The Other Side

by Kim Holden

A kiss should feel like you’ve been plunged into an abyss that you may never surface from, or it isn’t worth doing.

No thirty-one-year-old wants to live with their parent,

depression is different than sadness. Sadness is melancholy. Depression is a black hole of despair. I always imagine it’s like drowning.

the past, the hopelessness, the guilt, and self-loathing is a pair of lead shoes that always pull me back under.

Mouths can lie, but eyes can’t. There’s intimacy in eye contact. Not creepy level intimacy, but human level intimacy.

Ryan Lopez.

I know I won’t settle in the future—that I deserve all of the effort, attention, and respect that I show them in return. It’s a two-way street. Love isn’t lopsided.