the jazz club. i think i grew
into childhood’s optimism many of my friends lost but is that a bad thing? i wasted too much of
childhood being lonely to do so again in my twenties.