The Story Of Meh

There are times when I don’t realize how alone I’ve felt until you got here, but I don’t begin feeling this in your absence. Yes, your companionship is felt like the perfect melody that correctly swoons every bone in my body throughout the hours, But my unremitting daily discord bears its exigent head throughout my regular schedule, not just at 4a.m. I’ll feel it when I’m eating Raisin Bran and when I’m walking to class with my friends or in the middle of typing a paragraph and immediately want to change it to some confession of adulation for your every breath, my previously written words become immediately prevaricated the second the memory of your touch enters my consciousness. I can’t just shake the thought of you out of my head either; it vibrates the type of echoes that are like sores that stick to the roof of your mouth that your tongue continues to revisit throughout the day, like having bruises on the bottoms of my feet  that create a perpetual dull gnawing ache to remind me that you’re not here with me every time I take a step, 

like a screeching inured alarm that goes off in my head every time I blink. My subconscious throbs to see you.

The little things like the way your upper lips sit on your teeth when you look at me like I’m the most valuable thing in the world and the way your eyes linger with a sense of complete shock whenever I’m holding you hand and singing in the car. When you look at me for that extra beat, I feel it. It hits my heart like a drum in between pulses It’s the lightest I can ever recall feeling to have you lovingly look me in the eyes.

It’s hard to enjoy a nice warm breeze that caresses my arms and makes me look up from walking to admire the sapphire leaves in the trees that sway their colors  in the softest sunlight, in no rush to impress you, yet still flooring you all the while, I can’t notice the branches blossom without wishing that you were looking at them too.  Everything that I think is beautiful needs to be compared to beauty: you. Everything that has ever been deemed worthy of a second take needs to be validated by your attention for at least a second,  even though it wouldn’t be a competition by any means. It would be more of a proving-a-point type of obviousness, the clarity of its potential beauty’s spuriousness would be met with the trees leaves tremor with gratitude, humble and gentle. Much how I feel when you love me. And loving you is a gift.

When Lorde tells you to close your eyes, you don’t keep them open. Her melodious voice wafted through the thick, warm April air like perfume, erupting out of the hundreds of amplifiers to a crowd of 80 thousand, the echoes drifting far out into the quiet desert mountains. The crowd was ignited in awe of this tiny elf-like person floating around the stage, holding one finger to her mouth and patiently looking out into the mass of sweaty bodies below her to hush. A sense of eminence and nobility falls over me as I gaze up at her from 50 yards away, directly in the pit of the fans. The gentle features of her face were crowned with a background of colorfully lit up palm trees, along with her stage set of 3 regal golden frames and a delicate chandelier with crystals hanging directly above her head, the chimes whispering and gently swaying to the beat of the crowd’s anticipation. Sandwiched in between 2 giant screens with the broadcast of the stage that mirrored her every move, she came to a stop in the middle of the stage, grinning to herself and finally lifting her microphone to her lips.

“Coachella…” she began, rousing the crowd that never quite settled completely. She raised both her hands in an effort to calm them again.

“I want you to close your eyes with me for a second,” she smiled, “and I want you to listen to what’s around you.”

I did as I was told. I honed my ears for the movements around me. Panting, people laughing and murmuring, cracking of glow sticks, and the creaking of the enormous Ferris wheel that ominously stood several hundred yards away. I felt the thousands of bodies around me. I felt everyone breathing, squirming in the crowd, elated and breathless. I listened to my heartbeat in my ears and felt myself begin to move in slow motion. I breathed slowly, resting my hands into my sides in attempt to settle myself. I squished my toes into the ground, my shoes long gone after walking several miles that day around the Coachella Valley Music Festival.

It was the second day of the weekend that was decorated with a blistering sun and dusty fields with grounds laden with crushed grass that had been stepped on millions of times. Littered with the occasional cigarette butt and straw wrapper, the Empire Polo Fields in Indio, CA were transformed again as they have been every year since 1999. For two weekends in April, tents, stages, TP’s, speakers, and sculptures are all erected into the middle of the desert for the music and arts festival. All day, festival goers like myself trotted around to the numerous stages and tents, seeing bands and artists preform for 12 hours a day for three days straight, trying to stay cool in the 100 degree plus conditions. Swarms of people inhabited every square inch of the grounds, parading to each sight in an effort to engrave it into their memories. This was my 3rd year attending the weekend, and it kept me coming back for more each year.

“This next song,” Lorde continued, her voluptuous curls blowing in the midnight breeze, “is called Ribs.” The crowd cheered, eager for the speakers to begin the harmonies.

“I want to thank you for caring and understanding. I wrote this song when I was filled with sadness and decisions and fears of growing up” she revealed. You could tell from the way her voice had cracked that she meant it.

