just a lil somethin
Here's something I wrote for my "college essay" assignment for class but is TOTALLY inappropriate for college.
Your first meeting with her was full of strained smiles and well disguised quips. The immediate animosity was hard to explain; maybe it was something like competition over a mutual friend. Now, a year later, you’re laying on her bed in the dark, the covers sprawled over the floor because even at 3:24AM, the summer heat doesn’t give up. She’s lying next to you and even though you can’t make out her face, you can feel her breath when she talks. You tell her about whatever gossip you’ve heard in the last couple months, and when you’ve finally run out of energy to exclaim, “Oh my god, so did you hear…” you move onto dirty little secrets and insecurities that only ever seem to slip out at ungodly hours of the morning. She tells you about the time her family thought she was suicidal and you tell her about the time your brother went to the emergency room to get his stomach pumped. Now you’re facing each other, you’re on your side and she says, “I think I might have a crush on you.” Your breath hitches and suddenly all the words have been ripped from your mind. You can’t form a coherent sentence so you take the cowardly way out. You just brush it off with a joke and a laugh, your brain on emergency escape mode, because even though you wish you were brave enough to say yes and just be with her, you can’t be.
His bed is different from hers but as you sit on it, you sprawl your limbs in the same way you did a month ago. You can’t tear your eyes from his bright green walls, marked with countless messages declaring love and friendship and forever’s in black sharpie ink. He’s sitting at his desk, fiddling around on his computer and not a word passes between you. Because what you want most is to reach into your bag, pull out a sharpie and fill that empty spot right above his dresser. You imagine you’d let your emotions bleed out of the marker. It’d be something you’d never be able to communicate to anyone face to face, much less this guy you’ve known for barely a month. You glance over and he’s sitting at his desk, fiddling around on his computer but you just want to paint yourself all over his walls.
It’s Christmastime two years ago, and you’re walking with him through his neighborhood, somewhere on the border between Flushing and Bayside. It’s cold out, and his other best friend Brian is there too, smoking a joint. You tell him jokingly, “Hey dickwad, that stench better not be on my clothes by the time I go home.” And he laughs at you with his voice, all husky from years of perfected cigarette smoking. Hours later, when Brian leaves and it’s just you and him, in his room, you’re exhausted from the hours of SAT prep and climb into his bed, pulling the covers over your head. He doesn’t hesitate to jump in after you, pulling you close to his body, even though his older brother is sitting not five feet away from you, and his parents are in the next room. Even though he already has a girlfriend and you’re just best friends with a little something more ever since he’s confessed that he never stopped loving you. You feel uncomfortable with him holding you like this (even though it’s something you’ve secretly always wished for), so you try to laugh and brush him off but he latches on even tighter and nuzzles his face further into your neck. His persistence reminds you of another him, a him a year older and with enough sickeningly sweet compliments to drown you.
He was pushy. He wanted you to be with him always and forever. He waited outside your classes and dropped you off even though he had his own to get to, making no space for breathing. Every morning he’d bring you a flower from his mother’s garden with what he probably thought was a breathtaking good morning message. It was probably his smooth remarks which drew you in at first. The fact that he was a violin virtuoso and basically everything your parents ever wanted your future boyfriends to be helped him score higher in your book. One breakup later, you tell your friends it’s because he never gave you time to yourself or because he was a jackass or because he always wanted you to ditch them for him. But that’s all bullshit. You know now that it’s because you couldn’t stand being with anyone, being faithful to anyone, entrusting your emotions in someone else’s hands. You know that it’s because he loved you too much and you couldn’t bring yourself to love him back.
Just like you knew you could never tell him you loved him, you know this inability stems from the fact that you know you’d never be able to commit your entire self to one person. You’re too scared. You’re scared you won’t be able to keep your promises. You’re scared that one day you’ll wake up and decide that you don’t want to spend every waking moment with this person. You’re scared that they’ll expect so much more from you than you can possibly give. And so you pine and pine and pine for someone to come and sweep you off your feet, and right when you start to think, “okay, this might actually work out,” you freak. You stop picking up their phone calls, stop replying to their texts and just cut yourself off. Because you can’t bring yourself to be brave or leave part of yourself in someone’s bedroom or pull them closer to you or say “I love you too.”
