‘This Is Traumatic (Or Am I Just Dramatic?)’
John Zheng's photobook, Mississippi Delta, is to be released in September 2025. He teaches at Mississippi Valley State University and has published hundreds of photographs or photoku in journals, including The Southern Quarterly, Arkansas Review, Under the Basho, and Integrite.
this is traumatic (or am I just dramatic?)
this feels very much like that rom-com moment
where the lead’s friends crash over with tubs
of chocolate ice-cream and enough tissues for five
allergy seasons as they attempt to console
an inconsolable mess. picture her, head in
her hands, bawling and wailing about how
she’s lost the love of her life to
another / his family / his work / his other
commitments, all of which unfortunately
exclude her from his life and him from hers.
her friends assure her that she’ll find someone else
out there, because there’s plenty more fish in
the sea than she thinks, but they are largely
unsuccessful at bringing her dramatic
ten down to a two.
but let’s swap out the ice cream (you used to love it,
especially the chocolate chip cookie dough
at Ben and Jerry’s) for bubble tea (you were
a coffee devotee, and hated tea just as much
as I hated coffee), and the tissues for handkerchiefs
(you used to go to the supermarket armed with
fifty recyclable bags, in a futile attempt to
single-handedly recycle the planet to survival),
and the friends for the formerly stray cat, who
was formerly outside the door, but is currently
occupying everything and everywhere in my
living room (she would have loved you,
and you would have been terrified of her).
she would’ve thought you pathetic, in
the haughty way that cats carry
themselves.
alas, that is where the parallels with the
traditional rom-com plot end, for I
am ecstatic by my most recent decision of
finally cutting you off. sure, we were the
absolute embodiment of fun when we were
younger, more spirited and less jaded, more
enthusiastic and less lethargic. but as you
know, all good things must come to an end
eventually. and who knows, maybe it is for
the best that the end is sooner rather than
later, because I would hardly wish for you to
waste your time on a dead end, without
exploring all the options out there in the vast
unending oceans. I know you love your
adventure, your fun, and I cannot begrudge
you for that. but I am no longer satisfied with
the short-term, the living in the moment,
the hyperfocus on the now that shortchanges
my foresight and my future, for I have decided
to grow up. my younger self might have been
absolutely aghast by my decision to slow down,
to settle down, to enjoy the simpler ways of life
instead of the rushes of adrenaline that I formerly
consumed as if they were tapioca pearls. and yet,
I find that I cannot bring myself to care about what
my younger self would have thought. she is long dead.
may she stay dead.
I would also hardly wish our ill-fated connection
for myself, and I know that you, despite all our
incompatibilities, would agree with me in
this instance, because you would wish the best
for me as well, even if that best was not you.
so really, I offer my sincerest hopes that you will
find your better half, your forever person, and
that we will remain friends through it all. I hope
that when you invite me to your wedding, it is
out of a desire to share your joy, your love for
love, with me, because I will most definitely not
be agonising over my lost love like the lead in
the rom-com. no, we are far better than that. after
all, if there is anything that remains of us from
before, it is that we do not settle for anything
less than what we deserve.
Anna Oh is an aspiring writer from Singapore who enjoys exploring themes of existentialism. Her other hobbies include avoiding human interaction and finding her place in the universe. She also runs the Critical Thinking Café on Substack.