When I saw that Lorde was on the lineup for this year’s Coachella, I was ecstatic. This 17-year old musical prodigy had been recently deemed royalty with her edgy and honest songs, each one written and produced by her own hands. She had become something of an anti-pop star to the media after wearing sulky black outfits and generally speaking her mind, which highly contrasted her bubbly, awkward personality. She has this constructed, mysterious tint about her that was intoxicating, and you felt like you were part of a cool club when you could namedrop her when prodded as to what you had been listening to.

I had been dedicated to Lorde’s music since 2012 when her sings were first released through a free website for artists who were desperately trying to get their name into the public’s eye, which is laughable now as she’s worth over $8 million.  When I stumbled upon her glittery, heavy, snappy rhythms and harmony, I was immediately drawn to her artistic creativity and related to her general persona. Being so young and taking over a male-dominated alternative music scene isn’t an easy thing to do, and a 17-year old New Zealander did it. The amount of power and weight that she is able to induce from her work will undoubtedly buzz your system with thoughts and memories of the hardships and burdens of responsibilities of growing up. She fearlessly opens up and tackles thoughts of inadequacy, love, fear, hatred, and misunderstanding. I’d memorized every track of her album released the previous year, Pure Heroine, forcing it to be played during trivial points of being in the exact same position as she is. It’s comforting to say the least to know that another person is going through the same things that you are. When you’re 18 and making decisions on education, love, family living, and friends, that feeling of not being alone is vital to anyone’s sanity. I feel lucky to have experienced a time that was secured with an ever-present blanket of alleviation to guide me through things that I know will one day matter in the long run. It was as if watching her rise to stardom and relevance had helped me grow up and understand how powerful I could be. I’d become somewhat protective of her work and had waited years to finally see her. I felt like she had been with me every step of the way.

I opened my eyes. She was still on stage with her eyes closed, one hand up to the crowd and the other grasping her microphone, ready to speak. Her garb, a one-piece metallic gold dress, flapped and swayed with her as she had twitched and jolted around that night, displaying her signature dance moves that were spiced with her signature “I don’t care what you think of me” black lipstick. Throughout the night, it had been an electric companion and fitting outfit for the heavy drum beats and deliciously complex melodies that the synths had blasted. But at this moment when the entire desert was stagnant and all eyes were upon her, she looked like a saint, framed in a glow that was only attainable by  the truth in her words: “I’m little but I’m coming for the crown.”

“This is a song about being young, and being afraid to grow up too quickly,” she turned and walked around the stage, as if she were trying to look at each and every person.

I’m afraid to grow up. It’s okay to be afraid. You make me realize that.” People applauded and cheered at her vulnerability she so shamelessly displayed. “You get it,” she exclaimed, “and seeing all your faces makes me think it’s okay.”

i don't stay on topic

and i convince myself that if i were to translate my heartbeats into letters

inscribe them in the crevasses of my journal that somehow, Love, you would find out

You would notice the slightest slur of my speech when i would say your name

just so i can linger on you for a little longer

or you could be able to feel my pulse quicken from my fingerprints pressed to my keys

as i nervously erase this poem i had considered sending to you

-STUPID-

or that by some chance you would sense me

gazing at your jawline a little too closely

or admiring the nautical dips in your collarbones

and you'd figure out that i loved you

and even though I know that even an incredibly intelligent and clever being like you

could technically never achieve such feats, Love,

they still terrify every bone in my body

and stain each whisper of a page i write,

making my handwriting lighter and lighter

with each syllable that i spill

Making it seem as if I was as interested in such a banal subject of romance as much as I am in discussing the Bolshevik Revolution of Russia in 1917

 or how many hydrogen atoms are in a Platonic hydrocarbon shaped like a tetrahedron or

 the step by step process of just how exactly a blender works,

 Let my faint calligraphy not fool you Love,

 because even though my writing for you is nearly visually undetectable to the untrained eye,

ironically my mind throbs to be with you

the more and more i try and avoid it

and this ANGERS me, Love!

Shouldn't i be so proud to boast about your every hypnotizing characteristic?

Shouldn't I feel so ashamed, Love,

that I cannot even come to terms with my own heart

who's cadence will remain uncharted for as long as i will be alive?

Shouldn't I be content that such a ray of light has been cast in my life by complete chance

and hasn't shown signs of flickering since it's arrival to such a massive storm of a person like me,

and i shouldn't rely on a candle to start a wildfire from such a damp and tattered forrest

and i shouldn't expect you be anything more than my friend

or to love be back

Shouldn't i feel betrayed by my own mind, Love?

that has been conditioned into allowing myself

to feel

and to live

and to grow

and to not repress the freedom that i have to BE?

Because I wasn't able to define the very word love until i looked at you

and now i know you by no other name

because my veins have run blue since the spring

because my heart does not pump blood, but the colors of your eyes, Love

because i would live you like a religion that i wasn't afraid to die for

i'd love you like a parasitic incurable incantation for as long as you'd allow

and i'd love you forever if you'd let me

my body has erased all instinctual recognition of affection and

replaced it with the cracks of your voice

so i can never allow myself anything less than your lips

when did i begin to think myself so worthy of you, Love?

have your unknowingly bewildering and enchanting words of praise

dissolved my hard layers of shell and seeped into my brain?

