Half a year ago, my cutefused sapphic muse (CFSM), a fellow frosh poet with angelic aura at Brown University, was ghosted by this yacht-owning boy who still possesses an undying passion for sticks. After their lovely first date, Valentine’s Day was coming up, yet the boy took on a cryptic persona. A particularly soulful interaction on Valentine’s Day went like this: 

Boy: *adds to Instagram note* 🕵️

CFSM: *replies to the note asking what he means* 

Boy: yeah imma detective 

CFSM: what are you detecting 

Boy: mysteries 

CFSM: what kind of mysteries 

Boy: spooky ones 

CFSM: *serving omniscient yet curious with an affinity for the grotesque and a tendency to find beauty in the mundane* are there any mysteries i can clear up for you?

(the end)

As an East Asian, I am a product of Confusionism (more than Confucianism), and Charli XCX’s “Girl, so confusing” further heightens my awareness of everything I find confusing. Perhaps the stick-loving bro was onto something—there must be so many spooky mysteries, especially during this spooky Halloween season. 

Some of these spooky mysteries I can possibly clear up for you. Others, perhaps not so much. Wishing you beauty in ambiguity, I hope this list finds you well-confused.

1. Why do some people find it romantic to confess their undying love? It’s quite bold to assume one’s partner is kinky enough to love something that never dies—because if it never dies, what is it? 
2. What exactly did you mean when you said you felt dead inside? Could you be Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, or was your statement merely testimony to your honored dasein of being an Edgar Allan Hoe? Poe-tentially this is why you asked me to sip Snoopy Shaken Espressos on a Friday afternoon and later stargaze together on Poe Field. (Sigh, Yeh College men.)
3. Why are gorgeous women ghosted by the most random guys? This will never make sense to me. 
4. Why does your new partner keep asking you for pset answers? This actually makes some sense—you’ve found a zombie who’s after your brain, not your heart. Maybe find a long-haired barista who acknowledges your heart by breaking it in the near or distant future. 
5. Where exactly is the relationship graveyard? This situation is getting grave, are you sure we should dig into it deeper? 
6. Why did the character designer of Wednesday Addams give her long braids? She gives short bob energy. Or maybe I just see myself in her. 
7. If kids in this cutesy romance show are 16 years old, why is the show called The Heartstopper? Their hearts seem pretty functional. Whose hearts are stopped, and who are stopping these hearts? And how did three seasons pass yet they’re still 16? At this point, this show is giving 330-year-old vampire who looks 23. Oh I love this show. 
8. Why does the canonical French New Wave film Breathless (1960) sound so potently apocalyptical? It’s just about a guy who kills a cop and finds his writer girlfriend confused by his messy French pronunciation when he gets shot. 
9. Why does one’s obsession with Remus Lupin start in third grade and never die? What makes this character so lovable despite one’s Heideggerian nightmare yelling that #icanfixhim is merely a midnight craving in the destitute time? 
10. If the stabbed Hamlet were to have a yapping contest with his ghost father, Old Hamlet, who would win? Oh apologies, it’s not yapping, it’s soliloquizing.
11. What if we kissed in the second circle of hell? Would French sculptor Auguste Rodin engrave us on a grand piece of marble with no intentions of making another grave pun, perhaps something about l’accent grave? 
12. Other than midterms, what could you dress as for Halloween for the sake of maintaining a horrifying presence for the plot? 
13. Why are we even celebrating Halloween at Princeton? The University’s colors are literally Halloween colors. It’s either Halloween on graduation day or graduation day on Halloween. 
14. Why does it suck being a freshman? What makes freshmen suck, and who sucks freshmen? Sucks to suck, I guess, unless you’re a vampire. And yes, we are strictly talking about blood here; ’tis the spooky season, not the freaky season. 
15. Who invented the concept of ghostwriting papers? To think of ghosts as writers is truly a tantalizing thought, because now we humanities kids’ futures are not simply haunted by fears of unemployment, but also by peer pressure from the classic combo of bedsheets with two holes and a pair a sunglasses. 
16. When the interviewers asked if you could perform under pressure and you answered you can try Boohemian Rhapsody, did you eventually get that job? Oh you did, now you’re Morgan Stanley’s commander of playlists. No, I’m not saying this is your contemporary version of Much A-Boo About Nothing; you’re truly in service of humanity.
17. Why would anyone think hot girl summer has ended? There’s always hot ghoul fall.
18. Why would anyone say brat summer has ended? This is literally bat fall.
19. How come you’ve only had a sandwitch, a boorito, and an ice scream today? Babe please don’t get lost in Dionysian hedonism. Always remember artistic melancholy. 
20. How could anyone ever unwrap a mummy if it has mummy issues? 
21. Sorry, I didn’t catch that—did you say let’s go on a coffee date, a coffin date, or a coughin’ date? Because stimulants might do harm to my aging corpse, coffins might make me fall asleep and miss the upcoming precept led by a grad student who isn’t hot enough to prolong my attention span, and coughing simply isn’t stylish anymore after the Princeton Plague starts haunting all of us. It’s not like you’re special or anything. 
22. Not to be chalant, but when you said I’m your type, were you referring to my blood type?