Small Joys

by Elvin James Mensah

I’d certainly felt as if I was gay, but idly so, as if I held the identity in my hands, but wasn’t really doing anything with it.

He loved life and life seemed to love him. What was that like? I thought.

in which happiness was actually happiness and not simply an absence of sadness.

that sounds nice

Life could still feel wonderful, I thought, even if it really wasn’t.

In trying to be this exceptionally self-reliant person, I’d forgotten that there was something to be said for someone else—someone real—desiring you in ways in which you hadn’t thought possible or appropriate.

The bloke goes on about how December might’ve been dark but the future’s gonna be a different color. That’s you, pal. That’s you. Nothing’s the same forever.”

There were always going to be repercussions for the crime of trying to feel anything other than loneliness.

I felt as if I’d smashed myself into bits and now I had to piece everything back together again. But back into what?

I sleep to stop myself from thinking, but then sometimes I can’t sleep, so I’m just there, wading in all of it.”

As someone who had always coveted love, it had forever felt like this perpetual journey to a place that may or may not exist.

“I think I’m like one more rejection away from giving up and just doing some hoe shit. Honestly, I’m so tired.”

omg same

Seeking help had never registered with me as something someone could be proud of me for.

attempting to understand once and for all what it was about me that dispensed so much misfortune; why did the people who associated with me seem to suffer?

happiness and I were simply incompatible.

I was never meant to have these things, I realized: friends and optimism and therapy, none of it.

Friendship didn’t insulate you from affliction, but it did make the path to some sort of recovery feel worthwhile and almost pleasant, it allowed you to experience the most wonderful things, even in the dark.

“Five foot three,

they've been calling him tiny this whole time and he's taller than I am