WEDNESDAY APRIL 9

It’s important to recognize when you’re hoarding for no good reason. I bought lip gloss when I was doing my study abroad, wandering around Oslo. It’s a deep pink. I had no idea I’d fall so deeply for this shade; it’s always the cheap ones that you can never find again. It was perfect. I took her everywhere with me, only using bits when I really knew she’d shine on my mouth. Then it never finished, it just ended up rolling around at the bottom of my bag. I’d been hoarding her, for some empty moment I thought would come—dust. I’m wearing her now, when I’m all alone in some bedroom that’s meant to be mine.  My sister FaceTimes me and she goes, why are you so done up, Kiran? And I’m like, just to sleep. I think about Sam and when my mom asked if she should get my hair permanently straightened, she doesn’t look me in the eye when we fight anymore. He said to me, but the curls are coming back, right? A blowout’s not permanent, right? And I looked at him and thought how I should’ve worn my Oslo lip gloss, my pale lips put him off probably. He ghosted me later. Even if my people weren’t memories, they still couldn’t do anything for me. The egg has snapped open, and I’ve seen the fuzzy yolk.

I slip off into daydreams when I drive. I am always confronted with a hallway of doors. I knock and ask for Kiran, but she’s never there. Hoarding is bad and it’s equally bad when all that indie music doesn’t hit the spot anymore, because you can’t be this deep container like you used to be. Nothing lives in boxes anymore; it all exists together in a big soup; I have to be a kayak. Kayaking over frozen water. My mom always says how beautiful I’d be if I was a little thinner, and I always think damn—the cucumbers aren’t working. She came to my bedroom and told me I should watch TV downstairs. I thought, oh with her? But then I remembered my dad was gone and it was late at night, and she was going to bed and was afraid. I have to go back to university tomorrow to grab all my last things, five years done. I forget my license, but I always have Advil and wine, everywhere, just a bit of wine hidden in every single spot, like my dad, but my bottles are pink and his are brown. I have to take the wine bottles back to uni with me because I can’t put them in the family trash. My mom’s little Panjabi heart would explode. My tote bag full of empty bottles clinks, clink-clink, so funny, I giggle.

I see big bodies of water in my sleep. I walk into those black pools and drown. My dream doesn’t last long because it’s Wednesday and I’d like a latte.