I am familiar with phases. Fashioning ashtrays out of tinfoil and sneaking cigarettes in my bedroom. Gelling the baby hairs that frame my face and sculpting them with a toothbrush. Brown lipliner and white eyeliner. Listening to Brandy, writing song-poems. Drafting acceptance speeches for the Grammys I’m going to win. Practicing my autograph. Writing five-page letters to heartthrob celebrities who are twice my age. Falling for guys who don’t even want to bother using me. Hating my mom and writing it in my journal over and over like once could never be enough. Dreadlocks. Sleeping with a pair of scissors beneath my pillow. Reciting “Our Father” every night before bed so that I wouldn’t have any nightmares. Painting my nails with Whiteout. Tattoos. Drinking cocktails in my roommate’s bed at 11 a.m. every Sunday. Working the register at McDonald’s. Telemarketing. Sweeping up the hairs people no longer wanted on their heads. Hoop earrings. Phases, I’ve passed through them all.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if monogamy is realistic, or something I should aspire to, because it seems like all of the people I’ve been attached to have turned out to be phases. And you could’ve never told me then — while I was falling in love and sharing air and drowning in eyes — that this person was not going to matter someday. I would’ve never believed you, that’s what love is like. So I guess what I want is more than love. I guess what I want is someone who becomes part of me, who is there even when they aren’t, who runs through my veins and my mind and my limbs whether I want them there or not. Less of a phase, more of a depression.