graphic by ella sylvie
despite my cousin and her husband meeting on tinder, i don’t believe in dating apps. they’ve never given me much reason to believe in them, until i met you. we’re not even dating and maybe we won’t ever date, but meeting you, i was and continue to be genetically altered, molting and mutating with every text, every song, every call. on my hour long subway ride from bushwick to the upper west side, my stomach knotted tighter and tighter with every stop, like someone was angrily braiding a neverending loaf of challah; it could’ve been the hard cider i stupidly drank on an empty stomach, but i really think it was the nerves. because why on earth did i choose to meet up with you and not one of the other 10+ matches i had made within 48 hours of being in new york? i don’t know if it was the eyebrow piercing, the music i saw you were into (I saw massive attack and was sold), or your short bio inquiring about my dreams. i don’t know you really, at least not yet (and maybe, probably not ever), but i know i made the right choice, or at least a choice that felt good the moment i saw you crossing broadway to meet me, a choice that has since crystallized. even if it goes bad, i will still think it was the right one (will i?). despite (maybe because of) the awkwardness of slurping slippery noodles and boiling broth in a loud restaurant while i got attempted to get to know you, you made me feel like a star, famous even, when you jokingly, nervously (flirtatiously?) named me your celebrity crush, citing my 200+ followers on spotify. i’m not sure if you’ll be happy to hear this (or if you’re hearing this at all… i like to think i’m telepathic), but the highlight of that night for me wasn’t you kissing me with soft lips (that miraculously didn’t have chapstick on them?) or you calling me gorgeous even though i had hat hair and was embarrassed by it (or seeing your parents’ golden globe gleaming on the counter) it was actually when you told me a short, sweet anecdote about a time someone asked you what you believe in, which is a big and loaded question to ask someone no matter how well you know them. your simple, almost holy answer was that you believe in people. in relationships. and i haven’t stopped thinking about it (or you) since.
i don’t believe in god (but i believe that people are portals), i
don’t believe in god (but i believe that songs are siblings), i
don’t believe in god (but i believe that strength is softness), i
don’t believe in god (but i believe that sunsets are sacred), i
don’t believe in god (but i believe that memories are molting), i
don’t believe in god (but i believe that strength is softness), i
don’t believe in god (but i believe that poems are potions), i
don’t believe in god (but i believe that stories are spirals),
the next day, after i met up for drinks with some friends i hadn’t seen in a while, i was thinking about this so drunkenly yet so vividly, with the lucidity of a [metaphor] while i was on the subway, alone at 2am on another hour long commute, this time from park slope to bushwick. i personally think drunk texts you receive from someone are something to treasure and not dread. when i waited on the platform for the second of two trains i needed to take, i felt possessed, compelled, obligated even, to send you not one, not two, but three drunken voice memos, only broken into three by the announcements booming on the loudspeaker, interrupting but not stopping my stream of consciousness. in these voice memos i reflected on this notion of believing in friendships, relationships, people, a notion that you excavated from my heart’s core when you told it to me. that night i spent catching up with friends made me think of all this, so naturally i had to tell you. you never directly responded to those messages (which i don’t hold against you.. or maybe i do), but you did listen to them, you did keep them, and because of that, because of you, because of me, because of the people i know (and don’t know yet),
i don’t believe in god (but maybe i do).
i don’t believe in god (but always, in You).