It’s a spring day today. It’s summer in the sun and winter in the shade. My body does not know which season to belong to, so it lingers in the in-between, splitting itself apart. Half burning, half frozen. Half alive, half rotting. You understand this, don’t you? That feeling of being suspended between two selves, two states of being, neither of them quite yours. The warmth touches you, but it does not sink in. The cold nips at your skin, but you do not shiver. You are not here, not really. You are only the shadow you cast. Just like you, The enormity of my desires disgusts me. I want to be called beautiful. I want to be told I am loved—not once, not twice, but over and over again, until the words sink through my flesh, until they take root in my bones, until I become something soft, something sacred, something worth keeping. But I am made of spoiled meat, swollen with things that should not be here. I hold too much filth inside me—blackened regrets, sickness curdling beneath my ribs, ...