As part of a new online series called “On Your Mind,” DU MIND, in partnership with the Clarion, is accepting personal works about mental health. Selected works will be published in the Clarion’s online lifestyles section. Submissions may include: narratives, poetry, personal illustrations or any other personal work. Pieces can be submitted here. To submit anonymously, use the following information as your own when prompted by Dropbox:

First Name: Anon
Last Name: Submit
Email: anonymoussubmissionsdu@gmail.com

—

I was enchanted with you.

Every moment with you was what I had waited for for days, weeks,

months, years.

I never cracked the code of why you loved me so much, and why you even

loved me before I could love myself. I still don’t understand.

It was the most beautiful thing and the saddest thing that I would’ve

dropped anything for you.

Time, money, plans, counter-arguments, hard feelings and personal

interests.

I should’ve gone to France this fall and straight to Senegal thereafter,

but you just thought it was “nice” that I wanted to even leave the country.

And somehow, I was content with the fact that we would’ve been able to

breathe the same air, that somehow that was better than seeing the rest of

the planet,

because you were my world.

I let arguments go when you made fun of me and told me I was wrong

about something that scared me, and when you jokingly asked me if I

would become one of those “bullshit feminists” when I started taking a

class on gender.

I wish I could scream at the top of my lungs, yes, I am a raging feminist

and yes, I am afraid of the world in the most irrational ways, and yes, I am

soaring across oceans to assist people I’ve never even met and no,

I am not wrong about everything.

You always wanted me to let my words flow like water from the tip of my

tongue,

but how could I when you were ice to my shy droplets?

I tucked away the conversations of fiery passion for two and a half years

because I was afraid and content at the same time. There are parts of me

you never got to know.

But I loved you so much, it didn’t even feel wrong until weeks had past

since you dropped me off at my dorm and said that this wasn’t the end.

I told myself you were right, you were always right, but this time you were

wrong, and I knew it all along.

I’ll never understand why you loved me and held my trembling skeleton

when I cried about the things you probably always thought were pointless,

but I loved you more in the most self-oppressive ways.