#9

how to survive the summer (a procedural checklist for girls who cry in bathrooms)

1. bring sunscreen.

not because you care about your skin. but because you’re tired of burning. you’ve burned too much already this year – in beds not meant for you, in conversations that made your throat tight, in the ache of mothers who call too late. reapply every two hours. especially after crying. especially after forgiveness.

2. buy fruit.

peaches, preferably. let them rot in the kitchen bowl like a warning. they’ll soften like your patience did, bruising under the weight of silence. someone will ask why you never eat them. you’ll say, they’re not ready yet. it’s easier than saying, i’m not ready yet.

3. wear something light.

something that lets the wind touch you without asking. you want to feel held without having to explain. like when he zipped your dress up and you didn’t flinch. like when he braided your hair and didn’t ask why your hands were shaking.

4. bring a pen.

not for poems, but for rewriting the story. the one where you begged someone to choose you.

revise : you chose yourself at the bus stop, with a coffee in hand, and no one clapping but the pigeons.

cross out : i waited.

replace with : i left.

5. keep something dead in your pocket.

a dried flower. a used ticket. the receipt from that night you swore you’d never think about again. memory is a tender rot. you press it between notebook pages like a specimen. it grows softer, less sharp, but never less real.

6. learn how to leave parties early.

you don’t have to say goodbye. just go. let the door close behind you like a soft punctuation. like a comma, not a period – you’ll exist again, just elsewhere.

7. call your sister.

if you don’t have one, call the girl who held your hair back last april. ask her if she still paints her nails blue. ask her if she still keeps her dad’s voicemails in a folder titled sky. don’t talk about the boy. talk about the sun, and how it stayed out longer today.

8. eat alone.

order something you can’t pronounce. chew slow. think of your body as a cathedral – you do not need company to feel sacred.

9. practice saying no.

in the mirror, in the car, in a whisper. say it like a gift. like a storm. like a woman who isn’t asking for forgiveness. say it once and let it echo inside your ribs.

   no.

it’s a full sentence. it tastes like liberation, like blood in your mouth that isn’t from biting your tongue.

10. sleep with the window open.

not because you’re waiting for someone to crawl in, but because the night is the only thing that doesn’t ask for your shape to be smaller. let the air love you the way people couldn’t. let the moths mistake you for light.