نحن فقط صديقاتنا. I find that the only words that truly express how I’m feeling are in your language. And I try but fall short because it’s still your  language and not yet mine.  The words I write  tumble onto the page in jagged edges and graceless lines, but I can’t nudge them into shape or mold them into perfection, because you’re the one I’d ask for help. لماذا انتِ؟ لماذا انا؟ •••••••••• My heart has become a stone,  sinking in my body,  barreling through organs muscles and bones, coming only to a stop  at my feet. Behind her downward spiral  trails a web of nerves –   stripping the feeling from my limbs  and wrapping themselves  around my heart  like a blanket,  so that all I feel  is its dull  empty  thudding. •••••••••• Every time I see her, she’s more beautiful  than the day before.  •••••••••• I’m fine when you’re not there.  When I can’t hear you laugh and feel myself blush at the sound of your joy… When your eyes aren’t there to meet mine and I can’t melt into them, desperate to be seen the way I see you… When the smell of your hair doesn’t wash over me, interrupting every other thought  that isn’t already of you… I’m fine when I pretend that I’ll find someone better someone made for me someone who likes me back. I’m fine when I don’t remember that my future won’t  have you in it and my present barely has you at all. But I still want you - you who won’t give me a chance, you who goes on living a life  unchanged and unscathed,  washing the past eight months away like they were nothing but grains of sand whose purpose is to do nothing but  succumb to the ocean’s will.  As I said.  I’m fine.  •••••••••• She doesn’t look at me anymore.  Not like she used to.  Or maybe it’s me who can’t bear to look at her and acknowledge   that there was nothing between us after all. •••••••••• I fell for you hard and didn’t realize it until you were gone. Olyvia Yujin is a senior in the SFS majoring in Regional and Comparative Studies and minoring in Turkish.