Aren’t we alone?

Aren’t we alone when we run behind the doors, catching breaths we couldn’t take a minute before? When we come back from a meeting where everyone thought things were alright and yet we still had that suffocating pain in our throats because we felt like crying but couldn’t? Can we be safe to feel whatever we might feel? Would it stand in the way of our collective objectives and deadlines? Aren’t we alone when we can’t allow ourselves the time to shake off our personal burdens because bigger issues have to be prioritized?

I come to February 14 this year with the hard lessons of winter: that mismatched marriages, lack of communication, and anger have marked our younger selves as much as love and devotion, and that we are still living the consequences of this volatile mixture; that those we invest time and feelings in do not get in touch until they want something from us; that I am only just learning to miss and need without raging on the inside; that love between women is not linear, we push it to many deaths and will it to many stunted rebirths; that what I want this year is not heart-shaped red cushions nor