Your first meeting with her was full of strained smiles and well disguised quips. The immediate animosity was hard to explain; maybe it was something like competition over a mutual friend. Now, a year later, you’re laying on her bed in the dark, the covers sprawled over the floor because even at 3:24AM, the summer heat doesn’t give up. She’s lying next to you and even though you can’t make out her face, you can feel her breath when she talks. You tell her about whatever gossip you’ve heard in the last couple months, and when you’ve finally run out of energy to exclaim, “Oh my god, so did you hear…” you move onto dirty little secrets and insecurities that only ever seem to slip out at ungodly hours of the morning. She tells you about the time her family thought she was suicidal and you tell her about the time your brother went to the emergency room to get his stomach pumped. Now you’re facing each other, you’re on your side and she says, “I think I might have a crush on you.” Your breath hitches and suddenly all the words have been ripped from your mind. You can’t form a coherent sentence so you take the cowardly way out. You just brush it off with a joke and a laugh, your brain on emergency escape mode, because even though you wish you were brave enough to say yes and just be with her, you can’t be.
His bed is different from hers but as you sit on it, you sprawl your limbs in the same way you did a month ago. You can’t tear your eyes from his bright green walls, marked with countless messages declaring love and friendship and forever’s in black sharpie ink. He’s sitting at his desk, fiddling around on his computer and not a word passes between you. Because what you want most is to reach into your bag, pull out a sharpie and fill that empty spot right above his dresser. You imagine you’d let your emotions bleed out of the marker. It’d be something you’d never be able to communicate to anyone face to face, much less this guy you’ve known for barely a month. You glance over and he’s sitting at his desk, fiddling around on his computer but you just want to paint yourself all over his walls.
It’s Christmastime two years ago, and you’re walking with him through his neighborhood, somewhere on the border between Flushing and Bayside. It’s cold out, and his other best friend Brian is there too, smoking a joint. You tell him jokingly, “Hey dickwad, that stench better not be on my clothes by the time I go home.” And he laughs at you with his voice, all husky from years of perfected cigarette smoking. Hours later, when Brian leaves and it’s just you and him, in his room, you’re exhausted from the hours of SAT prep and climb into his bed, pulling the covers over your head. He doesn’t hesitate to jump in after you, pulling you close to his body, even though his older brother is sitting not five feet away from you, and his parents are in the next room. Even though he already has a girlfriend and you’re just best friends with a little something more ever since he’s confessed that he never stopped loving you. You feel uncomfortable with him holding you like this (even though it’s something you’ve secretly always wished for), so you try to laugh and brush him off but he latches on even tighter and nuzzles his face further into your neck. His persistence reminds you of another him, a him a year older and with enough sickeningly sweet compliments to drown you.
He was pushy. He wanted you to be with him always and forever. He waited outside your classes and dropped you off even though he had his own to get to, making no space for breathing. Every morning he’d bring you a flower from his mother’s garden with what he probably thought was a breathtaking good morning message. It was probably his smooth remarks which drew you in at first. The fact that he was a violin virtuoso and basically everything your parents ever wanted your future boyfriends to be helped him score higher in your book. One breakup later, you tell your friends it’s because he never gave you time to yourself or because he was a jackass or because he always wanted you to ditch them for him. But that’s all bullshit. You know now that it’s because you couldn’t stand being with anyone, being faithful to anyone, entrusting your emotions in someone else’s hands. You know that it’s because he loved you too much and you couldn’t bring yourself to love him back.
Just like you knew you could never tell him you loved him, you know this inability stems from the fact that you know you’d never be able to commit your entire self to one person. You’re too scared. You’re scared you won’t be able to keep your promises. You’re scared that one day you’ll wake up and decide that you don’t want to spend every waking moment with this person. You’re scared that they’ll expect so much more from you than you can possibly give. And so you pine and pine and pine for someone to come and sweep you off your feet, and right when you start to think, “okay, this might actually work out,” you freak. You stop picking up their phone calls, stop replying to their texts and just cut yourself off. Because you can’t bring yourself to be brave or leave part of yourself in someone’s bedroom or pull them closer to you or say “I love you too.”