You know how they say we never really know how much we have an impact on the people in our lives? And not even the people in our lives, but I’m talking about just somebody on the street, or class or anything else you can think of? I think of myself. I am so affected by everything around me. The light that kisses me good morning, the boy that looks at me in class, and somebody on the street not looking forward, but off to side—all of it means something to me. And maybe I could mean something to somebody anybody that just sees me. Making an impact isn’t much because some people are impacted by everything. I just want my existence to mean something.
Sometimes I just want to ring you up and hear your voice and then somehow that can turn into a late night phone call. You can tell me what I’ve missed, which is everything. I can be your 365 day planner and you flip and flip through days and months and you point on a Wednesday and say, I fell in love here. You’ll point at April 28, 2012 which was prom night and you’ll tell me that you kissed her. You kissed her with your hands on her waist, her arms wrapped around your neck, and you liked it. You liked it a lot and you thought that one day you could love her and you thought that she was beautiful and everything in the world would be okay as long as you would have this moment. In May, that’s when everything went wrong or right, whichever one is true. And I want to know how your season went with your sport/life and how it’s going right now. In January, you can tell me if you made any resolutions and if you’re still trying to follow them. I want to know if you fixed that C in Spanish and why you didn’t do Fantastics. I want to hear about your family lately and I want to know your brother’s goddamn name. Your favorite TV shows, the bands you’re listening to, if you watch baseball games. I want to know you now. Can I call you and can you stay up with me all night? Because I love you I love you I love you and I miss you so so much I can’t even stand it right now.
I want to believe that you’re all grown up now and you know how to love somebody. I want to believe that seeing her face is more important than seeing her naked. And you memorize the smell of her skin in your bed or in the sun. When she falls asleep on the floor, you carefully lift her head onto a pillow and cover her with a blanket. You watch her for a while and think to yourself, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, the way she sleeps. I want to believe that you know how she speaks and what she means when she says the things she says. You listen carefully when she speaks from her heart because you know she doesn’t do that very often. You listen to her little complaints, when she sings, and the way she yells at inanimate objects. You listen to the thoughts of her mind and you love her. You love everything about her. And you know how to be there for her and you know how to love her. You know how not to keep her waiting, to keep her believing, to keep her loving. I want to believe in that.
I was standing there avoiding studying for my finals, listening to my game with a half-broken heart for my team winning and then losing and fighting to win the game because I just want them to win that’s all I ever want, stirring the batter, and just thinking about the kind of girl I want to be. I want to be the girl that needs nobody. Independent, determined, confident, the women that younger girls look up to. I want to do all things by myself, figure them out by myself, not to ask or need for anybody else. I want to stay home all day if that means saving up my money for my own trips, my own concerts, my own college. I want to be able to learn how to cook, how to clean, how to keep up a home. I want to be okay alone. I don’t want to need anybody emotionally, to keep me company, to make me feel loved. I don’t want to be this needy, emotionally mess. I want to find what I love, pursue it, and love it. I don’t want to study for these finals I have no passion for. I want to be able to go through the things I need to go through without any complaints. Just go through it and be done with it. Be awesome at it, too. I’m tired of making no difference in anything. I want to speak up, I want to be loud, I want to leave marks. At the same time, I want to be quiet. I want to be those lovely ladies who are beautiful but quiet and have power in their silence. I want to be a great lover. One who waits and loves with everything in them. Every relationship I’m in I want it to be real and long-term.
I want to be so much.
I want to wash the sunshine off my burning face and arms. I want to remember this day and just go to sleep. I want my voice to come back because I’m getting sick and tired of losing it seasonally. I want to be able to taste my food to sing to “What Makes You Beautiful”. I want to rest my eyes and feel clean and get a good night’s rest. I want to be done with the things I have to do. I’m so tired and I never get any sleep, no breaks, I want to be done.
I want to cut my hair into a hairstyle I’d never ever have
and wear clothes I’ll never wear again
and drown myself with pretty make-ups
—glittery lipstick and purple eyeshadow and red cheeks
and just feel silly and pretty
I just want to be taken seriously. I just want somebody to believe in me. I just want someone to believe in. I just want someone to look up—someone who can show me the way. I just want someone I can talk to. I just want someone there.
Everything I feel like I’ve been lacking entirely.
And then you told me you’d take me somewhere. I would go nowhere, anywhere, everywhere with you and wish the car ride would never ever end.
I want to tell you everything. I don’t want to keep dancing around and pretending I’m telling you everything I want to tell you when I’m not. I want to tell you what my heart desires and what makes me hurt. I want to tell you there are days I just want to throw everything away and I wish more than anything to not care. I want to not care about my future sometimes and what happens when I miss a freakin’ final or something. I just want to stop doing the things I don’t want to do and not care about it either. I want to tell you that I know I fit in and I know people think I’m cool and that I am a girl boys like but I can’t bring myself around to believe that and more than anything I wish I can. I want to be that girl, but I’m not. I want to tell you that I have too freakin’ identities. One that wants to be crazy and fun and one that wants to stay home and read books all day. One that wants to stop crying over stupid things and one that can’t. I want to tell you that I love sleeping but I never get enough of it because my body physically can’t fulfill my sleeping desires. I want to tell you that I’m useless, not an academic, not an artiest, not an athlete, that I’m average. I’m the most average person anybody can ever meet and I want to tell you I feel like I don’t make a difference in anything. Everybody’s lives would be better without mine. All that I do is rub off on people and talk about myself too much and want people to want me and to make dents in peoples’ hearts and it is selfish and silly but that’s what I want. I want to tell you that I can’t do it, nothing at all, not this. I want to tell you that I’m not different that I’m not strange and for some silly, stupid reason I made myself believe I am when I’m not I’m not I’m not.
I wish for a second I can go back to when I haven’t read all of my favorite books so I can read them and get taken away all over again.
