My phone finally reached that inevitable point—1TB overflowing with images, videos, emails, messages, notes… an archive of digital memory. The glitches and malfunctions were a signal that it was time to sift through and reconsider what deserved to be saved. The notes became my first target.
As I scrolled back by year, beginning with 2017, I was struck by the fragments of myself preserved there—ideas, fleeting thoughts, lists, and confessions I’d almost forgotten. Amid the clutter, I uncovered pieces of unexpected gold, reflections I once jotted down in the spaces between living.
In the spirit of Susan Sontag’s journals, where she wove herself as both subject and muse, I offer these entries as raw glimpses into that year. Below are unpublished thoughts, poems, anecdotes, and stories from a younger version of me circa 2018.
January 1, 2018
The pain always makes the writing better. Sometimes I wish love flowed from my pen just as easy.
May 26, 2018
~ Necessity is the mother of invention
June 27, 2018
~ Mediocracy will stunt your growth.
~ In the age of instant gratification we are flooded daily with praises. Everyone’s praises aren’t equal.
September 14, 2018
”The noblest art is that of making others happy.”
— PT Barnum
September 22, 2018
~ You can’t really appreciate a waterfall unless you’ve seen the desert.
~You can’t appreciate the love if you haven’t felt the pain.
~ I think we would be us forever.
~ You’re more beautiful than any of those places you’ve ever been.
~ I seem to find extraordinary beauty in people that a lot of people find ugly.
~ I like girls with imperfections— that’s what makes them perfect to me.
October 4, 2018
~ Speak to me in your mother’s tongue.
Let me hear you roll your r’s like the ocean rolls waves.
~ Does love ever die? Or is it just energy repurposed?
~ Why is my soul tied in irreversible knots to yours? I’m getting rope burn trying to undo the mess we’ve made.
~ I found home in my bones. I’m never a stranger anywhere.
~ Your love means nothing without your loyalty.
October 5, 2018 **(trigger warning: sexual assault)**
My body is a temple. Or so I thought. But do temples get robbed by thieves in the night— because my body was desecrated by a demon posing as a man. And I was just wondering...still wondering... who’s going to tackle the daunting task of refurbishing this sanctuary now that this man has turned it to rubble.
