I Crush You

(I figure that today, I'm far removed from the gentlemen in question.  So suck it, unrequited love or something like it).

1.I'd rather dance with you (Kings of Convenience)

           First Intense Infatuation wasn't a genius wünderkind.
           You hardly talked to him during training. He stumbled through a class report, clearly hungover. It's surprising how quickly you fell—the too-cool party animal was never your type. Most of the time his fratboy behavior made that niggling crush go away.
           But your cheeks flushed anyway, when he'd rest his shoulders against the wall two inches from your face. You wrote a story that will never see the light of day. And despite yourself, as you saw him glide through the hall four years later, you thought about the warmth of his arms.

 2.Everything you want (Vertical Horizon)

          In college, you and your friend fell in like with the same guy.
          She got to him first, however, and pretty and vivacious (and thin) that she was, you stood no chance of wandering beyond Friend Zone. And so, you spent lunches with him talking of inconsequentially important things, quipping from musicals and reveling in geekery. For the first time in your life, a man actually got you, cresting on the same lonely wavelength.
           You could have been the one for him too...if he actually had noticed you.

3.Curbside Prophet (Jason Mraz)

          The man was shorter than you, and to be honest, wasn't quite as good-looking as another colleague. But there was something intrinsically charming about him, a magnetism that relied on wit and earnestness. This was a guy who could conquer mountains with his words and passion. You never let on about your attraction, convinced you were alone in finding him attractive.
          Years later, you and he have a chance encounter, and all your girl friends who knew him sigh in admiration.
           Go figure.

 4.You're So Damn Hot (Ok Go) 

           By now, you thought, you really should have learned your lesson.
           Alas, Cupid Lite strikes again, this time in the form of a twinkly-eyed senior attending your sophomore class. Contact is minimal, blushing at the optimum, and your awkward sleuthing leaves much to be desired.
           It's a hollow re-realization when you stare at the mirror and take in your appearance.
           You've got no game, and the man's a top athlete.

5.You're So Vain (Carly Simon)

          Your interactions with the objects of your almost-affection always follow a pattern, and the latest, brief one was no different.
           First comes that sudden awareness, blindsided by the wideness of his grin, the twinkle in his eyes, his general hygiene. Then comes the ludicrous fantasies that you eventually blurt out, as a grievous tactical error, to your friends. Finally, the One Incident that puts all your daydreaming to a screeching halt.
           Forever alone.

So, I'm still fucking depressed.

Suicide

There are three completely different conversations with three completely different people within the span of one week, and all mention the s-word in passing. The other participants laugh and shake their heads.
Someone is trying to send a message to you, but you're not fucking laughing.

Drinking Fails

Screw you, world, you decide, and plan to spend your nights in dissolute, wretched-glorious inebriation. After all, you've stayed squeaky clean for a goddamned quarter of a century—hell, one vice might add character.
That night, you could barely finish the bottle.

Surfing

You are soothed, alternatively, by pictures of squishy animals, and tales of blood and gore. It makes for a strange browsing history, but hey, bitch, they all think you're a fucking loon anyway.

Profanity

MOTHERFUCKING SHITHEAD JACKASS DOUCHEBAG CUMGUZZLER SLUTWHORE BITCHES.
Nope. Screaming all the curses in the sanctity of your apartment doesn't help. You've checked.

Glue

Your holidays were spent in isolation, and honestly, half of you preferred it that way. For the rest of the time, you focused your latest “work of art,” slowly stroking the acrylic into the canvas, cutting other people's trash into itty bitty triangles, contorting your body into easel-like positions.
If tears mixed in with the glue, no one should be able to tell.

Women of Fiction I Really Shouldn't Emulate

Elaine, Lady of Shalott

     You're still only half-sick of shadows.
     Half-sick is not nearly enough to venture out of your tower (a.k.a. Fortress of Solitude, despite your never really being a fan of Superman). It is not enough to put down your brush and your pen, to cease weaving wonders of worlds of your own making.
     You're terrified of lying in your metaphorical funeral bower, unknown and unloved, while the future object of your affections goes tirra-fucking-lirra.
     Ass.

Scheherezade

     

     A hundred and one nights, and several years later, her story still fascinates you – woman using her imagination and her guile to stay her execution and win their salvation.

     Then you realize the sultan was a freaking serial killer, and the vizier's daughter a classic victim of Stockholm's Syndrome.

     There goes another one of your fantasies.

Miss Haversham

     You can easily imagine yourself stranded at the altar, the erstwhile groom a schuckster hankering for your parents' money.

     But then again, launching a decades-long scheme of revenge and bitterness seems far too involved. Besides, all that lace would drive you mad.

     Oh.

Ophelia

     Sometimes you think you are turning slowly, inexorably insane. Memories bite at you, tear at you, crash into you like that motorcycle nearly a decade ago. From all outward appearances you have no mouth, but inside, you are screaming. Screaming. SCREAMING.

     There will be a sweet freedom in madness, you think, as you run on the inside of your skull.

Buttercup

     Life is pain. Anybody who tells you different is selling something.

     It should worry you that that line is becoming your mantra.

I want to die.

There.  I said it.

And since no one reads this -- no one who will give a shit, anyway, enough that they'll demand answers they want and think I have, or impose makeshift solutions so that I will continue with that pasted-on braces-less smile -- I think I'm safe.

Talentless Hack

1.Ballet

There's a home video of a brightly lit stage, filled with rows of little girls in sparkly, shiny tutus. The camera shifts its focus to an adorable dumpling, a roll of white encased in leotards. The recital goes well for a while. Suddenly, there's a loud crash, and a similar creampuff girl is seen stumbling at the edge of the frame.

The clumsy girl is you, and the one behind the camera, your dad.

Go figure.

2.Voice
All your cousins have been in choirs. Your friends do theatre, and glee club, and intermissions in school programs.

Like them, you love to sing. You have an entire repertoire that ranges from Broadway to Backstreet to Beastie Boys. You automatically sprinkle your conversation with lyrics. Alas, you are tone deaf, and people wince when you open your mouth.

In this, as in other things, you blame your mother.

3.Horseback riding
Some of your fondest childhood memories were going up north, and riding ponies (nags) while your parents followed in cars. Visions of wielding lances or befriending unicorns pranced in your head.

A few years later, as your father's face turned alarmingly red and he started gasping for breath, you found out why they needed cars.

And there went your equestrienne dreams.

4.Theater

Despite your (absolute)(deplorable) lack of singing talent, you have a streak of melodrama and flair for the fabulous. Sometimes, it comes in handy—you're a far better actor (LIAR) than anyone knows. But it's a sneaky skill that comes and goes, as you found out the one and only time you joined a drama club.

Under the hot lights, in front of your Mean Girls peers, you employ nothing but a deer-in-the-headlights gaze.

5.Painting
Of all the lessons, every summer, the ones that stuck with you the most involved pigment and paper.

Now, ink often stains your fingers, and the smell of acrylic has replaced bygone turpentine and coffee grounds. Every chance you get—which is now, once in every blue moon—you sketch and glue on makeshift canvasses.

Centering your soul on the brushstrokes.