I am rearranging furniture. I am eating out. He took the DVD player and I kept the bulk of the DVDs. I am texting little messages like Oh ok. I am opening and closing the door and marveling at its being fixed. Previously it was no longer attached to anything. It was leaning against the wall. I am watching movies with subtitles intently and pausing them to text little messages like Sure. I am keeping both eyes on the screen. I am unplugging lamps and putting them in new places. Sometimes this involves unplugging power strips and putting those in new places as well. I am getting my bedding minimally dirty while moving my mattress. I am reassuring myself that the amount of dirty my bedding got while my mattress was being moved is not bad. I am trying to remember where I was that one time when, as a child, I visited my father’s friend at his apartment with the fishtank. The fishtank was the main event, but now that I’ve written it down it’s useless. I am remembering the fish that lived and died here. The tank got put on the street afterwards, or what have you. I am imagining a new fishtank in my new new bedroom; I enjoy the image, but I decide quickly that I wouldn’t be able to stomach it. Moreso, I wouldn’t be able to stomach the dead fish. I feel almost certain to a faithful extent that I would accidentally kill it quickly, and would then be left to deal with it alone. He used to deal with the dead things. When I say this, I just mean like the mice. They came after the subletters. We set traps. I couldn’t watch. Once, when our love was still good and relatively new, a very small mouse (this was before the subletters, even— okay) crawled out from underneath my bed and scared me. But then it crawled into my purple slipper, and it stopped there, and it stayed there, and it died. By the next morning I was sure it was dead. I made him come to me and take it, slipper and all, in a box to the park. He buried it. He took a video of me that day, in the park, and sent it to his brother. His brother said Okay that is weird. I am thinking about our families. I am thinking about flowers. I am thinking about oysters. He ate them with a girl on Valentine’s Day (thank you Instagram stories), and then baked banana bread with her the next morning at her place, and then brought me a soy milk iced latte on his way back to our apartment. He mopped the floors after moving the rest of his things out, because this was the deal, and then he gave me the keys. I am thinking about when I knew it was all gone to shit and when I still half didn’t. After he stopped up nearly all his love for me he still called me little mouse
#02/17/2026, #Magic Hat, Ivy Allik
Sweep
The Junction Journal 
Hi Ivy,
Your post hit me because it’s a real version of heartbreak, the kind people don’t usually say out loud. You never have to directly say you’re upset or even label the relationship, because you show it through the way you try to keep moving and act normal. The first-person voice made it feel as if I were inside your head, watching you try to stay functional in a space that suddenly felt unfamiliar. It made me think about how breakups aren’t just losing a person, but losing an entire system of comfort and shared responsibility, and then being left to rebuild your life from tiny details that shouldn’t matter as much as they suddenly do. The timing around Valentine’s Day made it hit even harder. It’s supposed to be a holiday about love, but it also highlights loneliness and imbalance in some people’s lives. One person is already posting their new life as if nothing happened, and the other person is stuck living in the aftermath, still having to feel everything for both of them.
The line that stayed with me most comes at the end when you write, “After he stopped up nearly all his love for me he still called me little mouse” (Allik). That sentence shows how love can die, but the habits don’t. The nickname is meant to be affectionate, but here it feels like a leftover from a relationship your brain hasn’t fully accepted is over yet, and those leftovers are sometimes the hardest part to let go of. I also noticed the double meaning, because “little mouse” connects back to the mouse story earlier, where you couldn’t face the dead thing, and he handled it for you. So when he still calls you that after his love is almost gone, it feels like the relationship itself has become another “dead thing” you’re left to deal with alone. It’s like with the dead mouse in the slipper, where you’re forced to confront something unbearable, except now there isn’t anyone coming to take the box away. I really liked how your language choices create that disconnected, spiraling feeling. The repetition of “I am” reads like a checklist or grounding technique, and the casual tone makes the emotional damage stronger because it sounds like you’re forcing yourself to stay calm while everything is falling apart around you.
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