D
I gave her a nickname so I wouldn’t have to say her name out loud. Colored hair girl, because the color keeps changing and that feels safer than permanence. We are mutuals, which is a small word that does a lot of lying. Since April I have checked her page every day, sometimes more than once, as if the repetition could turn looking into meaning. I scroll through photos I pretend are casual, learning the background details, the way light sits on her face, the jokes she likes, the version of herself she offers to the public and withholds from me.
I tell myself it is harmless because it is quiet. I never message. I never cross the invisible line. I just watch stories before they expire, count the hours between posts, reread captions like they were written for me alone. I build a private archive out of screenshots I never admit to taking. In this archive I am close to her without being known, present without being wanted, safe inside the distance I pretend is dignity.
What I want is small enough to feel humiliating. A like. Not love, not conversation, not recognition that would require her to see me clearly. Just a heart under my post so I can tell myself I exist in her periphery. When it does not come, I rehearse the reasons. The algorithm. The timing. My face. My voice. My everything. I decide in advance that even if it happened it would mean nothing, because wanting more would expose how little I think of myself.
So I stay where I am, a mutual who watches, a name she scrolls past, a person who mistakes longing for connection. I call myself disgusting to make the yearning feel deserved, like punishment instead of hope. I say loser because it lowers the stakes and keeps me from risking anything real. I tell myself this is all I will ever have, a screen, a nickname, a waiting room of desire where nothing happens and nothing has to.
I tell myself it is harmless because it is quiet. I never message. I never cross the invisible line. I just watch stories before they expire, count the hours between posts, reread captions like they were written for me alone. I build a private archive out of screenshots I never admit to taking. In this archive I am close to her without being known, present without being wanted, safe inside the distance I pretend is dignity.
What I want is small enough to feel humiliating. A like. Not love, not conversation, not recognition that would require her to see me clearly. Just a heart under my post so I can tell myself I exist in her periphery. When it does not come, I rehearse the reasons. The algorithm. The timing. My face. My voice. My everything. I decide in advance that even if it happened it would mean nothing, because wanting more would expose how little I think of myself.
So I stay where I am, a mutual who watches, a name she scrolls past, a person who mistakes longing for connection. I call myself disgusting to make the yearning feel deserved, like punishment instead of hope. I say loser because it lowers the stakes and keeps me from risking anything real. I tell myself this is all I will ever have, a screen, a nickname, a waiting room of desire where nothing happens and nothing has to.
