It seems anything worth remembering happens at night. I’ve always had better luck when it’s dark outside. Whether I’m at some frenzied teenage party or by myself. Though to be honest, most nights I end up alone in my bed, a candle burning, imagining all the possibilities. Things I could have said or could have done. But I’m not always stuck in the past. I dream about the things to come. I live in memories and notions of the future. The present hardly ever seems as appealing as the past or future. It seems like most of my time is spent perpetually waiting. I’m waiting for the bell to ring, for the end of the day, the end of week, the start of summer. I’m waiting for that guy to call or text me as I fidget with my bracelets. I am waiting for the sun to set and tiring of each new dawn. These are my teenage years. My fingernails are never bare and my weekends are never dull. And he’s always on my mind.
My friends and I are good Catholic schoolgirls by day. Exclusive private schools and worn out textbooks thrown around. You can catch me in Chemistry or French class staring out the window or acing a test. But by night we transform into nymphs. We roam the streets on summer nights, walking under the streetlights of abandoned neighborhoods. We plan our Friday and Saturday nights. We reign empty houses that fill up quickly with lustful sixteen and seventeen year olds. We party, we put on makeup, and we flirt, all well learned skills. We play our music too loud. We pound it in our cars, in our bedrooms. We like to feel the vibrations in our bones, to feel it at the very core of us. We stumble down the sidewalks of downtown in four-inch heels. We are blazing bright, wishing on falling stars and airplanes. We are always confused and pretending we aren’t. We like to pretend we’re royalty, thick royal blood running through our veins. We pretend we’re all grown up. We pretend lots of things.
And yes, he’s always on my mind. The way his body and mine fit together. The way he makes my heart race and my mind full. The way he stares just a second too long. And I smirk knowingly to myself. I’ve learned there’s a lot more to everything, and I do mean everything, than first appears.
I am perpetually dreaming. Dreaming of everything and anything. I am whispering misconceptions to myself in the dead of night, aren’t we all? Our knees and hearts are scraped. We are the youth. We believe our generation will be the one. The one that never fades, always burning bright. But we are all walking around in a daze of lust and misunderstanding. We are all afraid, confusing television static with reality. We all just want someone to love us and hold us and fuck us. We don’t know what we’re talking about sometimes and often we pretend, pretend to just get by. In this day and age, you have to learn how to play your cards right. And so, I lay on my back, take off my top, and smile, saying this is all of me. After all, we’re all trying to get lost in each other.
