chicago, il.

the world has a crazy way of working itself out. the love of your life broke your heart? well sweetheart then they weren’t the love of your life, doesn’t mean you didn’t love them, and it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt, it just means that it wasn’t meant to be forever. you’re going to meet someone who knows you better than you know yourself. who knows exactly how you like your coffee, or how you always sleep on your left side, or how when you wear your favorite blue top, your eyes look just a little brighter, or how youd rather wake up early and see the sunrise even if it means you’ll be tired all day. you’re going to meet someone who wants to give you the world, someone who sees you as their world. i know it feels like the end of the world, and thats okay. its okay to fall down but you’ve got to pick yourself back because better things are coming your way. this is not the end, it is just the beginning.

he promises he can treat me better than anyone else can. like sad girl doesn’t see the forest for the trees. like pity the small one because she’s so caught up in someone else she doesn’t know what she’s missing. like even without the details of my personal life he can see right through me.
  
he asks me why i’m wasting my time. like i am a clock unraveling onto the floor, all my beauty unspooning itself until one day i will be undesirable. until i am forced to settle. like with him i would pull all this together, be the housewife who never drinks too much, be his perfect manic pixie dream girl.
  
he says he knows that the boy i love isn’t right for me. as if i am a lost lamb and he’s just guiding me back to my party. as if he could save me. he doesn’t ask me how i feel. he says he knows inherently. like he saw me from a distance and knew he had to have me. like i am something he wanted and he’s mad i didn’t fall into his arms instantly. like i belong to him even when i am not his.
  
he says he sees it in my face. i wonder if he also sees the nights he wasn’t around for. the ugliness that other people handle. if he sees that i’m just smiling because i feel i have to. if i think we’re just friends and that i hate he is trying to ruin it. if he sees the stress i’m going through, if my face shows that i spend most nights sobbing. if he sees anything but my pretty eyes and pretty lips and pretty words. if it would be different without makeup. if he would see anyone at all if i was crying.
  
he wants to give me all the loving i’m missing. as if i’m empty without him. as if i’m incomplete, my heart an ocean without whales singing. at no point do i speak. i have to sit there and listen to him affirm for himself that he was the right one and i’m just a pigeon, a little airhead, a little errant unwize child, a little silent boat all washed up on the wrong shore.
  
it is great to be a line in a song. to be the girl he complains about over a beer with his buddies. same tone as talking about somebody else’s nice car, and they all groan because all us girls are so blind. we are just groping around and hanging out with sharks. we’re toys they don’t get to play with but are clearly in the wrong hands. we’re not people to them; we are poetry about wanting someone he never spoke more than six words to.  we are an evening of sex. and after that, really, what’s left? we should dump the people we love and just always ask for permission before we make a commitment. we belong to you by rights because you’re a good guy.
   
he says that i deserve a gentleman. i deserve him. like what he’s really saying is that he deserves me, that i am a prize and he hates losing.