When I was 19 and in hospital for two months, I got talking to an old friend from that time. We never talked face-to-face, and my carelessness for the future made it so easy to spill my guts to this person. She is south asian and I am south east asian.

We fell in love with each other - just a little bit - from phone calls and talking online. We listened to porn together and talked endlessly about everything. Our crushes, things we wanted to try out, anime. We talked anime a lot. We both felt grateful and uncomfortable around our parents because they wouldn’t let us forget how they lived as children, and we didnt spend much time with them. We were both queer trying to figure out our non-queer families, and vice versa. Neither of us (at the time at least) could even stand to look at our own respective peoples and I dont think either of us at the time understood why. We talked about that in depth just once.

I’m not going to go into what we individually said about our ‘own ppl’. It was bad, completely disrespectful and racist. We reassured each other though, told the other one to ‘shut up’ - because we knew it was wrong. I only understand now though, loving people who had similar faces to ours was too much to think about because of all the things society taught us ***. Our families scared us and so did our counterparts.

((*** This is not at the fault of so called ‘western’ propoganda. this type of thinking is apparent in every capitalist society - which nowadays is not soley perpetrated by white leaders. this involves all kinds of media such as a books movies online content theatre audiobooks video games music. Also includes places with unambiguous social structures like workplaces schools gyms infrastructure/city planning. this is nepo baby ish but seeing ppl with ur face constantly in lower-paid professional positions, made fun of and objectified in conversation, really does make u feel weird and sad.))

My first regret is distancing myself when she said she wasn’t sexual. We had already spent weeks talking over the internet and even though she said it softly it was absolutely ringing in my ears. I was so caught up with the prospect of sex I couldn’t even bear the thought of spending in-person, non-sexual time with her, and I kept this a secret. Don’t be like me. In retrospect, I felt like she was lying to me the whole time, and I guess she was, cause I brought up sexuality like every day. She felt like she had to hide an important part of herself from me, and when she was truly honest I punished her with awkwardness and by withdrawing myself. I think about it in horror, all the time.

The second regret I have is overreacting when she told her mother I was nonbinary and used different pronouns. It was a combination of hospitalised-with-cis-white-ppl-induced brainrot, and what she had confessed earlier. What she told her mother was just in preparation for when I would visit in the future! I lashed out in my own way, consistently replying with one word answers. Similar mini-'outings' happened before and since then, but this justified my decision to ghost. She tried to reach out a couple times, also in her own way, which I shot down. I haven’t spoken to her since.

It feels very strange to think about those weeks as a ‘whole’. The five stages of grief, bitch. I felt like I lived a full life and died, bitch. I’m a *fraction* older today and the guilt has not worn off. I think I got out of hospital a few weeks later after we had that falling-out.

I know she's not reading this but I'd like to practice for when I hopefully see her one day; I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry. I don't really know how to end this.