To let me think that somehow

a person like me should be able to have a person like you?

Because whether you know it or not,

it's you, Love.

it's always been you

18 is so old 18 is so young 18 is good enough but also not quite there yet 18 is on your way to somewhere you have complete control over but also knowin that you have absolutely no idea where you're going and you can't completely remember the ticket return policy but you're like 85% that there are no returns 18 is getting to know yourself a little too well 18 is cutting up the roof of your mouth because you are 3 mug-fulls of dry Cinnamon Toast Crunch at 2:49 on a Tuesday night and are really really happy 18 is feeling the weight of time slipping away in between your fingers and watching as it dances away right in front of you 18 is breaking promises that you know you didn't mean to but ended up doing so 18 is a year of introspection that you know will not only take a year 18 is sitting in a damp towel after you shower for 45 minutes because you can't remember the last time you hugged your dad

18 is learning that when to speak is not always the same time as when to be heard 18 is watching people you love die, leave, get forgotten, get sick, not come back 18 is knowing that these are years where anything is possible and that one minuscule decision could alter something huge and you heard your grandfather say that if he were 22 again he would do things differently so you try your best to be receptive to these times but your head spins around so quickly in search of the moments that have been here all along

I know now that what i was drowning in what consumed my thoughts what made the marrow in my bones ache what twisted my fingers to shreds what curled through my veins what creeped into my blood what cursed my entire being to throb to be around you

was love

all those fucking songs and poems and books and movies about this painful and horrible thing that makes humans thrive and die had infected me

im more afraid now because before i knew what it was, i let it in welcomed it with a warm smile helped it out of it's coat and wrapped my arms around something unknowing that it would be an infinite vile tint in my DNA that would change my entire life

you

you changed my life

and as heavy as those 4 words are i'm not the best at holding them up

i let them sink and marinate into the sadness of myself

this inevitable feeling that crawls into my body every time i thik things are going well and working out

they never do

you didn't

so why would anything else?

the thing that comes so naturally to people what they call so easy if theyre meant to be together

how many times in my life will i be tricked and blinded with false perfection i cannot trust my own brain or heart both of which urged me to go for it and trust my instincts to love you

because you would have to love me back after all those times in my head i told you i liked you after all these fucking poems i wrote and never sent you after all the times i blushed over keys after all the times my mind looked for yours in the middle of the day after everything i thought would be so obvious to someone who should be falling in love with me

i made it so easy for you

but now i understand that sometimes when you want someone to fall in love with you they can't

you can't force anyone to fall in love with you

they have to fall in love with themselves first both of these things are vital and must be done willingly

now i have a rusty taste of being broken by something that never existed in the first place that sits in the back of my head which concerns me for what will come when there is actually love in my future that does not only exist in my head or in my poems that i secretly scrawl desperate to post but negligent to ever come to terms with

will i ever stop feeling a ting of guilt when i begin to have feelings for someone who's eyes will never pierce through mine like yours did?

the eyes that spoon fed me poison that tasted like a rose wrapped in silk

i have to learn to love new.

and that is the end of us 

until next time

if feelings are not reciprocated the year will begin

my life will start fresh

and so will yours

if you love me, i will love you

i have put my heart around my neck and it is up to you to trust your heart or trust mine

if you trust yours, we will be.

if you trust mine i will love and encompass you in warmth like Saturn's rings spinning eternally and love you for the rest of my life

either way you chose

new love after a season of heartbreak is like spring again after an eternal winter

a frost you knew would last a long time

but still anticipated with the fall

you remain unsure if you were blinded by the attention or of actual desire

a one way mirror will only last for so long before shattering

as the changing of the leaves reassured you of your inescapable nearing heartbreak

each auspicious puddle a reminder of the approaching cold you accepted the risk of last summer

because not every seed you plant is guaranteed to sprout

the reflection you soak up in the tiny pools on the ground only last a millisecond before you stomp down they hold the memory of what you should strive to recover to in the spring after your soul thaws from the freeze of the sadness you force yourself to accept soak up one last look and jump, splashing and scattering the doubts you know are true but you walk along without turning back is that brave or cowardly to do?

the little voice inside of your head warned you about this

yet as winter hasn't even officially begun you've pulled yourself out

your replenished heart melts the snowflakes before they even hit the ground

maybe you weren't right all along and the shadow of doubt and fear of regret that still roots in your guilty veins wasn't right all along

maybe the winter you expected was only a storm that finally blew over because the universe knows much better than you do that your winter wasn't supposed to come after this particular summer because you deserve a true summer with a sun that isn't afraid to shine

either way