To "the Boy"

to "the boy"

to the boy who’s heart i broke,

i’m sorry, i really am.

i’m sorry for leading you on, i’m sorry for saying all those misleading things, and i’m sorry for not being the one for you.

i’m sorry for not realizing this earlier, i’m sorry for not being sure of my feelings, and most of all i’m sorry i couldn’t let go of my feelings for someone in the past.

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to the boy that i fell in love with,

i’ve read somewhere that you don’t just stop loving someone. love is eternity and the choice was whether to commit or move on with the strong emotion buried deep down in the pits of your gut with the thoughts and fantasies of what could’ve been.

my first love, you’ve ruined me for other people.

i will probably never be able to have a conversation with any other guy without comparing them to you. the way your hand gestures and voice raises when you’re verbally defending yourself, the way your eyes light up when you talk about something you’re passionate about, amongst other things.

i blame the girl that destroyed your heart, that ruined you for other girls, that burned the light out of your beautiful brown eyes.

but at the same time, i’d thank her. if it was not for her we would never have been as close as we are now.

i was there. through all the emotional downfalls you’ve had at 1am in the morning because of her, i was there. i was the one asking if you were okay, that sent you all those good morning texts and virtual hugs when you were breaking down on the other side of the phone and i couldn’t be physically there for you. if i was annoying you doing all those things, i’m sorry, i’ve stopped doing them now.

i was there too, hugging your broken pieces back together. i was there, offering you glue or needle and thread to mend your heart back together. but it was you that made the choice to stick them back, to pull through all the shit you’ve faced and stand up from where you’ve fallen down. i admire that.

deep down, i know that i will never be the one for you. the one to make you smile, the one for you to get protective over, the one to hold your hand in public, and the one to call you mine. the closest title to “mine” i’ll ever get from you is “my best friend”.

but that’s okay i guess. because the one thing that i know about love is sacrifice.

the phrase goes, “if you love something, set it free. if it is meant to be, then it will come back to you.” although i haven’t stopped holding on to the sliver of hope of us and what could have been, i’ve stopped pursuing after it.

i know that deep down, some part of me will always care about you and there will always be that dull ache in my heart when your name is heard, because love is eternity and the choice is commitment.

for now, thank you for everything that you’ve done and not. because if it was not for you, my heart and eyes would not have grown as wide as it does now.

- letters to my first love (via @angleofdepression)

06.21.17

I’m sick of missing you, And crying over our loss. I’m sick of wishing you’d come back, And fearing you never will. I’m sick of dreaming about you, And never sleeping. I’m sick of counting How many days it’s been Since we’ve ended.

But most of all, I’m sick of writing poems about you, And hoping you’d read them. When knowing That these words Go on deaf ears, And that my tears, My wishes, My dreams Won’t make one difference To you.

-C.A.

Even if you never listen to any other thing I have to say, please listen to this:

Stop disparaging your work.

No matter what form it takes, prefacing your work with phrases like, “This sucks; This is probably bad; I’m not a good writer/artist/creator but I did this anyway,” is a two-edged knife and both sides are lethal.

On the one hand, putting yourself down rots away not only any self-esteem you do have, but any you might be trying to build. If the most constant voice in your life – your own – tells you you’re awful, you’ll never be any good, why bother when so-and-so is ‘better’ or such-and-such is ‘more popular’ guess what? You’ll start believing that voice. And, chances are, you’ll stop creating anything at all, because why bother?

The other deadly edge of the knife is that if you’re putting work out there – and I see this all the time – with tags or artist’s/author’s notes that say, “This probably sucks,” or variants, many people won’t give it a chance. They will never even click the read more or the link that might let them make up their own minds because you’ve already told them it’s not worth their time. People are pretty susceptible to suggestion. If you start them off with the thought, “This is going to suck,” even those who do click that read more will be predisposed to see the flaws you’ve prepared them for and think poorly of your effort.

Stop disparaging your own work.

I know it’s hard. I do. Putting yourself out there where anyone can see and anyone can say anything is so terrifying. Creative work is personal. It often leaves us feeling particularly vulnerable. When we’re vulnerable and afraid of being hurt, we often get defensive even before anything bad has been said. A lot of the time, that defensiveness comes out as self-deprecation.

Nothing is ever perfect. Everything has flaws. That’s part of what makes each creation unique. Some people will love your work. Others won’t. That goes with the territory. Make art for the audience who’ll love you, not the ones who won’t. Above all – and I cannot stress this enough – make sure that you are part of that first audience. That starts by not putting yourself down in the instant you put yourself out there.

Creating work is challenging and scary and wonderful and brave. Letting other people see that work? Even more so. Keep working. Keep learning. Keep failing and trying and failing and trying; that’s the only way any of us learn and grow and change and get better. 

