Tearstrip

He said coming to my house was an attempt to prove to me he loved me. I asked if he had. "I guess not," he said. Did he mean he hadn't proved it? He did. What I'd asked was if he'd loved me.

By the end of the year we will have known each other for six weeks, dated for six weeks, and been apart for six weeks. That's three sixes, and maybe we were cursed from the beginning.

He wanted to make me more emotional, less neutral. I don't think I've held the same feeling for a single day these last three weeks. I cried over his photograph, I cried over his notes, I cried over "Fix You". I'm shattered because I haven't got anything to hold together for. He lifted me from desperate lovelessness. I wanted to be stable because I thought he needed it. Does he remember, "I can't imagine breaking up with you"? That rips me.

Rachel, you thief. The first time he ever mentioned you I accused him of love. Isn't there anyone else for you? I wish you would die, but I wouldn't kill you. I have this sinking feeling that I'd probably like you. Do you have those feelings that tell you exactly where you need to be? Like me and London. Does he remember me, staring at the jet planes, my voice cracking into a sob, saying I'd be a beggar on the street if it meant going back there? If you fell in love with my town, it would still be big enough for the two of us. Why did you feel you had to take the only other thing I've needed that badly?

He's the voice inside my head, and it's so scary when I hear it slipping out. I think I need to control myself, but I don't trust what I think anymore. That's got something to do with not writing for two weeks, not touching my guitar for even longer. I'll get back to it. Maybe I'll discover some sort of love for it, but I doubt it. I wish he could be my religion. I wish I could stop him from ever saying he's not worth my time. I know he doesn't really mean that.

What's my biggest flaw, Alex? Superficiality? Materialism? Compulsiveness? I know yours. Watching your back and your hands in that practice room - that's how I know you're worth it. You fled because you said you were embarrassing yourself. I know the secret ways you wrench your own rusting rivets. You may make better beginnings, but you're a quitter.

As life gets longer, awful feels softer,
And it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss,
Well I feel pretty blissfully.

If life's not beautiful without the pain,
Well I'd just rather never ever even see beauty again.
Well as life gets longer, awful feels softer
And it feels pretty soft to me, yeah oh.
- Modest Mouse, "The View"

Superficiality Hates Beautiful Things

Let's specialize in collecting things too adorable to part with and trading them.

Let's tell the whole world that we are each other's most important thing, but let's tell everything else only to each other. Let's be famous for being the closest pair there ever were. Let's be totally different. Let's buy each other things. Let's hate the stuff we get from each other but use it because we love the one who gave it.

Let's be together all the time.

Let's be unquestionable, let's be invincible. Let's go to the Statue of Liberty, let's go to the forest, let's go to the mall. Let's been seen everywhere. Let's be desired by everyone, let's need nobody else, let's know we never will. Let's both of us sign up for anything one of us does. Let's be joined at the hip, let's be joined at the heart, let's get a pair of everything.

Let's look completely different, let's laugh at the others' drama, let's cut each other off to finish each other's words. Let's do anything for each other, let's get rich, let's close our eyes when get haircuts together and cry about them afterward. Let's be remembered by strangers for nothing in particular. Let's have something so special that it can only be discussed late at night in quiet places.

Let's please do it soon.

Scarlett

I hate how I keep starting my days with confidence and am ruined by the end. What I am doing sobbing in a stairwell when most of the building is empty? At least I, finally, don't care what anyone thinks of me for it.

Oh, and you're all right, he's horrible, and I love all the trouble everyone took to comfort me. But you're all wrong, because his reputation doesn't speak and it's not me that he doesn't deserve. I'll only ever hate him for abandoning me.

I love how we agree we'll be together again - or is he just saying that? Quieting me, the crazy crying ex-girl? You should trust him, you should trust him. He can make you laugh through your tears. We won't fast-foward through the intermisson. You'll see, if not this day, then tomorrow, which is another.

And as I sit here in this dark room,
All I seem to feel is light
And I see color,
I see the dull maroon
Of the blood... of this life... that's ours
- Vanessa Carlton, "Afterglow"