A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

I know what I think, but people don’t want you to say what you think. They want you to say what they think.

no one is evil, only unhappy, and unhappiness festers inside like a sore.

It’s strange how many ways there are to miss someone. You miss the things they did and who they were, but you also miss who you were to them. The way everything you said and did was beautiful or entertaining or important. How much you mattered.

When you know you’re going to tell someone everything, you see your day through your eyes and theirs, as if they’re living it alongside you. But when you don’t, it isn’t only not seeing double—it’s not seeing at all. Because if they aren’t there, you aren’t either.

Hate ricochets, but kindness does too.

people heal a whole lot faster when they’re with someone who loves them.”

“It must’ve felt like forever.” “But why?” “Because it was so awful.” “But why can’t good things feel like forever?

The things I know stay in my head as I stand on my own two feet at the end of the day, and I walk back to my room with my journal to write my list of cages.

You don’t really know people when your back is turned.