But most of all? Stop putting yourself down. You deserve better than that. Yes. You do. You really, truly do.

thoughts on the friendzone

when i was 5 years old my best friend was a boy named kyle who didn’t know how to knock on doors so he made dinosaur noises outside my window to wake me up in the summer until i demonstrated how to ball his fists and slam them against my doors.  we collected caterpillars in my trailer park and built them houses while we traded pokemon cards.  he wasn’t the only one.  there was ben, and mitch, and noah—but kyle’s the only one who hurt me, because when he tried to kiss me and i asked him why, he told me “because you’re a girl and i’m a boy, shouldn’t we like each other?”

i missed him so much and i wondered why he couldn’t just be my friend like he always was

in the first grade there was rich and joseph and i got sent to detention with them almost every day with a smile on my face.  we built block towers and sang to my teacher’s lion king soundtracks when she’d turn the lights off during lunch time.  one day they got in a fist fight over me at recess, and i wondered why they felt they needed to share my friendship, like it was something they owned.

in the second grade zach and i played yu gi oh under our desks during free time and i got moved for talking to him constantly.  everyone in the class would tease him and i for talking, asking when we were going to date already, asking him if he’d kissed me, and he stopped being my friend.

when i was 11 i met a chubby boy with the name of a colour who wore puffy vests and unwashed t-shirts, with greasy hair and bright blue eyes and a smile that hid hurt behind it.  people didn’t like him because he was silly, but i liked him, because i was also silly.  he became my friend the day he bought me 5 giant roses and asked me to be his girlfriend, and i politely declined but promised him i’d be his best friend because i’d always wanted a best guy friend that stuck around. we burnt our feet on the concrete during the summer and walked home with the sunset silhouetting us.  he talked often about how he loved me, but never blamed me for being me, even though he refused to move on. that boy dyed his hair jet black and sat on the end of my bed playing songs to me on guitar, and all that pent up rage from before didn’t show until the first time he slapped me across the face and called me a dumb cunt.

in the 7th grade there was a boy named ryan who sat next to me on the bus and talked to me about manga.  he’d ask me personal invasive questions but i didn’t mind because it was attention and i liked attention.  i was dating another guitarist with curly brown hair, one who was much more kind-tempered than the other, and ryan mentioned how much of an asshole he was every day.  i wondered, why, why does he think the love of my life is an asshole?  but whenever i asked him, he just told me, “girls only date assholes.  there’s no room for nice guys like me.”

i wondered, if he was so nice, why did he say such mean things?

he never stopped with me, taking me to movies, hanging out with me, you know.  being friendly.  i thought we were friends.  but then, how many times had i thought that before?

how many times had i bonded with a boy, thought they got me, only for them to ask me if i wanted to make out?

how come when i told ryan i was coming out as a lesbian, he stopped being my friend, and said “damnit, the one girl i really want to pound into a mattress, and she’s only interested in chicks!”

there was a boy my junior year who stayed up all night with me until the sun rose, talking about life, past loves, hopes, dreams.  beneath a million twinkling stars spanning forever, he brushed long brown hair out of his eyes and listened to me talk about the history that made me. then he asked me if i’d ever consider dating a guy, and complained about how he’d never get laid.

when i told him no a couple hundred times, he found new girls to listen to.

i would sit on the couch and play zelda with dakota, and he’d talk about all my favourite games with me.  he was the closest thing to support i had, and the letters and poems he wrote me were always so kind and friendly.  but he’d put his arms around me on the couch, and no matter how many times i told him i was uncomfortable, he’d still come over every day and do it.

“don’t you know how it feels to love someone and not have them love you back?  don’t you know what it feels like to be friendzoned?”

when i meet guys who talk about the friendzone, who talk about the girls who don’t give “nice guys” like them i chance, i always want to just say

when i was 10 years old i met a girl whose brown hair fell across her shoulders and whos eyes sparkled when the sunlight hit them, whose voice was like velvet and whose scent was like mountain smoke, who made me dizzier than a fly climbing a sugar hill.  and i’m 18 years old, and i still love her, and she knows, and she doesn’t love me.

but my first thoughts upon hearing her rejection were not “what a bitch,” were not “she just wants a douchebag and not a nice girl like me!” were not “im going to keep pushing her until she dates me,”

they were

“she is the best friend i have ever had, and i am the best she’s ever had, and i would hate to take that away from her.”

so before you play the victim, mr. Nice Guy, before you angrily throw your fedora on the ground and blame the girl you claim to adore so much:

put yourself in the shoes of a girl who thought she made a wonderful friend, only to find out that he just wanted her for sex.  that he just wanted her for a relationship.  a girl who was just an object to win, a prize.  a girl who’s trust you’ve just shattered.

maybe she friendzoned you.  but you girlfriendzoned her, first.

If you are not clear about what you want, you should not be surprised when you receive the unexpected.

- Spiritual Truths