Have You Ever Been In Love?

getting a job is so hard because now you have new coworkers and a uniform and an older manager who tells you that you’re doing so good. he hovers around you at the register in that ridiculous plaid shirt and you wonder if his wife bought it for him or not. you get customers commenting on your banter asking if you’re father and daughter and you bite your lip when he laughs. he bumps into you by accident all the time and says sorry as he glances back and you realizes he never glances at anyone else. his way of talking to women is to look off in the distance far above their head and it works cause he’s so tall, but he somehow always finds your eyes. he smiles and teases you in the break room and you just think, please god just do it now. then reality sets in and you remember his response to the woman’s question was that his daughter is four years old and his wife is on his lock screen. he apologizes for even grazing your fingers because there are sexual harassment awareness posters all over the staff lounge and the other manager is friends with your very protective father. and having a new job is just so hard.

creepy groomer i used to work with when i was 17 started texting me again . i think he’s 28 now.

strange? does he not remember how the entire circumstance of which i let him step within the mandated 6 feet during covid was because i liked the attention from older men?

being in my 20’s just means i like them 40 and up now , not guys a mere 6 years older.

i was thinking about making a tinder just to message them and feel a rush but ik that’ll crash and burn so badly. a whole population of men with nothing to lose having a picture of my face and sweet words from me. i can already feel the fear and i’m trying to convince myself it’s a bad fear NOT a good one.

he’s messaged me twice now . just a “hey,” and I wonder what he means. Is it to get my attention , is he hoping I’ve kept the same number , is he scared of saying what he wants. does a shark announce he’s going to tear your limb from your body or does it just unhinge it’s jaw awaiting the moment where it swims close enough to snap shut?

In my dreams, your hair is still blond, even though it’s clearly brunette in your instagram profile picture. I stare at it after I wake up, glancing at the lock to show your posts are private. You still smile openly. It says “kate,” but that was never your nickname when I knew you.

I still know you, I know your smile. It’s the same and I know this because you go from 16 in my dreams to 22 in that silly picture. You’re holding a dog, but it’s not your poodle. I wonder his name and wish you still send silly snaps that I learned Bob’s name from. I stare at that too. It’s ugly.

The bitmoji, I mean. Never you. You were the beautiful one between the two of us. I remember staring at you studying for hours, it’s always after you finish quieting my sobs. I hate my family, you were more a sister to me. You were more than a sister to me.

We stopped talking because you sent nudes to the guy I liked. I never liked him, I never liked the way he saw you naked. Before I got to. And wasnt that sick? That I would wonder when you’d be comfortable enough to show me something up close like your chest. It didn’t seem as personal seeing as you lived inside of mine.

Your name isn’t “Kate.” You don’t like weiner dogs, they remind you of sausage and you’re a vegetarian. You love volkswagen beetles, but theres a jeep behind you. You also hate profile pictures. When I meant more to you, it was a picture of us. We were covering our face in my backyard. Being silly teens, and we printed it out at school just because we wanted proof.

I want proof of you. I imagine you under me, arms wrapped around my neck as I breathe onto your chest. You rub your hands over my hair, whispering how much you’ve missed me. I missed you more, and I prove it with my tongue. I claim you and keep you under me, protected and safe. Away from boys, the world, my family. Away from a world where I stare at your private instagram profile at 4 in the morning and I’ve got work in 3 hours and my hand’s aching and I want you back even as my best friend and you’re at college upstate and I could just drive the 6 hours and scare you or i could simply message the number that I hope is still yours with a “hi.” I don’t text you at all.

I live quietly until the ache comes back, and I open instagram on my phone again.

When I think about my ex best friend and wish I could tell her everything going on in my life again.

claudia being 14 feels unsatisfying compared to her being 6 until you’re an emotionally stunted 20 something year old who feels like she’s in a hurricane of turmoil and hormones that mirror what you’re supposed to feel during puberty and puberty alone… but it never ended.

you’re in a constant state of wanting more: more from your parents, more from your peers, more friends, more fucks, more to fuck. her being 14 seems too old, until you remember that at 14 you felt too young. this severed limb staring at you from the table in a limbo of confusion wondering, who’s limb it is? who do I belong to? a mature woman or a young child.

you insist you’re a woman, but everyone around you feels different. you insist you are old until you’re father yells at you again and now you’re just that little girl who he thought he put in her place already, but clearly you need reminding. claudia being 14 is how we feel when we grow up mentally but everyone around us keeps us as a still image in their head. that little girl they know that will never be grown enough for the world. and sometimes, you believe it, you perform it.

but I know different, I feel that raw anger no girl knows. the burning feeling that claws up your throat. the betrayal. the horniness. the euphoria. she was heartbreaking being stuck in the body of a 6 year old. but it’s equally and as intensely tragic being stuck at 14.

… yeah.

"Can't two guys be just friends?" If they stop looking at each other like that then sure

It’s like the yin to my yang.

"One day I will get over them I swear"

*Looks at the 200+ open ao3 tabs*

I guess that’s why I like to read so much.

I’m alone a lot, and for the most part I don’t hate it- with my father’s Appalachian genetics I have realized that I am probably better equipped for that than most people. But I also recognize that isolation isn’t beneficial to me as a human, and sometimes I can feel it squeezing me from all sides, my social skills leaking away from the applied pressure. My lips dry out and glue themselves shut. When I’m reading a book I have another person’s voice with me for a week or so, and that can feel like a kind of warmth. As if I have a visitor.